Billion-dollar bidding war expected for AEG sports, entertainment group

Los Angeles, CA, United States (4E Sports) – A billion-dollar bidding war is expected after the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), the world’s largest owner of sports teams and sports events, has been put up for sale, its parent company announced late Tuesday.

The Anschutz Co., run by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, announced it is selling its AEG subsidiary.

The subsidiary also has stakes in the L.A. Live entertainment venue in downtown Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Kings professional hockey team and the Los Angeles Galaxy pro soccer team.

It has interests in the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Sparks, Hartford Colonials and Reading Royals.

AEG, the owner of the world’s most profitable sports and entertainment venues, boasts of massive holdings of prime real estate and glitzy entertainment locations around the globe, including London’s O2 arena and Berlin’s O2 World arena.

Its AEG Live, a highly profitable concert promotion business, is the worlds’ second largest presenter of live music and entertainment events after Live Nation Entertainment Inc.

Los Angeles billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong is speculated as among the potential buyers of the company.

The 59-year-old physician, businessman and philanthropist Soon Shiong, who has played a primary role in cutting-edge treatments for a wide variety of cancers, already owns a minority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers.

Soon Shiong failed in his bid for the L.A. Dodgers this year.

Eli Broad, a billionaire philanthropist in Los Angeles, is another potential buyer of partner.

Broad, 78, was behind a failed bid to bring back the NFL to the Los Angeles Coliseum with real estate developer Ed Roski.

In the event a deal for AEG goes through, it would mark one of the biggest sports and entertainment deals on record, and the second blockbuster transaction this year in Southern California following the $2-billion purchase of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team by Guggenheim Baseball Management.

Meanwhile, Anschutz Co. President Cannon Harvey indicated that the process is in an early stage and no likely buyers have emerged.

Harvey’s company is being advised by the Blackstone Group, the New York investment bank that represented Frank McCourt in his sale of the Dodgers to Guggenheim.

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