Ricketts set to purchase Cubs but will take time

By Ben Klayman

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago investment bank head Tom Ricketts may have been tapped as the winning bidder for the Chicago Cubs baseball team, but he remains weeks if not months from sitting in the owner's box at storied Wrigley Field.

Tribune Co, which owns the Cubs, named Ricketts' $900 million offer for the team, Wrigley and a 25 percent stake in a regional sports cable TV network as the favored bid on Thursday after the bankrupt media firm won approval from its creditors.

Ricketts, who together with his family edged out Chicago native Marc Utay, a managing partner with New York-based private equity firm Clarion Capital Partners LLC and Chicago real estate executive Hersch Klaff, now must finalize a purchase agreement and arrange financing.

In addition, the deal needs approval from the U.S. bankruptcy court in Delaware, as well as Major League Baseball.

"They want an owner in place before opening day if at all possible," a source involved in the sales process said of baseball's leaders. "It will be very tight. Everything will have to go smoothly.

"The time line is variable," added the source, who asked not to be identified.

Ricketts, who lived across the street from Wrigley Field while attending college and met his wife in the ballpark's bleacher seats, is chief executive of Incapital LLC and the son of the founder of TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. He was advised in the deal by Galatioto Sports Partners in New York.

Tribune, which owns the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times newspapers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month due to its heavy debt load and the weak U.S. publishing sector. It put the Cubs on the block in April 2007, when Tribune agreed to an $8.2 billion buyout led by real estate magnate Sam Zell.