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 Lemieux reveals Pens' bid partners
Posted: Friday April 30, 1999 06:01 PM
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Partners in Mario Lemieux's bid to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins include a fireworks maker, a car dealer, two realty companies and a former owner of the team. Lemieux on Friday revealed the names of his 10 partners as he tries to get creditors in U.S. Bankruptcy Court to approve his $50 million bid. The team is operating with court protection from creditors including Lemieux, the former superstar center who is owed $32 million. Each member of the group has invested $2 million to $20 million. Douglas Campbell, Lemieux's attorney, would not break down each member's contribution. Court documents show Lemieux would own 16.66 percent of the team and put no cash down up front because he intends to forgive $10 million in debt. The partners are: Ronald Burkle, Robert Brooks, Anthony Falconi, Mark Hofmann, Robert Hofmann II, Angelo Liberati, William Kassling, Madison Realty Group, Millstein Industries and Bruce Zoldan. Madison Realty recently purchased the Frick and Westinghouse buildings in Pittsburgh, and Millstein Industries owns property around Pittsburgh. It is not affiliated with Howard Milstein, the New York developer who recently tried to buy the Washington Redskins. Liberati, a Pittsburgh banker, had a stake in the Penguins when mall developer Edward DeBartolo owned the team and will be part of Lemieux's management team. Zoldan runs a fireworks company in Youngstown, Ohio, and was once a target of mob extortion, according to reports in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. He did not return a telephone message left at his office Friday afternoon. The Hofmanns own a Pittsburgh food warehouse. Kassling and Brooks are executives at Westinghouse Air Brake Co. in suburban Pittsburgh. Falconi is a Washington County car dealer, and Burkle has investments in grocery stores. Also Friday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Bernard Markovitz said creditors can vote on Lemieux's plan, which the NHL has endorsed. No vote has been scheduled, however, and time is short. Several attorneys and the judge raised the prospect at the half-day hearing that the team's last game in the playoffs this year might be its last as the Pittsburgh Penguins. The league could move the team or dissolve the franchise if it is not reorganized by May 31, and the deadline loomed large at Friday's hearing on fine-tuning Lemieux's plan. "We have to be mindful of the potential for an unhappy ending and that the worst will occur," Markovitz said. The league needs to schedule the Penguins for next year. The team, which is playing the New Jersey Devils at home Sunday, needs to begin selling season tickets, explore free agency and prepare for the draft, a spokesman said. "We were happy that the league set this deadline. We've realized from the start of the bankruptcy proceedings of the possibility of dire consequences, and we see this as a way to force the issue and get things done," said team spokesman, Tom McMillan. At issue is the team's lease at the Civic Arena, which it calls the worst in the NHL at the oldest rink in the NHL. Lemieux wants not only to renegotiate the lease, which is worth $24 million to holder SMG of Philadelphia, but also to get a new arena for the Penguins by the 2003-04 season. SMG is concerned Lemieux's plan mentions the potential for a government takeover of the lease, mentions rejection of the lease and provides nothing for SMG at any new arena, said Daniel Shapira, its attorney. He said the Penguins are obligated to play at the Civic Arena until 2012. "There is a clear and distinct possibility that the lease will remain in effect as it currently stands," Shapira said. That won't work, Campbell responded. The lease dispute now threatens to bring the whole deal down. Markovitz on Friday appointed a mediator, bankruptcy Judge Bruce McCullough, to be available to both sides outside of court. "If you make a mountain that is too high to climb, it won't be climbed and we will be watching some other city enjoying our hockey team," Markovitz told Shapira. "We will be attending rock concerts at the arena next year instead of hockey games." Also Friday, the NHL players' union objected to Lemieux's plan to classify former teammates who are owed deferred salary by the Penguins with the same creditors who supply the team's pucks, towels, hot tubs, tickets and skates. The union argued that Luc Robitaille, Ron Francis, Ken Wregget, Kevin Stevens and others deserve more standing in court -- and a larger percentage of what they are owed -- than others in the bankruptcy dispute because they are covered by the league-wide contract. The Lemieux plan would group the players with the so-called "unsecured creditors" who are owed $77 million but have less rights than the IRS and creditors holding Penguins collateral, such as banks.
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