Major League Baseball

Report: Einhorn has $1 clause to buy Mets

Published Jun. 16, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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Hedge fund honcho David Einhorn could gain control of the struggling New York Mets in three years' time for just $1, under an option in his agreement with team's ownership to buy a minority stake, according to a Forbes report.

Einhorn's agreement in principle with Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, announced last month, was 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 Forbes report Wednesday said the option price was $1.

The agreement was still being negotiated, and a final deal was not expected until later this month, so its terms could change.

Einhorn would not be able to exercise the $1 option if Wilpon and Katz returned his $200 million investment in three years. If the hedge fund guru got his money back, his stake in the team would be reduced to 16 percent.

However, a Mets spokesman said the Forbes report was not accurate. "Like many other media reports related to the terms of a potential agreement, [this one] is again simply false," according to team spokesman David Newman, who declined to elaborate on what in the report was false.

A spokesman for Einhorn declined to comment.

Wilpon and Katz are hawking a piece of the team because they face a $1 billion lawsuit filed by Bernard Madoff trustee Irving Picard, who alleges that the owners "knew or should have known" that Madoff was perpetrating a massive Ponzi scheme.

Wilpon and Katz invested with Madoff over 25 years and claim they were victims, having lost hundreds of millions of dollars to the Ponzi scheme.

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