The owners of the cash-strapped New York Mets have taken a $40 million bank loan while they try to sell minority stakes in the team.
A Mets spokesman confirmed today that a single major bank extended it the “bridge” loan in the last month or two. In November 2010, the club borrowed $25 million from Major League Baseball to tide it over.
Fred Wilpon and co-owner Saul Katz are trying to line up as many as 10 buyers for stakes worth $20 million to $30 million apiece.
Last month, the owners sweetened their pitch to prospective investors and said they are willing to pay 3 percent interest annually on the stakes over six years.
“The process for the sale of minority shares in the team continues to go very well,” the team said in a statement.
The Mets arranged for the new loan as some big bills were coming due. Last month, the Mets made a $15 million to $20 million revenue-sharing payment to MLB, in which all the teams combine 31 percent of their local revenue and then split the pot evenly.
On Thursday, the team must pay the New York City Industrial Development Agency $26 million for interest on bonds sold to build the team’s stadium, Citi Field.
Money to pay the stadium bonds is supposed to come from a Mets subsidiary, Queens Ballpark, which collects funds from naming rights and club-seat sales, according to sources.
Sources told The Post that the Mets existing lenders were concerned about the team’s ability to make both payments.
A source close to the situation said that the bridge loan was borrowed for working capital, and an interest payment to the city would fall into that category.
The Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz owned Mets were under great pressure to make both these payments, as the team already owed $25 million to MLB for its 2010 revenue sharing payment and in November was asking it for an extension on that one-year loan.
When MLB extended the $25 million emergency loan last year, it pressured the Mets to find a minority owner. The ongoing process has taken more than a year; a $200 million deal to sell a minority stake to hedge fund manager David Einhorn collapsed.
A source close to the baseball commissioner’s office recently told the Post that the league is finally had enough of enabling the Wilpons.
The Mets’ existing bank lenders, led by JPMorgan Chase, are owed about $500 million. Although the team will lose roughly $70 million this year, the lenders believe they will be repaid because the Mets would fetch about $900 million through an outright sale.