Mets announce Einhorn has invested $200M in team
According to a team press release, “The New York Mets today announced that David Einhorn has been selected as the team’s preferred partner and that the Mets and Mr. Einhorn have entered into exclusive negotiations with respect to a minority, non-operating investment in the team. The $200 million personal investment by Mr. Einhorn is subject to the negotiation of a mutually acceptable 
definitive agreement for the transaction, as well as required approvals by Major League Baseball. The parties expect to enter into definitive agreements by late June.”
In the press release, Fred Wilpon says:
“We are very excited about David joining our ownership group for several reasons. David’s investment immediately improves the franchise’s financial position. Equally important, David’s intelligence, integrity and success in both business and civic affairs provides us with another perspective in evaluating what is best for this organization and our fans, and we welcome his input. In partnership with David, we look forward to achieving our ultimate goal of again becoming World Series champions.”
Later, Einhorn is quoted as saying:
“Having an opportunity to become part of the Mets franchise is exciting beyond my wildest childhood dreams. I spent my first seven years living in New Jersey and rooting for the Mets. In 1975, I even dressed in a homemade jersey as a Met for Halloween. I have been a baseball fan for my entire life and have enjoyed teaching the game as the coach of my daughter’s little league team. I look forward to partnering with the Wilpon and Katz families through the good seasons, the tough seasons and especially the championship seasons.”
By the way, this morning, Katya Wachtel of the Business Insider wrote this: “After Einhorn finished his presentation (in which he slammed Microsoft for keeping Steve Ballmer around), he began to walk off the stage. Then he suddenly turned around, and walked back to the microphone and said, “one more thing. … GO METS!”
Here is some video of him talking finance, courtesy of YouTube.
Updated at 9:25 am:
According to SI.com’s Jon Heyman, “David Einhorn is expected to win the right to become majority owner of the Mets,’ if the team’s financial issue eventually force the Wilpons out.
Also, Heyman wrote on Twitter:
In reading through his Wikipedia page, I found this interesting:”Einhorn finished 18th in the World Series of Poker main event and donated his entire winnings of $659,730 to the Michael J. Fox Foundation.”
Also, as reported this morning in the New York Times by David Waldstein, “Einhorn masqueraded one Halloween as the former Met Dave Kingman when he was five or six years old.”
Original Post by Michael Baron at 7:44 am:
The 43-year-old David Einhorn is the President of Greenlight Capital, a hedge-fund based out of New York. For more on Einhorn, check out his Wikipedia page here.
Added to by Matthew Cerrone:
This is exciting. Frankly, I don’t know if this guy and his group are any better or worse for the future than any one else. I’m just excited about the prospect of stability, something new, and knowing the team will have more cash on hand (for now) to stabilize things, while giving Sandy Alderson a better idea of his budget for 2012, which will certainly impact how he approaches the trade deadline.
Also, as already evident on Twitter this morning, this opens up an endless supply of Mets-Einhorn-Ace Venture jokes.
Have fun, Randy… Laces out.
