Q: I know that the Green Bay Packers are the only community owned pro football team. Are there ever shares available for purchase? If so, what do they generally sell for? What is their annual profit? Do they pay dividends?
—Harvey Apple, Sandy Springs
A: The Packers have had five stock sales in team history, the most recent one in 2012.
The team generally holds stock sales when renovations need to be made to Lambeau Field, which was the reason for the 2012 sale of 268,000 shares at $250 each.
That raised about $67 million for the $143 million project.
Green Bay President and CEO Mark Murphy told NBCSports.com in 2014 that he doesn’t see the franchise holding another stock sale until the “late 2020s.”
“Since the other teams in the league cannot conduct stock sales, the concern is that we would be at a competitive advantage if we were able to conduct stock sales on a regular basis to operate the organization,” Murphy told NBCSports.com. “For this reason, the proceeds from any stock sale have to go directly into the stadium.”
Green Bay had more than 360,000 shareholders after the most recent sale, Packers.com reported.
Prior to 2012, the most previous stock sale was held in 1997.
Packers stock “pays no dividends, benefits from no earnings, isn’t tradeable and has no securities-law protection,” the Wall Street Journal wrote in 2012.
“I’ve never seen a stock offering where people pay so much and get so little,” a tax expert told the paper.
Andy Johnston with Fast Copy News Service wrote this column. Do you have a question? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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