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Report: NHL thwarts Canadian billionaire's new attempt to own Predators

By Greg Wyshynski

Earlier this week, we half-jokingly noted that it was just a matter of time before the financial troubles of Nashville Predators co-owner William "Boots" Del Biaggio III and the undaunted hubris of Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie's quest for NHL ownership would collide.

Turns out they already have. Two weeks ago. Theresa Tedesco, chief business correspondent for the National Post and increasingly one of the most important hockey writers of the off-season, reports that Balsillie attempted to buy an interest in the Predators from Boots; but that the NHL warned against it:

According to sources familiar with the events, a tentative deal was arranged that would have seen Mr. Del Biaggio's combined one-third minority interest, with an estimated book value of US$30-million, transferred to Mr. Balsillie for a "significant premium."

Apparently, the talks held at a San Francisco hotel did not directly address the possibility of relocating the team, which was sold last year for US$193-million to a Nashville-based local group of investors, led by David Freeman.

However when an advisor to Mr. Del Biaggio, who was brought in to bid against Mr. Balsillie for the Predators last year, informed NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman of the discussions, sources say the 40-year-old investor was discouraged from proceeding with a deal. Mr. Del Biaggio and officials at the NHL were not available for comment yesterday. However, a source familiar with events said, "nobody would have discouraged anybody from selling their piece or making that an alternative."

There has always been a thought that Del Biaggio would have the option of buying out his fellow owners in Nashville if the problems the team faced during its near-upheaval continued. Tedesco confirms it: Del Biaggio, who she said is trying to get something out of his stake in the team before "he files for bankruptcy," has "a number of contractual rights that would have allowed him to buy out his co-partners' shares after two years if the team sustains cumulative losses of US$20-million or if it fails to maintain average attendance levels at 14,000 a game or more." The League, however, would not extend those rights to Balsillie, according to Tedesco's sources.

Fascinating stuff. It's a shame that the NHL has an enthusiastic potential owner with billions in CrackBerry profits ready to buy in, but only on the condition that he can have a team for his own backyard. Everybody Loves Pinball believes Balsillie will win and a Canadian team under his ownership will happen, and that this is "a war" Gary Bettman can't win. But what about all the ill-will he created amongst NHL owners with his egomaniacal, entitled behavior during the first Nashville mess? Anyone still have their Hamilton Predators season tickets?

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Nothin' like screwing over your own league. Another chapter in the book titled "Gary Bettman is an Idiot". It is currently over 3,000 pages.

personally i wouldn't mind nashville moving. they don't seem to have a very good fan base, and there's no reason why we shouldn't have more canadian hockey teams. Quebec should have one, winnepeg should have one, hamilton should have one, toronto could even have two if they wanted.... the list could go on. they should keep the teams where there's a high interest, and there isn't any bigger market than canada

Why is it so simple for us but so hard for the NHL brass to understand? If you want to build something that requires a fanbase, start locally with your core fans and spread from there. The NHL moved teams from core sites to sites that didn't make any sense. It made sense for Dallas and Phoenix, maybe even Denver, but the rest are retarded.

Count, check this out.

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SAN FRANCISCO -- A prominent Silicon Valley financier has been accused of defrauding a bank to secure a $10 million loan that he used to buy an ownership stake in the NHL's Nashville Predators.

William "Boots" Del Biaggio III was sued this week in Santa Clara County Superior Court by Modern Bank, a New York-based private bank that counts former NFL star Joe Montana as a vice chairman.

It is the latest in a series of legal setbacks for Del Biaggio, the son of a well-known local banking family and co-founder of the investment firm Sand Hill Capital. The 40-year-old businessman is accused in three separate lawsuits of providing forged documents to financial institutions to land multimillion-dollar loans that he has not repaid.

Del Biaggio's lawyer did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

In the latest lawsuit, filed Monday, Modern Bank says Del Biaggio supplied bogus account statements to prove the size of his personal investments as collateral for the $10 million loan he and wife Kristen Del Biaggio received in November.

Those documents showed that Del Biaggio had a brokerage account in the amount of $20 million at San Francisco-based investment bank Merriman Curhan Ford, the lawsuit claims.

But those documents turned out to be forged, and the account was actually not Del Biaggio's, according to the suit.

Instead, the account belonged to another unidentified bank client whose name was allegedly removed from the statements by Merriman Curhan Ford broker David Scott Cacchione and replaced with Del Biaggio's name.

The suit claims the accounts were then passed off to Modern Bank as Del Biaggio's. The deception was uncovered only when he stopped supplying the required monthly account statements that were part of his contract with the bank, the lawsuit said.

Kristen Del Biaggio, Cacchione and the Merriman Curhan Ford firm are also named as defendants in Modern Bank's lawsuit.

Lawyers for the other defendants did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Del Biaggio also is named as a defendant in two other lawsuits filed over the past week by other financial institutions claiming they were duped into forking over big loans based on misrepresentations of his wealth.

Heritage Bank of Commerce, a San Jose-based bank co-founded by Del Biaggio's father, has accused him of using similar tactics to secure a $4 million loan in December. DGB Investments Inc., a San Jose-based investment firm, is also suing Del Biaggio over a $3 million loan he received in November under what the firm says were false pretenses.

The catalyst for the lawsuits was a regulatory filing last week by Merriman Curhan Ford that the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission were investigating an unidentified broker and client for allegedly using the account information of other clients to obtain loans.

The firm, which is named as a defendant in all three of the latest lawsuits, said it is cooperating fully with the federal investigations.