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Rays owners dealing with deep pockets

The six-man partnership led by Stuart Sternberg puts riches into new deals and pet causes.

By SCOTT BARANCIK and TOM ZUCCO, Times Staff Writers
Published November 25, 2007

The six-man Rays partnership led by Stuart Sternberg, right, should have no trouble scraping up $150-million toward the construction of a new stadium.
	[Dirk Shadd | Times]

ST. PETERSBURG -- Convincing elected officials to foot two-thirds of the $450-million bill for a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium may be a tough sell.

But the 23 individuals who own the baseball team should have no trouble scraping up the remaining $150-million.

That's particularly true for the six-man partnership, led by New York's 48-year-old Stuart L. Sternberg, that spent $65-million to buy a controlling stake of the Rays in 2004.

The Sternberg Six - which includes Andrew Cader, Randy W. Frankel, Timothy R. Mullen, Gary F. Goldring, Stephen M. Levick and Sternberg - are essentially low-profile financial experts who were at the right place at the right time. They all had been top executives at a New York securities firm called Spear Leeds & Kellogg in 2000 when Wall Street banking and investment giant Goldman Sachs acquired it for $6.5-billion.

Sternberg alone took home, conservatively, tens of millions of dollars.

Since then, the men, all roughly 50 years old, have lived like corporate nobility, spending their free time investing, pushing pet causes and acquiring lavish lifestyles and homes far from the Tampa Bay area.

None of the Sternberg Six agreed to be interviewed for this story, deferring instead to a press conference scheduled for Wednesday at Al Lang Field that team officials say will provide details of the new park and the redevelopment of Tropicana Field.

Sternberg's group could probably foot the entire $450-million bill themselves rather than dip into the public kitty for a big chunk of it. Not that they would. But a cursory look at their assets shows just how deep their pockets are. For example:

- Andrew Cader, a 49-year-old New Yorker who owns a $7.4-million vacation home in Aspen, Colo., will mark his 50th birthday there next year with a four-day bash. His house in Bedford, N.Y. - whose upscale lifestyle attracts the likes of Martha Stewart - is valued at $7.2-million.

- Randy W. Frankel, 50, owns a $7.6-million house along the New Jersey coast and a 3.5-acre estate in Montville, N.J. Sternberg's Harrison, N.Y., home is valued at $6-million.

- Timothy R. Mullen, a 51-year-old Chicagoan, donated $100,000 to the reelection campaign of Democratic Mayor Richard Daley last year. That put him into an exclusive club of corporate kingpins that included billionaire real estate investor Sam Zell and the executive chairman of insurer Aon Corp.

The Sternberg Six don't just spend money on themselves. Five have created their own charitable foundations, with combined assets of $58-million and 2006 donations totaling more than $2-million. Their causes differ wildly.

Gary F. Goldring, a 50-year-old Connecticut resident, gave $110,000 to Earthwatch Institute, an environmental organization on whose board he sits. Cader gave $125,000 to the Manhattan Institute, a so-called "free market" think tank where President Bush twice delivered speeches last year. Sternberg gave more than $120,000 to the Rye Country Day School in New York.

Meanwhile, the Sternberg Six remain active investors, and not just in the Rays. Partnerships led by Frankel have purchased a 730-acre ski resort in the Catskill Mountains for $25-million as well as the centuries-old Montville Inn in New Jersey. Mullen served on the board of online brokerage Thinkorswim Inc. of Chicago until February, when Utah-based Investools Inc. acquired it for $340-million.

Money isn't all that the Sternberg Six bring to the stadium deal. Goldring has an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business and a law degree from Columbia University. Cader, the former co-CEO of Spear Leeds, worked closely with former Goldman Sachs chairman and current U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and has testified before Congress. Frankel is a former CPA.

Collectively, their clout and experience putting together complex deals, sometimes under fire, should serve them well in the stadium negotiations.

As Wall Streeters who appreciate the power of leveraging their investments, it's unlikely the Rays owners would spend much of their own money to pay the full $150-million, anyway.

Sal Galatioto, president of a New York investment bank that specializes in sports deals, said teams often borrow money to help pay their share of a stadium's cost. Some are able to pledge future cash flows from sources such as naming rights or sky boxes.

"There are a whole bunch of ways to structure a stadium deal," he said. The Rays will provide additional information about the proposed deal when they officially unveil it Wednesday.

Besides, the Sternberg Six are not the Rays' only deep pockets. Joseph Chlapaty, one of 17 limited partners who held on after the team's general partners were bought out, recently donated $22-million to the University of Dubuque for a recreation facility being built in his name.

Chlapaty, 61, recently disclosed one other goal he has in mind for that Iowa city. He wants to relocate a minor-league baseball team there, and build a stadium to house it.

Times researcher Carolyn Edds and staff writers Aaron Sharockman, John Romano and Marc Topkin contributed to this report. Scott Barancik and Tom Zucco can be reached, respectively, at barancik@sptimes.com or zucco@sptimes.com.

The Rays' 23 owners

Randy W. Frankel

Gary F. Goldring

Stephen M. Levick

Timothy R. Mullen

Stuart L. Sternberg

Claude Focardi Family Trust

Mel Danker

Robert Kleinert

Gary Markel

Vincent Naimoli

Lance Ringhaver

Gus Stavros

Franklin Eck

MacDougald Family LP

Arthur Nagle

Daniel O'Connell

Frank Richardson

Thomas Sansone

Van Beuren Trust

Stephen Waters

[Last modified November 25, 2007, 06:41:24]