The Maloof family continues to push forward to complete a sale with a group of Seattle-based investors. According to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, the Kings owners don’t want to sell to the prospective ownership led by Vivek Ranadivé and have a back-up offer to sell 20 percent of the club to the Seattle group if their current agreement is turned down.
That new “backup” plan comes on the heels of Hansen’s announcement on Friday that he had upped his offer to buy the Maloofs’ 65 percent of the Kings to $409 million (from $358 million) for a total valuation of $625 million.
Sources said that new proposal also included a $115 million offer to owners as a relocation fee, which would amount to about $4 million per team. By comparison, in 2008 when the Oklahoma City Thunder moved from Seattle, they paid a $30 million total fee to the other owners.
To consider these incredible new figures, the NBA relocation committee is planning to re-evaluate the Hansen-Ballmer offer and has scheduled another meeting ahead of next Tuesday’s full owners meeting in Dallas, sources said.
It is unknown how the Hansen group’s last ditch effort will sit with the NBA’s Board of Governors. The NBA has already stated that they will vote on the issue of relocation first and then the ownership stake. If the league turns down both the relocation and sale of the Kings to the Hansen group, it appears unlikely that the BOG would consider their new backup offer as an end-around to their initial ruling. All team sales, including deals to sell minority interests, are subject to board approval.
The group led by Hansen needs simple majority approval to relocate the Kings to Seattle and 75-percent approval from the league’s board to complete their purchase of the team.
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