The prodigal bidder has returned.
Sources close to billionaire hedge-fund manager Steve Cohen told The Post he will bid on the Mets this week, months after having his $2.6 billion deal for the team fall apart dramatically at the 11th hour back in February. Cohen’s reemergence, while not totally shocking, will cause upheaval in the first-round bidding process set to end on Thursday.
Cohen, 64, is a Mets fan from childhood who owns 8 percent of the team. He also has a net worth of close to $13 billion, and sources say he has been monitoring the Mets situation closely, fully aware that he is the only bidder who can offer the Wilpons anywhere close to the $2 billion valuation they have put on their money-losing franchise without selling their revenue-generating TV network, SNY.
It remains to be seen if the two parties can overcome the bad blood that scuttled the deal after last-minute negotiations collapsed due to disagreements about how much control the Wilpons would retain after Cohen agreed to pay $2.6 billion for 80 percent of the franchise and no ownership of SNY.
As The Post reported at the time, the Wilpons wanted a five-year transition window during which Fred Wilpon would retain total control of the team with no input from Cohen, an arrangement that the famously micro-managing Cohen found troubling.
In the fallout, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred publicly sided with the Wilpons, making it clear that they felt Cohen acted in bad faith.
Then came COVID-19.
With baseball on pause and the Mets financial picture deteriorating, the Wilpons picked up the pace on their quest to sell the team, attracting interest from Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez, private equity billionaires and New Jersey Devils owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer, LA real estate player Kurt Rappaport, and London-based financiers David and Simon Reuben.
Those parties have been informed the Wilpons want a deal done by October in order to ensure that MLB approves the sale by the end of 2020.
But Cohen’s interest in the team has hung over the new sale, so much so that other bidders in the new process asked and were told by the Mets bankers Allen & Co. that Cohen was not involved in the process.
Sources close to the billionaire trader and art collector have consistently told The Post that while Cohen was keeping tabs on the situation, he was not yet ready to pursue a new bid, but that appears to have changed now that bids on the team appear more than likely to fall well short of the $2 billion figure the Wilpons have demanded without having to include SNY.
While reps for Cohen did not comment on the new development, insiders close to the sale took Cohen’s new bid in definite stride.
“What a surprise,” cracked one insider sarcastically when told of the news.