Mike Ilitch
When you've got plenty of assets, you can do some maneuvering with your finances.
That's just what Mike Ilitch has done with Comerica Park and the new hockey arena.
Bill Shea and Robert Snell of Crain's Detroit Business report:
A complex series of financial moves by Mike Ilitch last year included a previously unreported refinancing of Comerica Park and culminated in the pizza mogul tapping his portfolio of assets to financially backstop the new Detroit Red Wings hockey arena, Crain's Detroit Business has learned.
Public records and interviews illustrate how Ilitch, 86, pledged pieces of his family's $5.5 billion empire to build the hockey arena and capitalized on the soaring value of the Detroit Tigers, his other professional sports team, to refinance the baseball stadium's remaining private construction debt.
The Ilitch organization did not disclose how much Comerica Park debt was refinanced, or how much savings was realized by the refinancing through Comerica Bank. The initial loan in 1997 was $140 million.
