Twins ownership update: Prospective buyers tour ballpark, meet with executives

The Twins’ play on the field during May has given the team an opportunity to pull off its ultimate goal later this summer.

Twins ownership has done the same.

Potential buyers of the franchise have visited Minneapolis over the past 2-3 weeks to tour Target Field and meet with the Pohlad family and the team’s executives, a sign that progress is being made toward a sale, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the process.

Several parties have shown interest in making an offer, one such source said, and the process is now in “the latter stages” of due diligence and fact-gathering.

“The sale is a lot closer to the end than to the beginning,” that source said.

The Pohlad family, which has owned the team since Carl Pohlad purchased it from Calvin Griffith for $44 million in 1984, announced in October that they were exploring a possible sale. Carl Pohlad’s three sons, who inherited the team when he died in 2009, and seven grandchildren are seeking at least $1.5 billion, according to multiple reports.

A sale appeared imminent in December and January, when Justin Ishbia, a billionaire mortgage lender and co-owner of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, declared his interest in the Twins and met with several prominent Minnesotans to explore the franchise and find potential investors to partner with.

Ishbia’s aggressive pursuit scared off other potential buyers, one source said, because when he abruptly announced in February that he was increasing his stake in the Chicago White Sox instead, “new parties immediately came into the [Twins’] sale process.”

That Ishbia detour delayed a sale that some members of the Pohlad family had hoped would be concluded, or at least agreed upon, by Opening Day in late March. But the movement toward a sale “has gained momentum” over the past few weeks, though there is no indication that any of the bidders have made an offer.

Still, published reports that the process has stalled and the Pohlads are resigned to keeping the team are just speculation, one source said, belied by the fact-finding visits that potential bidders have made. Those tours have explored potential opportunities inside Target Field and out, the condition of the 16-year-old ballpark, and the vision of the team’s current management.

“Business people don’t take a couple days out of their schedule to fly somewhere and meet with executives if they aren’t serious about their interest,” the source said. The Pohlads can indeed change their minds and decline to sell, but “discussions about the team and the sale are happening on a daily basis.”

The Twins have retained the private investment firm Allen & Company to vet potential buyers and facilitate the sale, and representatives of that firm are optimistic that the process “is moving toward a discussion of what potential terms of the sale will look like.”