Oilers sold to Daryl Katz for $200M

The Edmonton Oilers have been sold to local billionaire Daryl Katz for $200 million, pending the approval of the NHL.

All 34 members of the Edmonton Investors Group agreed Tuesday to sell their shares in the franchise to Katz, who has spent 10 months trying to work out a deal.

"This [unanimity] is a terrific level of  support that will enable us to move forward with the process of securing NHL approval and conclude this transaction," Katz said in a statement.

League approval often takes six to eight weeks.

The EIG, formed a decade ago to prevent the team from relocating to Houston, struck a 10-year, $20-million deal with Katz for the naming rights to Edmonton's Northlands Coliseum, renaming it Rexall Place in 2003.

But the EIG remained reluctant to sell the team outright to the reclusive owner of the Rexall pharmacy empire — until he made an offer it simply couldn't refuse.

Katz initially offered $145 million for the Oilers, but he sweetened the pot four times to $22,000 a share for 7,492 shares — or double the original purchase price.

Earlier this month, EIG chairman Bill Butler recommended that shareholders refuse to sell until Katz agreed — in writing — to keep the team in Edmonton and commit $100 million to a new facility to replace 34-year-old Rexall Place.

Pekarsky refused to divulge details of the response, but Katz, who lives in a $20-million mansion in the city's river valley, had expressed a willingness to build a training facility for the team at the University of Alberta, and spend the maximum for players under the salary cap.