At age 47, Tom Ricketts is the youngest controlling owner of a Chicago sports franchise.
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He and his three siblings — all of whom sit on the Cubs’ five-member board of directors — never have suggested his role as chairman will change. And unlike other Chicago teams, the Cubs lack the involvement of younger generations whose presence could signal a transition. In fact, none of Tom Ricketts’ children has graduated high school.
With plans for stadium upgrades, a huge video scoreboard in left field and an adjacent hotel now approved by City Council, the Rickettses are just beginning to shape a franchise Forbes values at $1 billion. But should Tom no longer be interested in or capable of leading the team, the board of Chicago Baseball Holdings LLC, the team’s holding company, would decide who comes next.
“The chairman is elected by the board, and should Tom ever be unable or unwilling to serve as chair, the board would select a successor,” Dennis Culloton, the Ricketts family spokesman, said in a statement. Tom, who lives in Wilmette, declined comment.
The Rickettses — Tom, Laura, Peter and Todd — hold 95 percent of the franchise through a trust established by their parents, Joe and Marlene Ricketts.
In addition to the siblings, Chicago Baseball Holdings’ fifth board member is Tribune Co.’s general counsel and executive vice president Edward Lazarus. The Chicago-based media company retained a 5 percent stake in the team after entering into a joint venture with the Ricketts — rather than an outright sale — to avoid massive taxes.
Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade whose primary residence is in Wyoming, is not a board member of the team. But he is the president of a Wyoming-based company, RPTC Inc., that manages the trust that bought the Cubs. His four children and attorney David Larson round out the board of RPTC.
Everyone on RPTC’s board gets one vote. But in practice, the team is managed a level below RPTC, by the board of Chicago Baseball Holdings, whose members would select the next person to lead the Cubs, according to Culloton.
Joe Ricketts took TD Ameritrade, then known as AmeriTrade and a pioneer in online trading, public in 1997. He retired from the TD Ameritrade board in 2011. His children have varied backgrounds, and two are involved in the company.
Tom Ricketts is the founder of an investment bank, InCapital LLC. His sister, Laura, is a Chicago lawyer turned philanthropist, liberal donor and gay-rights activist. Todd, who lives in Wilmette, owns bike shops there and in Highland Park and manages his own investments. And Pete, who lives in Omaha, Neb., ran unsuccessfully in 2006 for U.S. Senate in Nebraska, where he invests in startups and is active in Republican politics. Todd and Pete sit on the board of TD Ameritrade.
“The dynamic among siblings is great,” Tom Ricketts said at a June 11 luncheon for a minority mentoring program, LINK Unlimited. “We’re all very close. We all grew up in Omaha. But we all went to college in Chicago. We’ve lived together for years. We live near each other. We’re all really good friends. So when there are those kind of disagreements or just differences of opinion at a board level, it really isn’t that unnatural. It’s just like being around the house.”
The family gained control of the franchise for $845 million at the height of the recession. It contributed $150 million in cash to Chicago Baseball Holdings and lent it another $248.8 million. The family also borrowed $425 million from five banks, some of which has been refinanced.
To cover the down payment, the family sold about $403 million worth of TD Ameritrade stock in February 2009, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. According to a July 12 filing, Joe Ricketts, his wife and two dynasty trusts in their names still own nearly 68 million TD Ameritrade shares, which were valued at about $1.83 billion as of Wednesday.
TD Ameritrade “just got too big to be a family business anymore,” Tom Ricketts said at the luncheon. He later added: “So when we were talking about doing the Cubs, one of the big draws for us was to go back to a family business that won’t be always under pressure to grow beyond a family business, to grow too big. It just feels like (the Cubs) would be a family business forever.”