The Montreal Canadiens majority owner is Geoff Molson, but he does not own 100% of the team.
One of the minority owners is Michael Andlauer, and he was recently named the winner of the bidding to purchase the Ottawa Senators. The process of that sale continues to move along and Andlauer cleared another significant hurdle in making the purchase a reality yesterday.
Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun reports that Andlauer met recently with the NHL’s executive committee which gave him the go ahead to move forward with purchasing the Ottawa Senators. The NHL’s executive committee is headed by commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly, but also includes other league owners such as Molson.
The only thing standing in between Andlauer as his ownership of the Senators is a lot of paperwork that needs to be finalized by owners as they check everything over with a fine-tooth comb.
One other interesting tidbit that came out of this report from Garrioch has to do with Andlauer’s ownership stake in the Canadiens. It appears he is in the process of selling his 10% share back to majority owner Geoff Molson. If, for whatever reason, that does not happen, it is expected Andlauer’s percentage would be placed in a trust so he can take over the Senators.
It would be deemed a conflict of interest to have one person owning two separate teams in the league, so Andlauer will be leaving the Canadiens to take over the Senators.
The sale of the Senators is expected to be finalized in the next few days or weeks, and the purchase price was reported to be $950 million. It would take a two-thirds approval vote of the other 31 owners around the league to ratify the sale, but with Andlauer already currently owning a piece of the Canadiens, there is no reason to believe he won’t be accepted as the new Senators owner by most, if not all, other owners in the NHL.
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