L.A. Clippers Up For Sale In Auction

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www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/donald-sterlings-wife-approached-by-707099

Shelly Sterling has gotten inquiries from at least six serious buyers interested in the Los Angeles NBA team, including former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Following reports on Thursday that Shelly Sterling will negotiate the forced sale of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling's wife has already received inquiries from six potential buyers, according to ESPN.

Among those interested in the NBA team is Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who met Shelly on Sunday to discuss a sale.
It is not the first sign of interest that Ballmer has shown in a basketball franchise, after being part of the effort to bring a team back to Seattle following the move of the SuperSonics to Oklahoma City to become the Thunder in 2008.

"If the opportunity is outside of Seattle, so be it. I will learn about any team that comes up for sale at this point," he told the Wall Street Journal last week. "If I get interested in the Clippers, it would be for Los Angeles, he said, vowing that he would not move the team to the Pacific Northwest.
"I don't work anymore, so I have more geographic flexibility than I did a year, year-and-a half ago. Moving them anywhere else would be value-destructive."

Sterling's attorney, Pierce O'Donnell, is handling the sale with Bob Baradaran, a managing partner at his law firm Greenberg Glusker, and Darren Schield and Doug Watson of Beverly Hills Properties, a real estate company owned by the Sterling family, reported ESPN.
Former NBA All-Star Grant Hill -- who played for the Clippers in the 2012-2013 season -- and billionaire investors and Tony Ressler and Bruce Karsh are also said to be interested in the team.

Meanwhile, the NBA has not yet confirmed whether it will allow Shelly Sterling to sell the team, and the league still intends to hold a June 3 hearing to terminate her husband's ownership as part of his lifetime ban for alleged racist comments.
"We continue to follow the process set forth in the NBA Constitution regarding termination of the current ownership interests in the Los Angeles Clippers and are proceeding toward a hearing on this matter on June 3," said spokesperson Mike Bass in a statement released on Friday.

One major force that Shelly will have to contend with if she sells the team is the tax man, as according to IRS law, the Sterlings will have to pay a federal long-term capital-gains tax of 20 percent and a California tax of 13.3 percent. If the team is sold for $1 billion, the taxes will amount to $328.5 million, compared to the $13.5 million price tag that Donlad Sterling bought the Clippers for in 1981.

The shamed owner also owes the NBA $2.5 million in fines over his controversial comments following a harsh ruling by commissioner Adam Silver on April 29.

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variety.com/2014/biz/news/former-microsoft-ceo-near-deal-to-acquire-clippers-for-2-billion-1201196071/

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is close to acquiring the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion, according to published reports.

Sources tell Variety that Ballmer parked himself at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills during the past week while he negotiated with the bankers handling the deal on behalf of Shelly Sterling, estranged wife of the team’s embattled owner, Donald Sterling.

The Los Angeles Times, which broke the story, has since amended its original story clarifying that no official contract has been signed.

The controversy-fueled fire sale of the Clippers recently became a battle of billionaires, each with a different motivation for pouncing on the unexpected opportunity to snag a suddenly red-hot NBA franchise in Hollywood’s backyard.

David Geffen led the charge for a rival bid that involved Guggenheim Partners, the investment fund that led the $2.15-billion buyout of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012. Oracle software billionaire Larry Ellison had been part of the Geffen-Guggenheim group but is said to have dropped out in the past few days. Oprah Winfrey and Magic Johnson also lent their star power and wallets to the group’s bid. Johnson is already in biz with Guggenheim as a part owner of the Dodgers.

Clearly, the timing of the Clippers controversy could have hardly been better to spur interest in the long-suffering franchise, which has become a serious playoff contender, recently losing in the second round to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

With high-profile (and highly marketable) young stars in Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, the Clippers have adopted an entertaining style of play that lends itself to the L.A. market. Moreover, their success has come as the city’s long-dominant team, the Lakers, have struggled, coming off second-worst season in franchise history.


The fact the Lakers have such a seemingly long road to climb to get back into championship contention — including the injury to star Kobe Bryant, who appears to be entering the later-stage of his career; and the death of owner Jerry Buss, leaving stewardship of team in the hands of his children — opened the door to a displaced a surge of excitement in the Clippers, in a town historically associated with backing a winner.

In recent weeks, that symbolic transformation included Hollywood figures — long associated with occupying the high-end seats at Lakers games this time of year — beating a path to Staples Center to watch the Clippers instead, after a stretch where it seemed the only star with any interest in them was courtside fixture Billy Crystal. (In the ultimate coup, Jack Nicholson even joined Crystal at a game, and later showed up during the playoffs.)

Another contender for the team was said to have been Patrick Soon-Shiong, the L.A.-based surgeon who made his fortune through cutting-edge medical technology innovations. He owns a 4% stake in the Los Angeles Lakers and has been hovering around numerous sports and entertainment deals for the past few years.

Industry sources said Ballmer was considered a top contender in part because it’s believed he’d be able to largely pay cash for the team. Sources familiar with Ballmer’s thinking said the former Microsoft CEO sees the chance to parachute in and lift the shadow over the team cast by Sterling’s racist comments as a means of rehabilitating his image after a rocky run at the end of his nearly 40-year tenure at Microsoft, which concluded last year.

The Clippers came on the market after a recording of Donald Sterling exhibiting unabashedly racist sentiments in a telephone conversation with his girlfriend wound up on TMZ. The NBA voted to ban him for life from participating in the league, a dramatic sanction that put the team immediately in play. Other NBA owners are keeping close tabs on the situation as a high price tag for the Clippers would only hike the value of other teams.

For Guggenheim, the prospect of grabbing the Clippers would have been a serendipitous opportunity to add to its share of the L.A. sports market by controlling two major teams. The Southern California-area TV rights to the Dodgers are tied up in a 20-year pact with Time Warner Cable (and may be inherited by Comcast if that merger goes through), but it’s conceivable that the Clippers would have been added to the programming mix to strengthen that offering.

As the jockeying for the Clippers comes to a close, speculation lingers that Donald Sterling may yet take legal steps to stop the sale, which would undoubtedly complicate the dealmaking, even with a clutch of eager billionaires ready to roll.

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variety.com/2014/biz/news/donald-sterling-to-sue-the-nba-for-1-billion-1201199056/

Donald Sterling plans to a file a lawsuit Friday against the NBA seeking damages in excess of $1 billion, according to his lawyer. The move comes one day after former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer agreed to buy the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 Billion.

Sterling’s attorney Max Blecher told ESPN the embattled Clippers owner was suing the league for over his lifetime ban and termination charges and that the lawsuit “had nothing to do with the sale.”

“The charges in the lawsuit are an invasion of his constitutional rights,” Blecher said.

NBA officials are reviewing the pending sale of the team but confirmed the news in a statement.

“Commissioner (Adam) Silver has consistently said the preferred outcome to the Clippers proceeding would be a voluntary sale of the team,” according to the league. “Shelly Sterling advised the NBA last night that an agreement had been reached with Steve Ballmer, and the NBA Advisory/Finance Committee met via conference call this morning to discuss these developments.”

ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reported Thursday that Sterling’s wife was given authority to sell the team after experts declared the 80 year-old mentally incapacitated.