Domer friend called me tonight and said "After watching Saban on 60 Minutes tonight, there is no way in hell Nick Saban goes to Texas." Supposedly 'Bama AD was on too saying "Nick Saban was the best investment the University of Alabama has ever made."
I think Nick does have money issues and wants a clean slate at Texas.
I think your 1st sentence is correct. No way is Saban coming. Why do you think he has money problems at 5 mil a year?
The following insight is extremely important in this process, and one many people don't know about (I was clueless until reading this for the first time). I think this is Saban's "why".
From another well respected poster:
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I have not spoken to Nick Saban, but have heard the following from a couple of level 2 sources:
"Nick Saban invested a good deal of his money in real estate partnerships that have performed very poorly. All of these partnerships were from Alabama's version of a good ole boy network, and they have fallen apart for a variety of reasons including poor asset selection, poor management and poor execution. And he is absolutely pissed off and thinks that a number of the important boosters are morons."
Now, I am not saying this is true. What I am saying is that this is what I was told, and I was told this by a person that heard it from Saban's advisors and friends and middle-men. It has also been reported on various news feeds. I guess its level 2ish.
So, just for fun, lets deconstruct Saban's income for the last 10 years. Lets say he has been making from 2 to 6mm a year for the last 10 years. Lets say that its averaged 3mm, so he earned 30mm pre-tax. With a 6% top rate in tha state of alabama, lets just say his marginal rate was 40%. So he took home 18mm over that period. Lets say he spent a million a year on his 2 or 3 houses, and because his wife is a shopper, who knows. This means that his 18mm take home gets dwindled to 8mm of cash that he could invest. Lets say he takes half and puts it into liquid stuff, that has not moved much (well it went up and down, but it has not moved much) and he has 4mm in the bank. This would mean that he had his last 4mm for private equity deals. Well, if a couple of them fall apart, this would explain why Saban might feel poor. He might not have moved his net worth up meaningfully over the last decade, especially if his 4mm of private equity deals blew up (for those that don't know it, private equity deals are typically highly-levered, and its not uncommon for poor investments to end up losing all of the principal).
Now, lets contrast this with hanging out with the guys in Dallas and Houston, which when combined rival NYC and beat any other city in the US in terms of being able to produce private equity deals. Most of the real estate and private equity deals based in the south west have been working and working really well (with energy PE deals regularly clocking 25% IRRs and RE partnerships all working with over 20% IRRs). And these guys are summering in Nantucket and playing golf at Cypress and stuff. And they are interacting with global players, as Texas is the center of the oil universe. So, saban figures out if he was investing side by side with these guys for the last decade, his 4mm would be 20mm instead of zero.
so then you say Nick can make 8mm a year for the next 5 years at UT, that is 40mm pretax, and there is no state tax, so that is 26mm after tax. And if his burn rate continues to be a million a year, he blows through six million and has 20 to invest over 6 years. But if you take that twenty and put it into 20% IRR investments, he has a shot to get to a hundred million in a decade.
Its entirely possible that Nick Saban has ambitions on not only being the greatest coach ever, but he wants to get to $100mm. That will not happen at Alabama if he is investing and making 5%. He has a shot to do it at UT because he will have access to all of the best private equity deals. Its just like Arnold Swartzaneger investing in Google and stuff. The only way to get access to this is to be hanging out with the BMDs and all the other finance guys. And my God if Tom Hicks called 30 of his friends and said "you need to show Nick your very best deals, treat him as friends and family, and charge him no fee and no carry", nick would be inundated with incredible opportunities. I am sure Tom would even screen them for Nick. And Nick would get way richer. There is nothing like that at Alabama.
I invest with a lot of my friends in deals, and when we are together we talk about those deals, plus prospective deals. I can tell you that being in bad deals is absolutely awful. And being in a great deal is very fun. I am sure that when Nick plays golf in florida with his buddies, and they talk about their investments, and Nick thinks about how his have done, he feels like you feel when you land it clean onto 17 at Sawgrass but then putt the ball into the water....really bad.
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