There was an article yesterday in SFGate(www.sfgate.com), I think in the financial section about more changes in the Giants ownership situation. Turns out a dude named Charles Johnson recently bought up some of the Burns sisters' shares and is in the process of buying up more, possibly from Bill Neukom himself. He is the head of Franklin Investments and is meg-rich to the tune of about $4 billion. It seems that he is the guy who took the most umbrage at Neuks' demands for a $10 M compensation package and apparently engineered his ouster. I'm sure he had the Burns sisters on his side too. It looks like he's now the Big Johnson of the ownership group and will be effectively Chairman of the Board.
Reading the tea leaves of all this leads to some thoughts about the likely impact this has on how the team is run:
1. I see him as a "buy and hold" type of guy who is in it for the long haul and sees the team and associated entities as a long term investment.
2. He is likely to be a conservative owner who does not like to see red ink. I would expect him to insist that the team pay for itself year to year. If you are the type of fan who wants an owner who is willing to spend whatever it takes to win, like say, a Steinbrenner or Arte Moreno, you will find this disappointing. If so, then consider point #3.
3. I would not expect him to see the team as a "cash cow" like, say, Frank McCourt does with the Dodgers. He will likely allow revenues to be put back into the team to build it's value. I would also expect him to take an extremely dim view of other owners trying to take cash out of the team. That's really what Neuks was apparently trying to do when you get right down to it, and this guy slapped him down big time.
4. I think The Big Johnson(that's his official nickname now), will depend on Larry Baer to make decisions on running the team within the framework of #1-3 above. Baer will be the guy who gets to decide if Sabes keeps his job or not. Since Baer and Sabes have been together now since 1997, I'd say Sabes' job is pretty darn safe. That may be disappointing to some, but is A-OK with me, at least for the time being.
Sorry I don't have the full link. I found it as a link from the comments section in Extra Baggs, I think.
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still not buying the 10 mil comp thing
ReplyDeletewhy would a 78 year old man want more shares in the team?
according to forbes, he now owns 25 percent
sounds like a hostile takeover
Why would a 78 year old man want more shares in the team? Maybe because he thinks he's going to live to 100? Maybe he saw some things going on he didn't like and decided to do something about it? He's been an investor since day 1 so how is that a hostile takeover? If you mean by hostile takeover, hostile to Bill Neukom, then yeah, it's a hostile takeover, but it's not like Carl Icahn coming in to sell off the components of the team or anything like that.
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