Ryan Reynolds teams up with The Remington Group for potential Senators bid: report
Posted Feb 14, 2023 04:00:00 PM.
Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds has partnered with a real estate development group from the Toronto area in a bid to buy the Ottawa Senators, Postmedia's Bruce Garrioch reports.
Garrioch writes Reynolds has teamed up with The Remington Group, based in Vaughan, Ont., to form a group poised to bid on the Senators and build a new downtown arena.
Reynolds — who co-owns Welsh soccer club Wrexham, which plays in England's fifth tier — publicly expressed interest in buying the Senators in the fall, though he acknowledged that he would need partners in order to do so. He has since been seen at a Senators game, where he was greeted warmly by the crowd.
Rudolph Bratty, chairman and CEO, and his brother Jerry Bratty, chief operating officer, run The Remington Group, which has been developing land in Ontario for the past 65 years.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said at the All-Star Game earlier this month that at least 15 groups have filed applications to bid on the Senators.
Bettman said the list of bidders for the club would be whittled down “in the next few weeks or so.”
Club owner Eugene Melnyk died in 2022, aged 62, leaving his daughters, Anna, 23, and Olivia, 20, in charge. The sisters have begun the process of putting the club up for sale and have retained Galatioto Sports Partners as financial advisors in the process.
Forbes valued the club to be worth US$525 million last year, though the sale price is expected to be greater than that figure.
The team currently plays out of the Canadian Tire Centre, located in the western suburb of Kanata, which is 20 kilometres from downtown.
Just before Melnyk died, a plan to build a facility on a 7.5-acre tract of mostly vacant land closer to downtown called LeBreton Flats was revived.
Garrioch reports Hamilton billionaire Michael Andlauer, who owns the OHL's Hamilton Bulldogs, and Toronto billionaires Jeffrey and Michael Kimel, formerly part-owners of the Pittsburgh Penguins, are among the front-runners in the bidding battle for the club.
