Hicks Concerned with Rangers Sale; Does it Affect the Stars?

Yesterday various reports came out late in the afternoon that Tom Hicks is "worried" or even "doubtful" about the sale of  the Texas Rangers. A sale that was thought to be as good as done on January 23rd, with only some minor details (like, ahem, the sale price) to be ironed out by both parties.

They had an April 9th deadline that passed by. There have been disturbing details leaking about the negotiations seemingly every week since, and every time, Stars fans sigh and wonder if this is going to happen to us. We also wonder if the Rangers sale needs to be complete before the sale of the hockey team can move forward.

Yesterday Richard Durrett of ESPN Dallas reported that the sale of the Stars is "just starting" and had this quote from Hicks: "We're working on it," Hicks said. "It's going to be done very quietly and learn some things from the Rangers process. We want to do it as efficiently as possible."

Very quietly? I hope you'll forgive my skepticism, but for anything to happen quietly with Mr. Hicks in these troubled times would be quite the rarity indeed.

Consternation over the Liverpool FC sale is already starting to build...

Our friends stuck in the same HSG prison as we are across the pond are also hoping for a rather swift pace to things, but they must be as patient as Tom told ESPN he'll be:

However, it appears there may be little prospect of a swift sale as, following initial reports the club was up for sale at around £500 million, Hicks has now suggested they would be happy to wait to find a buyer willing to meet his apparent £654 million valuation.

"Liverpool Football Club has been a great investment," he told the Sunday Mirror. "It has probably tripled in value.

"His apparent valuaiton."

At what price do you suppose Hicks values the Dallas Stars?

Similar abiguities on asking price exist in the Rangers deal. This is from baseball guru Evan Grant's story in the Dallas Morning News:

The Rangers were recently valued at $451 million by Forbes magazine, which annually tries to estimate club valuations. Reports on the Ryan Baseball Express sale price have varied from $530 million to $570 million. But the implication is that a higher deal was bypassed for the Greenberg-Ryan deal. Houston businessman Jim Crane reportedly offered somewhere in the vicinity of $575 million before Hicks chose Ryan-Greenberg.

Various reports have indicated that a gap of approximately $30 million exists in the amount of money lenders would receive out of the current deal. What's difficult to grasp is how much the lenders are actually due.

The lenders (some of the lenders) in the Rangers deal are the very same parties that will be asking similar questions when the sale of the Stars reaches it's conclusion down the road, sometime.

Durrett at ESPN Dallas quotes Hicks as saying the sale of the Rangers doesn't "necessarily" have to be done before the sale of the Stars, but given the disparate starting dates of each process, one would think (hope?) the two won't overlap. If the same lenders start getting involved in both deals, isn't it logical to think that the two could become intertwined a little?

I don't even pretend to have knowledge of how any of this messy financial gobbledygook works, but part of me wonders if the Rangers sale does go back to square one (because the lenders feel they can get more out of a different bidder), does that make the sale of the Stars in the mean time a more urgent priority for Hicks and/or the lenders? To get some cash flowing?

Who knows?

What I do know, Stars fans, is there is no reason to look at any of this mess with the Rangers and Liverpool and think that the Stars won't be dragged down into the same muddy, protracted process. Don't expect any of this to be easy.