Report: Sale of Nets held up because Prokhorov values franchise at $3 billion
Brooklyn Nets majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov has always seemed to have an inflated opinion of his franchise.
Midway through last season, when the Nets were 16-22, Prokhorov touted the team as a championship contender. After the Los Angeles Clippers sold for a record $2 billion last spring, Prokhorov started listening to offers on the Nets, believing he could pull in a similar bounty (this despite the fact that his team had reportedly just lost an unthinkable $144 million). He owns the most expensive roster in the NBA, and yet that roster is barely clinging to a playoff spot in a cupcake conference.
Prokhorov has continued to seek out prospective buyers, though he's made clear that he wants to retain his majority stake (currently 80 percent). He hired investment bank Evercore to explore a sale, but just two months after it was announced, his partnership with the group was terminated for unspecified reasons.
Perhaps it had something to do with Prokhorov's continued penchant for overvaluing his assets. According to Mike Ozanian of Forbes, the chief reason there's been no progress on a Nets sale is that Prokhorov is trying get a $3 billion valuation for the franchise and its arena, Barclays Center, while maintaining his controlling interest.
On top of his 80 percent stake in the team, Prokhorov owns 45 percent of the arena, while Bruce Ratner controls the remaining stake in each. Ratner was reportedly putting his 20 percent share of the team up for sale as part of the Evercore negotiations, and presumably is still willing to do so.
Prokhorov wants to keep 51 percent of the Nets after any sale, so he would be packaging 29 percent from his stake with Ratner's 20 percent. It's unclear if Ratner would also be throwing his share of Barclay's Center into the deal.
Ozanian reports that Prokhorov’s terms were "confirmed by two sources who did not want to be mentioned because they do not have permission to speak about the deal discussion publicly."
Prokhorov bought the franchise for an estimated $200 million in 2010.
- With h/t to SB Nation