Sale of Mets to multibillionaire Steve Cohen falls through

The Mets are for sale, but multibillionaire Steve Cohen will not be the buyer.

“I gave it my best shot,” Cohen, a Mets minority owner who was seeking to become the majority owner, said Thursday night in a statement to Newsday. “I’m very disappointed we couldn’t work out a deal, but as an 8% holder, I’m looking forward to a higher bid for the team.”

It’s not clear that the Mets will get a better offer than the $2.6 billion valuation from Cohen’s bid — a would-be record for a major-league team — but control person /chief executive officer Fred Wilpon will try.

Minutes after Cohen publicly acknowledged that his agreement with Sterling Partners — the Wilpon family business that technically owns the team — had fallen through, the company said in a separate statement that it plans “to pursue a new transaction.”

“The transaction between Sterling and Steve Cohen was a highly complicated one,” the Sterling statement read. “Despite the efforts of the parties over the past several months, it became apparent that the transaction as contemplated would have been too difficult to execute.”

Sterling said it is working with Allen & Company, a Manhattan-based boutique investment bank, to find suitors. Bradley Wilpon — the grandson of Fred Wilpon and son of chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon — has worked at Allen & Company as an investment banking analyst since June 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Cohen’s capitulation capped three days of rumors and reports that his pursuit of the Mets was ending after the Wilpons sought to change the terms of their tentative agreement.

Earlier Thursday, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred defended Fred and Jeff Wilpon, saying, contrary to the slew of reports stating otherwise, that the father and son were not to blame.

“There’s two things that are out there,” Manfred said at the conclusion of the quarterly owners’ meetings at the Waldorf Astoria Orlando. “There’s not going to be a transaction, my belief is that’s accurate. The second is exactly what happened with respect to the transaction, and I can tell you — and it’s based on conversations with the buyer and the seller on an ongoing basis — the assertion that the transaction fell apart because of something the Wilpons did is completely and utterly unfair.”

Manfred did not elaborate.

Cohen said in his statement, “I want to thank the fans for their support and the respect they showed me and I want to thank Commissioner Manfred and MLB for their support through the process.”

That news was an unwelcome splash of cold water to the face of Mets fans dreaming of the deep pockets that the 63-year-old Cohen, an unabashed Mets fan worth an estimated $9 billion to $13 billion, was going to bring to the franchise.

Cohen, a hedge-fund manager who grew up in Great Neck, and Sterling Partners announced in early December that they were in negotiations that would result in Cohen significantly increasing “his investment in the New York Mets.” A source at the time said the deal would make Cohen, a minority owner of the franchise since 2012, the majority owner.

Under the initially announced agreement, Fred Wilpon, 83, and his son, Jeff, would retain their titles for five years after the sale. After that, a source said then, Cohen would assume the reins as the control person, MLB’s term for a club’s top decision-maker.

But the specifics of that arrangement, highly unusual in ownership transactions, were never quite clear, and it quickly became a source of speculation inside and outside the sport.

The deal reportedly would have given Cohen ownership of up to 80% of the franchise.

And so the Mets will try again with someone else. A new season will begin when spring training opens Monday, but as pitchers and catchers officially report, larger issues loom: Who will be in charge when the season ends?