Look Who’s on List of Nets Investors

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The New York Sun

The list of investors who helped Bruce Ratner in his successful bid to buy the New Jersey Nets includes a city planning commissioner, L. Dennis Kozlowski, the rapper Jay-Z, and the mystery novelist Mary Higgins Clark.


Groups opposed to the idea of the Nets being moved to Brooklyn have been searching for ammunition against Mr. Ratner, and the list could shed light on how he was able to cobble together the $300 million bid for the team and what avenues he may take to win approval of the project.


“There is a direct conflict of interest having a city planning commissioner invest in a project she has the power to influence,” a spokesman for Develop-Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, Daniel Goldstein, said of Dolly Williams, who is listed as a Ratner investor. “We will be combing through this list to find other potential conflicts.”


Mr. Ratner’s plan is to move the Nets to Downtown Brooklyn, where he hopes to build a $2.5 billion residential and commercial project that would include a Frank Gehry-designed arena.


The City Planning Commission maintains that Ms. Williams will recuse herself from the Nets project. “No general project plan has come in front of the Planning Commission, the developer has only had informal discussions with the department officials,” the agency’s spokeswoman, Rachaele Raynoff, said. “When it does come in front of the commission, we expect [Ms. Williams] to recuse herself.”


The Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz, appointed Ms. Williams to the commission in 2002.She is the owner of A. Williams Construction with her husband, Adonijah, who is also an investor.


Opponents of the Nets stadium are demanding that Ms. Williams either give up her investment stake in the Nets or step down as a commissioner. They plan to file a formal complaint with the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board later this week.


“Recusing yourself doesn’t mean anything, because they still talk to whoever they want, and can remain involved,” Mr. Goldstein said. “We are going to make a big stink about this.”


General counsel for the Conflicts of Interest Board, Wayne Hawley, would not comment on the case. A spokeswoman for Mr. Ratner, Beth Davidson, also had no comment on the investor list.


A former chief executive of Tyco, Dennis Kozlowski, and his daughters Cheryl and Sandra are also listed as investors as a result of their membership in the CYO Group, which owned the Nets before selling the team to Mr. Ratner. Earlier this month, CYO Group was persuaded to retain a minority stake worth nearly $60 million after a handful of unnamed Ratner investors backed out. The move enabled the NBA to unanimously approve the sale.


Tyco’s former compensation committee chairman, Frank Walsh, who pleaded guilty to securities fraud and testified in the $600 million embezzlement case in exchange for a guarantee he would avoid jail time, is also listed as an investor with CYO Group.


CYO Group, which plans to distribute the Nets shares to its investors, chose to retain a piece of the team rather than wait for Mr. Ratner to drum up new investors. “The financing enabled the deal to close, and was a better option than waiting an indefinite period until other investors could be found,” said the president of CYO Group, Edwin Stier.


As for Mr. Kozlowski and Mr. Walsh, sources say it is their intention to liquidate their positions in the near future.


Other investors on the list, first published by the Brooklyn Papers, include the rapper Jay-Z; the head of Warner Music Group, Lyor Cohen; an investment banker and chairman of the Brooklyn Museum, Robert Rubin; the mystery writer Mary Higgins Clark; Aetos Capital’s president, James Allwin; philanthropist Marilyn Taub; CB Richard Ellis’s chief executive, Mary Ann Tighe; lawyer Lewis Katz, and Cooper Square Realty’s president, David Kuperberg.


A number of Mr. Ratner’s family members are also investors, including his brother, constitutional rights lawyer Michael Ratner, and his daughters, Elizabeth and Rebecca Ratner.


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