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For a buck, he can step right up and control the Mets.
Hedge fund honcho David Einhorn could gain control of the struggling team in three years for $1 under an option in his agreement with Mets ownership to buy a minority stake in the team, according to a new report.
Einhorn’s agreement in principle with Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, announced last month, is for the 42-year-old founder of the $8 billion Greenlight Capital hedge fund to buy a 33 percent stake in the Mets for $200 million.
It was reported at the time that Einhorn had an option to increase that stake after three years under certain conditions and for a particular price — but the exact price was not released.
A report on Forbes.com yesterday said the option price is $1.
Now that’s a steal.
Of course, the agreement is still being negotiated and a final deal is not expected until later this month, so its terms can change — but the $1 option price is startling. It underscores how desperate Wilpon and Katz are for a cash infusion, and how confident the two are they will be able to avoid activating the Einhorn option.
Einhorn will not be able to exercise the $1 option if Wilpon and Katz return his $200 million investment in three years. If the hedge fund guru gets his money back, his stake in the team will be reduced to 16 percent.
A Mets spokesman said the Forbes report wasn’t accurate.
“Like many other media reports related to the terms of a potential agreement, [this one] is again simply false,” team spokesman David Newman said.
Newman declined to elaborate on what in the report was false.
A spokesman for Einhorn declined to comment.
However, people familiar with Einhorn’s talks with the Mets said the “$1 strike price” reported in the Forbes’ article was off-base without offering details, because the negotiations are still in flux.
Wilpon and Katz are hawking a piece of the team because they are facing a $1 billion lawsuit filed by Bernie Madoff trustee Irving Picard, who is alleging that the owners “knew or should have known” that Madoff was perpetrating a massive Ponzi scheme.
Wilpon and Katz had invested hundreds of million of dollars with Madoff over 25 years and claim they are victims — having lost hundreds of millions of dollars to the Ponzi scheme. But Picard is seeking $1 billion from the two — representing all the profits they withdrew over the years — putting a financial cloud over the Mets.
About $100 million of Einhorn’s investment will go to fund day-to-day operations of the team, which is expected to lose as much as $70 million this season, on top of the $50 million it lost last year. The other $100 million will go to pay down debt.