If Peter Karmanos were selling a house, he would have changed agents by now. Of course, selling a chunk of a sports team is a little more complicated than putting the family homestead on the market, and Karmanos hired the best in the business to help him with it.
Still, we're more than four months into the process, sliding past all the soft deadlines and target dates Karmanos initially set forth to sell the minority interest in the team held by the late Thomas Thewes, and there's still a "for sale" sign on the Carolina Hurricanes.
The pace probably isn't the best news for Hurricanes fans - the best-case scenario was for this to happen quickly and locally - but Karmanos' new plan may help ensure there's local representation in the ownership group.
Karmanos said Tuesday that he and investment bank Allen & Co., were still looking for an investor to buy as much as a 49 percent stake in the team on behalf of the Thewes estate, but that the search now focused on putting together a group of investors rather than a single buyer - and while he preferred a local partner, the door remained open to interests from outside the area if no one stepped up.
So far, no one has stepped up around here. It's not hard to figure out why. Between the economy, the general lack of hockey-crazy local billionaires and the conditions Karmanos placed on the sale - he's going to retain control; any minority investors are along for the ride (and on the hook to help cover any losses) - it's not surprising that buyers didn't fall out of the sky.
But Karmanos' new plan to sell off Thewes' share of the team piecemeal, in little bits and chunks, probably bodes better for attracting investors from the Triangle and North Carolina. There may not be many billionaires around here, but there should be more than enough millionaires who are either hockey fans or see the civic value in investing in the team.
Thewes was the ultimate silent partner. He trusted Karmanos implicitly. He signed checks to cover his share of the losses without (public) complaint. He stayed out of the way. He was, to be sure, impossible to replace.
Any new minority owner was going to want more of a say in the way the Hurricanes are run. Karmanos, at this point, doesn't appear to be willing to give any. But he might have better luck selling smaller shares, where the expectation of control will be lower, as will the barriers to entry.
For fans, the sale of the team doesn't matter much right now. The payroll was cut to help finances, and the reduced salary budget might hurt the team's competitiveness, but the Hurricanes were getting younger and cheaper this season anyway. The ownership situation only hastened and exaggerated those changes.
But as time goes on, this ownership uncertainty is going to start to matter. While the Hurricanes are without question one of the NHL's Sun Belt success stories, they aren't that far removed from being one of the NHL's most precarious franchises. They have moved apart from the Atlantas and Floridas and Nashvilles of the world, but if Karmanos can't find a local investor, that could change - in terms of perception, if not reality, in hopeful places like Winnipeg and Quebec City and central Ontario.
Let's hope some of the Triangle's wealthiest see the potential in the Hurricanes and this market.
Karmanos may not be going anywhere right now, but there's no telling what could happen in the future. If the investment he needs comes from elsewhere, it raises the odds the team may someday follow the money somewhere else.
