(Bloomberg News) The Los Angeles Dodgers completed their $2 billion sale to a group including Guggenheim Partners and its top executive Mark Walter and ex-basketball player Magic Johnson, allowing the team to exit bankruptcy.
The deal became final after Major League Baseball and other creditors declined to appeal the Dodgers' reorganization plan, approved last month by the bankruptcy judge.
"The Dodgers move forward with confidence -- in a strong financial position, as a premier Major League Baseball franchise, and as an integral part of and representative of the Los Angeles community," the team said today in a statement.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross in Wilmington, Delaware, approved the sale and bankruptcy exit plan over objections by the league to aspects of the sale, including ownership of stadium parking lots and the continuing involvement of a court- appointed mediator.
Gross said that some disputes related to the sale and the plan would need to be resolved through the mediator, retired federal judge Joseph Farnan. Under a settlement between MLB and the Dodgers former owner, Frank McCourt, Farnan has the power to make final rulings on aspects of the sale and MLB's review of a television contract the team may negotiate later this year.
McCourt put the Dodgers into bankruptcy in June, claiming baseball Commissioner Bud Selig forced the team into a cash crisis by rejecting a new contract with News Corp.'s Fox Sports, holder of the club's TV rights through the 2013 season.
"I am grateful that the unbecoming events of recent years are behind us and the focus can be squarely on the field," Selig said in a statement.
Decision To Sell
After mediation sessions with Farnan, McCourt agreed to sell the team, ending his battle with MLB in November and, in January, dropping his effort to sell the television rights separately from the team.
The Magic Johnson group won an auction for the team on March 27, beating offers from Stan Kroenke, who owns the National Football League's St. Louis Rams and Arsenal of English soccer's Premier League, and a group led by Steven A. Cohen, who runs hedge the fund manager SAC Capital Advisors LP.