Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
Week begins with promise, ends without resolution in Coyotes deal
http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blo...insider/123424
Friday morning, Goldwater attorney Clint Bolick said Hulsizer talked with Goldwater President Darcy Olsen to get to the “bottom line” of what the watchdog group needed to ease its concerns.
Olsen told him Goldwater hoped to have a complete analysis done by Tuesday, Bolick said.
Bolick said Hulsizer pressed for immediate answers and threatened to pull out of the deal. Bolick said the Chicago businessman later backed off that statement.
Hulsizer’s camp say the deal is still on. They confirmed Hulsizer and Olsen spoke, but said there was no talk of walking away.
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This deal was well on its way to being done with a nice rating from Standard & Poors and an interest cost in line with the market at the time, implying no particular risk beyond the norm.
Then Goldwater came along and sent letters to investment dealers warning they were likely to sue if the deal proceeded.
Suddenly and quite reasonably, the market dried up almost overnight, even at an exorbitant interest rate.
From an institutional investor point of view, that was not a condemnation of the deal or the outlook provided by the consultant but rather a quite normal view that the new issue supply for these kinds of things in the United States is sufficiently large that one doesn't have to bother with a deal that has a lawsuit dangling off it.
I think people are vastly mistaken in believing institutional investors are looking at the quality of this deal and backing away.
Most likely they are looking at the potential aggravation of the Goldwater threat and backing away.
There are just too many other attractions for institutional money, particularly money devoted to the municipal market, to bother with these odd threats from the sidelines and no manager of any competence would put the funds in his care into that position if he expected to continue to keep his job.
And therein lies the difference between free speech ("this is a crappy deal for taxpayers") and saying; "if you enter into this deal, if you buy these bonds, we'll make your life hell."
Hence the implied threat of a "tortious interference" lawsuit of Goldwater by Glendale. Yes, the deal probably would have closed fairly normally if Goldwater had said nothing.
So, it does behoove Goldwater to give the appearance of being reasonable and discussing issues with Hulzeiger/Glendale.
Whether or not they're serious about compromise is probably another thing.
Cowperson