I saw this. You should rename the thread Wanda considering 1B sale, almost posted.

My question is how would a sale affect my WSG stock?

With that huge anchor of debt, it is going to be really hard to find a buyer at that price. Unless they are figuring in the assumption of that debt in the price, but still way out there, and about what they paid for it 5 years ago..

I have my stock still, hopefully it at least bumps on the news..

I think you should stick with those FAANG stocks rather than WADA.....

Is the whole PTO consideration off the table? I didn't keep up with it, but I remember reading about it.

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

Yeah. I tried to get cute with the title. Serves me right.
I could be way off base, but I think the WSG has the 900M in debt across all programs; but IM is debt free and profitable. So you sell the good one to pay for the bad one(s). Still I cant think of who is a buyer at that price; but I am guessing they find one.

The PTO offer is just some PE guys trying to buy a distressed asset cheap. I agree WSG's asking price is, um, aspirational; but probably a lot more than PTO would consider.

The problem, as others have noted, is that IM is so levered up that there is very little value left.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
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The fit that I could see, (and it is out there) would be some sort of media entity. Picture NBC or FOX buying it, they broadcast some "stories of the Ironman" from select races, then make a reality show out of it. Think biggest loser; but with an Ironman as the goal. If the show did well, there would be a wave of interest of "1 and done" triathletes that I am sure they would be ready and happy to capitalize on. It could probably ride high for 3-5 years. Then they sell it at the first drop in ratings; which would likely be a leading indicated of participation level.

I’ve always regarded M&A asking prices like lawsuit valuations, totally meaningless but necessary to get the process started. That Wanda has put the discussion up about a sale most likely indicates that we will be seeing no further investment in Ironman by them. Stock price moved to up $3 last week, with China stocks being soft due to the Corona beer virus, an uptick is interesting.

Is there no way to monetize streaming, or some type of episodes? Seems like a lot of pros make their money with content, but IM does virtually nothing.
A media company does make sense, BUT I would guess it is just too small for a big media company to bother with. Small projects like that can be big distractions to upper management for the % revenue they generate.

I should clarify I think the media deal only makes since if IM generates a profit right now and you are able to work in something where the whole leadership team more or less stays in place (which is more or less what WSG did I think) This way you are already buying something that is profitable, and anything you add to it is icing.

...yeah, great a bunch of pro athletes who know not that much about business trying to run a business spread across something like 50 countries. Good luck with that. If people had a beef with how the crew in Tampa don't run the sport well, then I can't wait to hear the moaning when a bunch of pro triathletes with limited business training try to run a business (and spend all their time our training rather than....you know....running the business).

This post shows you don't know anything about the PTO bid.

Watching triathlon racing is not particularly interesting. Heck most of us in the sport don’t even watch it. Now human interest stories/struggles/challenges/accomplishments do generate a lot of interest. Ironman however is the ‘anti-Survivor’. In Survivor there’s limited physical activity and maximum social situational drama. Ironman is maximum physical, and while most of the TV presentation focuses on the social, there’s not enough. American Ninja Warrior is a good example also; human interest stories followed by brief physical activity. There was Julie Moss, the Hoyts, and maybe even Iron War, but there has been a lack of anything interesting to the general public from triathlon for a long time. The concept from the PTO just shows how out of touch and introspective everyone in triathlon leadership seems to be. To make money a sport has to be such that a very large number of people can watch it with a beer in their hand, either at a stadium or at home on the couch.

I don't know much about PTO but I don't think the friends of the pro triathletes backing them from the private equity side know that much about running and events business either. How many challenge folks they can pull in to suddenly run a competing events business that is dependent on age group participation (the pros are interchangeable heros of the day and replaceable), well, we'll see.

But I don't think pro triathletes deserve that much pay because almost no one is paying to watch them. Their sport is hard, but no one other than a some age groupers care about them, meaning their market value is limited. The volume of the business is in age group participation (race entries, and buying equipment etc to support the sport). The pros are a show to complete the entire package. I've always felt that pros should earn more for the work they do, but the essential issue is no one cares about them, which means their ability to earn more $$$ is limited.

So whomever takes over will continue to exploit the pros like the Caesars exploited the gladiators. Those who choose to go pro will do it for the love of the sport just like all age groupers do it for love of sport. Age groupers will over pay to play, pros will get relatively underpaid for the amount of work they do, relative to other pro athletes.

As an asset, WTC has a revenue problem, or really, a profitability problem. Adding more races to the schedule doesn't add more profit - there are no scale economies, so each event generates the same revenue and profit more or less. Poorly attended races fold or get moved, good ones get to stay but can't grow due to safety and size constraints.

Triathlon struggles to generate a growing multiple of revenue through broadcast rights since no one can figure out how to broadcast a one day event in a compelling way that will appeal to non-participants. Golf and tennis may have a somewhat similar dynamic - lots of small events with a handful of major ones - but nowhere near the broad appeal to attract non-native advertisers and broadcast revenue.

The ideal buyer will be someone who can come up with an innovation that somehow gives non-participants a way into the sport - similar to the poker boom that was fueled by lipstick cameras that showed you what the players cards were.

Who owns all the WTC debt? I doubt it is bank held. My guess is someone could buy it at a discount, which possibly could be part of an equity play as well.

As always you make a simple reply into a novel.

no mention of the 'start-up' business though...

They seem to be having a hard time with the 10 Million they just got.. I couldn't image what they would need to get 1 Billion :)

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E-DUB
Chief Janitor @Slowtwitch
Life is short. Dont be mad all the time.

I could be way off base, but I think the WSG has the 900M in debt across all programs; but IM is debt free and profitable. //

Yes, off base. Ironman came to Wanda with something in the 250 to 300 million in debt range. Then once bought and packaged, the package took on a lot more debt too. I believe most of the debt is held by Wanda or its subsidiaries, so suppose they could use some slight of hand and put all that leverage on Infront. But probably not, there are rules that govern this kind of stuff, and now that they are on the exchange and public, probably have to follow them. Just guessing here, but probably at least 500 million of the debt is Ironman's, could be more, likely not less given the structure since it was bought..


Will be fun to see if the open tomorrow has any movement at all, it has fallen from a recent 3.50 to right at 3 dollars now, and that was from an 8 dollar IPO price. One that went south to 6 virtually right away, so that with the recent mid 2's is the ballpark they have been trading in pretty much..

Its a fair statement, however you could have just chosen to shed light on the top level details of the PTO offer.

What we generally know from your interaction on the forum is that you're pretty pro "anything other than Ironman" and fairly "pro challenge".

We as a sport need a variety of race organizers, however outside of Europe, the success of Challenge has been variable and in many cases, Ironman has come in and taken over at those venues and done a better job: Bahrain, Atlantic City, Maine...even Kraichgau in their back yard. Not to mention Melbourne. They killed Ironman Canada quite nicely and now Penticton went back to Ironman for another round.

Personally I don't think that any Challenge guys are able to run the scope of business that Messick runs. We can choose to hate Ironman, but they have really done a pretty good job at expanding their offering globally and when you show up to a race anywhere, you generally get really good quality and safety.

Can a bunch of private equity+pro athletes + challenge guys can run this corporation. I don't think they can do it as well as the folks in Tampa. Messick worked under David Stern at the NBA, ran the Tour of California and has substantially grown Ironman since 2011 even with being taken over by a Chinese mothership. Anyone who has been around when your company gets plugged into a larger corporate entity and keeps growing the brand knows a few things about both the corporate business side and keeping your operational side stable.

Who says they would not want to keep the ironman core team?

Last I checked, it was down to $2.99 when this news broke.

Edit to add: I *think* the billion dollar asking price would be brand value consideration plus dumping the debt that The IRONMAN Group technically owes into Wanda -- so, depending on structure of the deal, it's probably about the same asking price as it was a couple of years ago ($650mm cash plus servicing the debt, or $900mm all in cash up front).

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Last I checked, it was down to $2.99 when this news broke. //

Ya that was closing price, and looks to be up .56 right now in pre market, so the street is taking the news seriously. I'm making some paper profits today!!!