Want to own a music venue? A really big one? Well good news: The Barclays Center in Brooklyn is looking for a majority owner and if you've got roughly $412.5 million dollars. Bruce Ratner, a minority owner in the Brooklyn Nets basketball team and majority owner of the arena in which they play, is selling of his chunk of the venue, which amounts to 55 percent according to NetsDaily.com.
Ratner is heavily invested in the Atlantic Yards buildup in Brooklyn and is aggressively looking to get out of it. He's sold off 70 percent of the project so far to a Chinese company. He's still looking to sell his stake in the arena as well as an apartment tower complex that has been sitting for a while. Although he put his chunk of the Nets up for sale it was somewhat believed that he would try to hold onto to his portion of the Barclays Center. His dumping of the Nets was logical enough: The team lost an absurd $144 million last year, largely due to luxury taxes on the team's high payroll. That's $131 million more than the next biggest losers in the NBA, the Washington Wizards (you can read Grantland's assessment of the Nets bungling here). Ratner wanted to get $200 million for his 20 percent share. He didn't get any offers he liked so he put up his stake in the arena instead.
The arena doesn't pay into that $144 million debt and it's profiting just fine, thank you. Granted, that profit less than half of what was expected during its first year, according to the Wall Street Journal. That's mildly concerning but its fourth quarter was by far its most profitable last year and it hasn't deterred big acts like Paul McCartney from heading there versus the more iconic Madison Square Garden. Now might be the time to buy in.
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