Yankee premium seating 70% sold, Goldman Sachs makes bridge loan--SBJ

SBJ: "The New York Yankees earlier this month borrowed $105 million from a group of banks led by Goldman Sachs to cover final cost overruns at the new Yankee Stadium, sources said.

• The loan brings the total debt on the stadium, which opens next month, to more than $1.3 billion. Despite concerns about the economy’s effect on sales at the new stadium, the Yankees, in the loan document, project healthy revenue, sources said.

The collateral for the loan is limited to sponsorships, premium seating and ticket sales, categories that are expected to total $330 million this season, said a finance source who’s read the loan prospectus, which cited the figure. Concessions revenue is housed in the team’s new Legends Hospitality partnership with the Dallas Cowboys.

• The Yankees have been aggressively marketing their premium seating, about 70 percent of which is sold, the finance source added."...

Revenue expectations are

• (SBJ): "offset by interest and amortization, a player payroll topping $200 million, steep luxury and revenue-sharing payments, along with the club’s organizational costs, like stadium operations and minor leagues.
• Private debt transactions such as the Goldman loan are scarce in sports, as in the rest of corporate America, since the credit markets imploded last fall....

The Yankees already had borrowed more than $1.2 billion through the tax-exempt and taxable bond market, nearly all of which was funded through a public bond conduit. ...(A) source described the $105 million as a bridge loan that the team would refinance once taxable bonds become more attractive.

• The Goldman-led loan charges a rate of 450 interest points over the London Interbank Offered Rate, a floating rate index that traded at 1.33 percent last week. That would put the Yankees’ rate at 5.83 percent." by Daniel Kaplan

Tweet Stumbleupon StumbleUpon