Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Seidler family was nearing a sale of the Padres to private equity mogul José E. Feliciano and his wife Kwanza Jones. That’s expected to come with an eye-popping $3.9 billion valuation that’d shatter the prior high for a franchise sale ($2.4 billion in Steve Cohen’s 2020 purchase of the Mets).
Feliciano and Jones aren’t actually putting up nearly $4 billion, however. Dennis Lin and Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic report that Feliciano and Jones will purchase a 30-40% ownership share. That’d put their investment between $1.17 billion and $1.56 billion. Their exact stake has yet to be determined as they bring aboard additional minority investors. Lin and Vorkunov write that some members of the Seidler family will retain minority shares. Some current minority investors will retain their own stakes.
Padres fans are encouraged to give The Athletic column a full read, as Lin and Vorkunov identify a handful of individuals who might join Feliciano’s ownership group. The most important detail remains unchanged. Feliciano will become the organization’s control person. That’s true even though he’ll own less than 50% of the team, as he’ll hold the plurality share.
The team has yet to officially announce the agreement, though current control person John Seidler had made no secret of the family’s desire to sell. Once the details on the minority investors are sorted out, they’ll need formal approval from at least three-quarters of other ownership groups. That’s essentially a formality. The next quarterly owners meeting is scheduled for June, though they could opt for a virtual vote to expedite the process.
Go padres they will win the World Series
The fact that one person won’t own the entire franchise doesn’t change the market valuation, which is still what it is. My guess is the equity share to be owned by Feliciano and Jones fully buys out Sheel Seidler and reduces the holdings of the brothers to under 50%.
As long as that goof who bought the Blazers doesn’t get them they should be OK. He’s about to learn there’s big difference between being a Hockey Owner and a Basketball Owner. And the difference between that and Baseball is astronomical.
Right? It takes balls to play baseball and even bigger balls to play basketball but it doesn’t take any balls to play hockey.
Seems to me I have seen Padres fans already reporting this. Maybe we should sign up a couple of them to write at the Athletic instead of Dennis Lin.
The Athletic is run by a clown.
Bozo or crusty?
He looks like Bozo and his bow tie is probably crusty. Side show Dennis Lin is his sidekick.
Chuckles. 🤭
Nice…
Yeah that was a bizzaro statement from Anthony Franco.
LFGSD! 🤙🏽🍻
campy say I just not giving a LFGSD IJNGAF
Wasn’t it JDGAF? Lol
Just relistened to it. He calmly said JDGAF in the sentence after he said IJNGAF. So we say LFGSD, IJNGAF and JDGAF
😎
Poor lil Marty’s virgin ears…! Haha
Y’all should read the articles about the s@&t show Chelsea FC is where Clearlake is 61.5% owner share. Padres should keep looking.
The Dennis Lin article referenced in this post literally says “Clearlake Capital, is not expected to be part of the deal”
Feliciano is Clearlake. Even if the PE is not part of the ownership group, the guy calling the shots is. His resume with regard to Chelsea, (which everyone mentions as some sort point of pride) is a disaster. Poorly run franchise. And we want this guy calling the shots for SD!
Feliciano is not Clearlake. Clearlake is an investment vehicle that he is a partner in, but there’s another managing partner Eghbali, and other institutional investors who also own the PE firm. He can’t just do whatever he wants, he owes fiduciary duties to these investors.
Clearlake is also only part of the consortium BlueCo that owns Chelsea. Todd Boehly is the frontman (Dodgers owner) and Mark Walter (Dodgers owner and control person) also own parts of BlueCo with another billionaire. So even if he called all the shots for Clearlake, which is a big assumption, that doesn’t mean he’s calling them for BlueCo.
I get the temptation to just say Feliciano = Chelsea = bad, but you’re skipping multiple layers of ownership and complex dynamics to oversimplify this. Theres a huge difference between a PE firm owning part of a consortium that owns a football team in England and an individual investor personally and directly owning and being the control person for an MLB team. We don’t know yet how he’s going to run his personal investment
Clearlake owns 61.8%. The billions of investors money thrown into the team obviously involved decision making by the guys at the top of Clearlake. His judgement and decision making are definitely up for discussion. Whether privately owned or as a consortium that he is at the top of. Even his reported 30-40% stake in the Padres makes him the decision maker.
The Padres already have 15% of the ownership owned by two private equity firms, Arctos Partners and CAZ Investments. Clearlake cannot take part in the ownership directly. Individual partners in Clearlake could, but not the corporation.
Chelsea is fully owned by a consortium named BlueCo. BlueCo is made up of several partners in Clearlake Capital including Feliciano and Behdad Eghbali, Todd Boehly of the Dodgers/Lakers/Sparks, Mark Walter of the Dodgers/Lakers/Sparks and Guggenheim Partners, and Hansjörg Wyss.
Todd Boehly is the chairman and runs the club. Feliciano and Eghbali are definitely involved, but not in the day to day. Mostly in providing the financial and technical resources.
Second that: Chelsea treating player acquisition, roster churn and player disposal like a hedge fund, scratch that, day trader. Notorious for their 120 man, 7 goalie player pool- throwing them against the wall and lending out whomever they don’t feel like using
This could spell doom and gloom for the Daddios if he runs the team like Chelsea. Like Roseanne singing the national anthem bad.
I have been posting the things I am learning about the sale on another thread. I will attempt to summarize.
Feliciano/Jones will have the largest ownership stake. Possibly as much as 40%, but likely only 30% that will come out of the 39-40% that is being sold by the Peter Seidler Trust and the Seidler/O’Malley family.
The Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, that own the Sycuan Casino, will be taking a large stake. A $400-600 million investment potentially. They are also a partner in the MLS club, San Diego F.C., of which Manny Machado is a partner as well.
Alfredo Harp Helu will be increasing his stake. W Deportes radio in Mexico City reported he is investing more than $100 million into buying additional ownership shares.
The Peter Seidler Trust, now meaning Sheel Seidler, is not divesting all its ownership stake. It will retain 4-5%
Most of the larger current minority investors including Alfredo Harp Helu, Arctos Partners, and CAZ investments will retain their shares.
A small group of minority investors are selling their ownership shares, but it’s not yet known if Padres CEO Erik Greupner is one of them.
Thanks. I was wondering about Greupner and Sheel
Thanks. What is your source on all of this? Pretty in depth.
Most is public including radio and TV. Certainly more sources than just The Athletic, Jon Heyman, or Bob Nightengale which is deep as this site seems to go. Unfortunately, this site gives my posts the dreaded “Your comment is awaiting moderation” if I post a link and it never gets moderated. After 34 years working in the sport, I also have a lot of contacts still working in the industry.
This New Padres Ownership structure could be a disastere for the Padres and their fans. Feliciano’s Partner in Chelsea FC is Todd Boehly who is the one who has made terrible player personnel moves for Chelsea.
Both Jose and Todd are very unpopular for their mismanagement of Chelsea.
They have had a fire sale with Chelsea and dumped some of their top,higher salaried veteran players.
The New players that they brought in have produced poorly and the team is now regressing.
Try that with the Padres MLB ballclub and the fans will revolt and those record sellouts every night will be gone.
Padres and their fans may be in for a rocky road ahead.
Sale of the Padres to Feliciano will dishonor Peter Seidler’s memory.
Thanks for the positive take on my Padres. Now go find a hole and fall in it.
BTW, the game against the Rockies at Coors tonight was an incredible 1-0 pitcher’s duel. Yes, you read that right. A pitcher’s duel at Coors.
It was an absolutely perfect night for a game in Denver. About 80 degrees. a light breeze blowing out to left field.
Vasquez pitched a 7 inning, scoreless gem and it was closed out by Adam then Morejon. The Rockies had Herget open and then Dollander threw 6 innings of 1 run ball.
I love games like this, especially when the Padres win them. I think tomorrow the Padres will need more run support. LFGSD!
On pace for 112 wins amid an alltime lack of slug. Roll with it!
But it was more like 62 F. Tonight and tomorrow’s games will be played in the 50s, or colder
I meant to say it was about 62 F by end of game. Amazing temperature drop during the game.
That is what a mile high does. It was in the 40s early in the morning where we are staying.
While the “Rebuild is looking Good” in early 2026 ——- How about a “Franchise sale of the Cardinals”???
What has lead to a total Rebuild for the Cardinals is the fact Ownership —- (especially under any portion of the ownership directed by Bill DeWitt III) —- can not afford to sign any Super Star free agents as other perennial League Contending teams.
The Cardinals total Ownership do not have the money to put a contending team on the field on a yearly basis!!! Maybe a competitive team, but not a contending team!!!!!
That’s what happened to the Cardinals over the past 10 years. That’s why they let the Historic Cardinals Franchise hit “Rock Bottom!”
I’m betting that Cohen is proud of the deal he made! Saved himself about a bill
Had the Wilpons by the short and curlies then flashed that cash under their nose
Prices have gone up up up!
Best deal the Wilpons could get at the time.
Did not see any other well funded players jumping in and bidding the price higher like what happened with the Padres.