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We interrupt our retrospective of the Canes’ season to bring up news that isn’t exactly breaking, with the exception of one twist.
It’s been a longtime open secret around the Hurricanes offices that owner Peter Karmanos would like a minority investor to share the wealth, so to speak, in the operation of the team. Since general partner Thomas Thewes passed away in 2007, Karmanos has held 100% ownership of the team, but even before Thewes’ death Karmanos, then majority owner but not sole owner, had been looking to sell a portion of his stake in the team to a local investor or group.
Today’s news simply reiterates the longtime boilerplate news, but it does lend some urgency to the proceedings, as Karmanos has retained search firm Allen and Company to assist him in finding a local partner to purchase up to 50% of the team. In an interview with Sports Business Journal’s Daniel Kaplan, Karmanos flatly states that he has no desire to sell the entire team, and reading between the lines it seems that he still intends on being the lead decision-maker for the team, and the search will initially focus on North Carolina-based potential investors.
Assuming the search firm finds one of those local investors, this could potentially mean very good things, both from a franchise-stability perspective and a more practical, dollars-and-cents viewpoint. Karmanos has lost money every year the Canes have been in North Carolina with the exception of 2006, the year the team won the Stanley Cup. No owner wants to subsidize losses forever, even one as dedicated to the game of hockey as Karmanos, so looking for a partner now could preclude a fire sale down the road.
However, if the search firm is unable to find a local investor, or only finds people interested in 100% ownership, things could get a little hairy. As the SBJ article noted, it’s a buyer’s market, and any potential investor has the upper hand with Karmanos in regards to ownership percentages.
Either way, this looks like it may be the start of an endgame for a soap opera that’s run along in the background for nearly ten years.
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