Falcons owner Arthur Blank has agreed to sell partnership shares in the team to four investors, the team announced Tuesday.
Ronald E. Canakaris, Douglas J. Hertz, Ed Mendel and Derek V. Smith join John P. Imlay, Jr., and John A. Williams as minority owners of the team. The transaction is subject to final approval by the NFL.
Neither the amount paid for each share nor the percentage of the stake in the team the men will own was disclosed by the franchise or the attorney who represented the investor group.
Maury Brown, a sports business analyst and president of the Business of Sports Network in Portland, Ore., was not surprised by the move.
“Blank and most of the other owners are really looking to move part of or a percentage of their holdings,” Brown said. “It’s a difficult time right now. Look at Tom Hicks in Texas, who lost a half a billion. Look at the Chicago Cubs [who are considering bankruptcy].”
Blank wanted to add more minority owners in order to give him more flexibility in directing capital to the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. However, he plans to stay in control of the franchise.
“I have no intention of selling the club or even a controlling interest in the club,” Blank said. “This decision is driven primarily by my charitable and estate-planning goals and by the value that can be added to the franchise by partnering with minority owners of this caliber.”
Blank retains more than 90 percent of ownership in the team.
“He wanted to have some others basically come in and take some of the business responsibility in terms of ownership,” said Brown, who has been a sports analyst for 10 years. “It’s a difficult time right now. Some of the owners are looking to see where they are at. If they are not unloading majority holdings, some of them are exploring selling some of their interests to minority partners.”
Blank purchased the Falcons in 2002 for $545 million, after first expressing interest in buying the team in 1986. The late Rankin Smith Sr. paid $8.5 million for the team he bought as an expansion franchise in 1965.
Last September, Forbes magazine valued the Falcons at $872 million — 29th out of NFL 32 teams — in its annual report on “the Business of Football.”
“We are very pleased that Ron, Doug, Ed and Derek are joining us as investors in the Falcons,” Blank said in a statement released by the team. “When we decided to bring in additional investors we were interested in attracting people with deep business experience and a passion for the Atlanta community.”
Attorney Tyler Dempsey of Troutman Sanders LLP represented the investor group. “All of them knew it each other, so it went rather smoothly,” Dempsey said.
Canakaris is chairman and chief investment officer of Montag & Caldwell, an investment management services company in Atlanta.
Hertz is president and CEO of United Distributors, a beverage distributor based in Smyrna.
Mendel is co-founder of the Ned Davis Research Group, and Davis, Mendel & Regenstein, Inc., as well as president of The Mendel Foundation.
Smith is chairman and CEO of the Institute of Global Prescience, and founder and trustee of Myfifident Foundation. He is the former chairman and chief executive officer of ChoicePoint Inc.
Since buying the Falcons, Blank has turned into a force on the Atlanta sports scene.
He purchased the Georgia Force of the Arena Football League, who are on hiatus while the league is considering its options, including folding.
Blank also attempted to purchase the Braves in 2006, and the AMB Group, Blank’s management and investment company, submitted a bid for a Major League Soccer franchise for Atlanta, but later withdrew the bid.
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