St. Louis Blues Purchased

September 6, 1999 / 11:20 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune found a big bargain a price of $100 million to buy the St. Louis Blues and Kiel Center.

Bill and Nancy Laurie bought the NHL team and the 5-year-old arena from Clark Enterprises, a group of 19 prominent local businessmen who were tired of pumping money into the enterprise. The team had been for sale for nearly a year and Clark walks away with almost nothing, since the deal also includes $96 million in debt on Kiel Center.

"We've been searching for the right professional sports program for a number of months," Bill Laurie said Tuesday. "It's incredible that the opportunity was literally in our back yard."

The sale awaits approval by the NHL Board of Governors and is expected to be completed by the end of September. No problems are anticipated, since the Lauries had been tentatively approved for a previous purchase.

"I think that's a slam dunk," said Jerry Ritter, Clark Enterprises chairman of the board.

The Blues are the third NHL team to change hands this year, following the Avalanche and Pittsburgh Penguins. Deals for two or three more are pending or in the works.

The Lauries, who live in Columbia and raise quarter horses and Appaloosas, had been prepared to spend a lot more money. In March, they unsuccessfully bid $400 million for the NHL's Colorado Avalanche, the NBA's Denver Nuggets, and their new home, the Pepsi Center.

The Denver deal fell through when shareholders of Ascent Entertainment Group, which owned the sports properties, filed suit, claiming the sale price was as much as $150 million too low. A settlement resulted in an auction.

As for the Blues' price tag, the 20,000-seat Kiel Center alone cost $135 million, and the team's worth has been estimated at more than $100 million.

But owners were saddled by debt service on Kiel Center, which was privately financed. They also had to pay for ill-advised signings and other excesses of the expensive 2 1/2-year reign of former coach and general manager Mike Keenan from 1994-1996. Owners said they had spent nearly $70 million the past four years to cover shortfalls.

As part of the deal, the Lauries take on $96 million in debt on Kiel Center.

Bill Laurie is lot more familiar with basketball than hockey. He was a guard at Memphis State and is a front-row fixture at Missouri basketball games.

In fact, he knows next to nothing about hockey. He's never attended an NHL game and can't skate.

"At my age, it's not something I don't think I'm going to try anytime soon," the 47-year-old Laurie said. "Although I am new to the hockey world, I enjoy all kinds of sports."

Laurie wasn't ruling out pursuing an NBA franchise for the city.

"Let's go one thing at a time," he said. "I guess if an NBA possibility came along, we would take a look at it. Bu I can honestly tell you today our focus is on hockey."

The sale coincided with the opening of the Blues' training camp on Monday. Bill Laurie met with the team Tuesday.

"I'm like everybody else," general manager Larry Pleau said. "We're all excited about this and we're ready to go."

The Lauries are the second Columbia entry into the St. Louis sports market in recent years; Stan Kroenke is a minority owner of the NFL's St. Louis Rams. The Lauries and Kroenkes are in-laws.

"These kinds of discussions, quite honestly, don't come up as much as you might think," Laurie said. "Stan does his thing and I do mine."

Nancy Walton Laurie is the daughter of the late Bud Walton, who with his late brother Sam co-founded Wal-Mart. The Lauries own Crown Center Farms in Columbia.

The couple made the largest single donation to the University of Missouri in its history in 1996, offering $10 million toward the construction of a basketball arena. The donation was withdrawn a year later after the Lauries felt the university wasn't making enough progress toward construction.

Kiel Partners, a consortium of local businessmen that owns the Blues, announced Dec. 30 that it had hired an investment bank to explore the team's financial options. They included selling the Blues and Kiel Center, bringing an NBA team to the city or overhauling Kiel Center's capital structure.