Washington NFL team minority partners are pushing Dan Snyder to sell the franchise, according to people familiar with the matter, amid a growing battle within a team that has controversy on multiple fronts.
Mr Snyder, the 55-year-old billionaire owner, has no intention of selling his majority stake in the team, people said. A recent legal submission by Mr Snyder suggests that at least one of the minority partners tried to leak defamatory information against him.
The team’s minority owners – FedEx Corp. CEO Fred Smith, Black Diamond Capital Chairman Robert Rothman and NVR Inc. board chairman Dwight Schar – owns about 40% of the team and has hired an investment firm to sell its stake in the franchise formerly known as the Redskins. The same bet would be more valuable if the entire team, which would probably be worth several billion dollars, were sold, people said.
The bet has attracted interest from a variety of potential buyers, but Mr Snyder is reluctant to give one of them the option to eventually buy control despite trying to fire him, people said. That has prompted some buyers to run away.
Sale of minority jobs typically comes at a significant discount if they do not provide a way to eventually control the team. If the team were to go on sale, the restricted partners as whoever buys them would have a right to first refusal, one of the people said.
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