NHL Executive Committee approves Senators sale

One more hurdle has been cleared as the sale of the Ottawa Senators nears a formal conclusion.  Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports that Michael Andlauer met with the NHL’s Executive Committee and has been given the green light to finalize his purchase of the team for a reported $950M.  Andlauer’s bid was the winning one in a long process that concluded back in mid-June.

A source tells Garrioch that the transaction is likely to be completed in the next few days.  From there, it will then go to a vote of the Board of Governors who must have a vote of two-thirds approval to formally ratify the transaction.  At this point, there is little reason to think they won’t give the green light to the transaction.

Andlauer is well-known to the Board as he already is an alternate representative of the Canadiens as he presently owns a 10% share of the team.  Garrioch notes that Andlauer is hoping to complete a sale of that chunk of the team to majority owner Geoff Molson (who sits on the Executive Committee) soon.  However, if an agreement can’t be reached on that front, Andlauer’s portion would then be placed into a trust.

Andlauer won’t be buying the team outright as his bid has several partners.  Those include Anna and Olivia Melnyk (who will retain a 10% stake), local businessman Jeff York (whose portion has more than 20 local investors), the Ottawa real estate-based Malhotra family, Toronto-based investment group Yorkville Asset Management, Paul and Michael Paletta of Burlington-based Alinea Group holdings, and OHL Oshawa owner Rocco Tullio.

Once the sale is made official, the Sens are expected to bring back long-time executive Cyril Leeder who is likely to replace Anthony LeBlanc who resigned as president of business operations last month.  Meanwhile, there have been discussions for franchise icon Daniel Alfredsson to return to the franchise in some capacity.

While it still might be another couple of weeks before everything is made official (in terms of the transaction being completed and then ratified by the Board of Directors), it appears that this long sale process following the death of long-time owner Eugene Melnyk is about to come to a conclusion.