Sacramento Kings Minority Owner Willing To Commit $750 Million To Buy Team & Build Arena
By Bryan Rose
If you live in the Sacramento area, chances are, you’ve heard the name John Kehriotis before. In addition to owning over 12% of the Sacramento Kings, Kehriotis is a big name real estate investor with a pocket book to match. And now, with the city battling to save the Kings from relocation, Kehriotis has put his money where his mouth is – $350 million dollars to be exact, this according to Fox 40’s Jim Crandell:
"Source tells @JimCrandell that Kehriotis has $350 million, with a verbal commitment of $400 million. #Kings"
The $350 million dollar price tag would be apparently void of any city money and would be a fair and competitive offer to keep the Kings local, given the Hansen-Balmer group must need to pay relocation fees, etc, in their suggested purchase price of $525 million. The verbal commitment comes in the form of an additional $400 million dollars – all together, a $750 million dollar plan to purchase the franchise and build an arena. Still – many are questioning if Kehriotis has the money he says he does, understandably so, where the additional funds are coming from and what his role, if any, has been with the potential “whales”.
They key factor with Kehriotis’ desire to purchase the Kings stems with the minority owners right of first refusal, a topic that both sides in Sacramento and Seattle continue to disagree on.
With a first right of refusal, minority owners of the Sacramento Kings would legally be given first opportunity to purchase the Maloof stake in the Kings and documents have been uncovered by Aaron Bruski of Pro Basketball Talk and James Ham of Cowbell Kingdom that does present legal grounds for the FROR, though, some legal analysts have said the wording could be interpreted in a few different ways – something a judge may need to decode.
The Kehriotis news comes on the heels of the earlier announcement today that the long rumored, though, officially unnamed “whales” (who many expect to be Ron Burkle and Mark Mastrov) are to be announced by the end of this week.