Powerade franchise offered for sale to SMC last November
Reynaldo Belen and Jaemark Tordecilla, InterAKTV · Thursday, February 9, 2012 · 4:12 pm
The Powerade Tigers PBA franchise was offered for sale to San Miguel Corporation last November.
A confidential document obtained by InterAKTV shows that Cosmos Bottling Corporation and Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines, which owns the Tigers, offered the team for sale to SMC for P100 million.
The letter was dated November 11, 2011, addressed to SMC president Ramon S. Ang, and signed by Cosmos and CCBPI chairman William Schultz.
The offer for sale came before the Tigers’ Cinderella run in the Philippine Cup. Perennially minnows in the tournament, Powerade crashed the finals of the all-Filipino conference, becoming the talk of PBA fans along the way.
Last week, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that SMC had bought the Powerade franchise, a story that CCBPI has denied. On Tuesday, the PBA received a trade proposal from Powerade and Petron Blaze, SMC’s flagship franchise, for a trade that would send Marcio Lassiter, one of the Tigers’ best players, to the Boosters in exchange for Noy Baclao and Rey Guevarra.
The deal has received howls of protest from officials of other PBA teams, amid reports of Powerade’s sale to SMC.
The PBA does not allow teams owned by the same company to trade players directly.
The league’s Board of Governors has called a special meeting on Friday to discuss issues surrounding the sale and the Lassiter transaction.