Hasso Plattner becomes new face of San Jose Sharks ownership group
David Pollak Bay Area News Group
Hasso Plattner becomes new face of San Jose Sharks ownership group
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East Bay Times
SAN JOSE — Despite a change at the top of the organizational chart, the new face of the Sharks ownership group assured fans Wednesday that the team’s priorities remain the same.

“We still want to have a championship team and win the Stanley Cup,” Hasso Plattner said. “That’s clearly the No. 1 objective of a sports club; otherwise you should not be in the sports business.”

The German high-tech billionaire who cofounded business software giant SAP, Plattner has been the majority shareholder of Sharks Sports & Entertainment for the past several years. But he operated in a secondary role while Kevin Compton and Stratton Sclavos served as the ownership group’s executive committee.

Plattner said the two men approached him about selling their shares last year, and he agreed to buy them. No financial terms were disclosed, and Plattner declined to say what percentage of the team he now owns.

Plattner, 69, stressed that the current management structure would remain in place, with general manager Doug Wilson responsible for hockey operations and executive vice-president Malcolm Bordelon in charge of the business side.

While the primary goal of a Stanley Cup championship has not changed, the team’s mission now includes another sentence indicating “we also want to try to achieve a sustainable business.”

Compton and Sclavos said last summer that the team lost $15 million during the 2011-12 season. The financial picture didn’t get any better with the 119-day lockout that reduced the regular-season schedule from 82 games to 48, Plattner said.

“On the other hand, and I said this to the employees today, ‘Don’t worry. My credit line is good enough,’ ” added the man whom Forbes ranked last year as the 14th wealthiest tech magnate, with a net worth of $7.2 billion.

The Sharks have spent close to the salary cap in recent years, part of the team’s commitment to putting a competitive team on the ice every season. Plattner said that commitment remains.

“If anybody is asking you if there is a change in the strategy or the ambition, no,” he said.

Plattner said there would be no radical changes and the team would continue to operate without a chief executive officer. But instead of Compton and Sclavos serving as the executive committee working with the team’s six executive vice-presidents, a new board would be put in place to serve in that same capacity.

The board will be made up of Plattner, minority owner Gary Valenzuela, former Sun Microsystems CEO and longtime hockey buff Scott McNealy and Rouven Westphal, one of Plattner’s financial advisers.

Plattner’s competitive side has been on display in both the business and sports worlds for years with some overlap. He has gone up against Oracle CEO Larry Ellison in the marketplace, courtrooms and high seas where the two have sailed against each other competitively. Meeting with reporters Wednesday, Plattner himself brought up one notorious moment when he declared, “I did not moon Larry Ellison” — a yachting story that has been circulating since 1996.

Plattner also owns five golf courses — four in Africa as well as CordeValle, the resort about 45 minutes south of San Jose where the Frys.com Open has been played the last three years. He is building a house at CordeValle, and has another one in Portola Valley, closer to SAP’s Palo Alto offices.

His schedule and German tax laws limit Plattner to about four months a year in the Bay Area, and that gives him a chance to attend about 15 Sharks games in a normal season, plus playoffs. The rest he watches on TV or a personal computer.

Compton and Sclavos cited “private reasons” for their decision to sell their shares, according to Plattner.

“The team is lucky to have Hasso as an owner, and I’m just happy to be a great fan,” said Compton, a longtime venture capitalist. “It was just time for me and my family to move on.”

The timing comes less than three weeks after the formal end of the NHL lockout that grew increasingly ugly between owners and players, with fans, arena employees and downtown businesses caught in the crossfire. If that experience soured Compton on the process, he was not saying.

But Plattner acknowledged he was encouraged by the fact hockey fans have returned to arenas since the season started 10 days ago.

Plattner met with players before they took the ice for a morning practice at HP Pavilion, then the rest of the staff as well.

Coach Todd McLellan said that because Plattner has been part of the ownership group, there was never a “now what?” moment.

“It’s not like somebody in New York City came in today and bought the team, and nobody’s ever met him and doesn’t know what that individual may stand for or how he wants to approach the group,” the coach said.

Plattner will represent the team on the NHL board of governors, with Wilson and general counsel John Tortora continuing in the role of alternates.