Dylan Gambrell of the Ottawa Senators celebrates his second period goal during a game against the Buffalo Sabres.
ill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images
The Ottawa Senators’ search for a new owner has finally come to an end.
On Tuesday, the Senators released a statement announcing that a group headed by Michael Andlauer, a logistics billionaire, has agreed to purchase 90% of the club. The daughters of Canadian businessman Eugene Melnyk, the previous owner who passed away in 2022, will retain 10% through their father’s estate. The deal is subject to league approval. Multiple reports suggest the sale price will be close to $1 billion.
Reportedly born in France but raised in Montreal, Andlauer has spent more than three decades running Canadian logistics companies focused on healthcare. He founded Andlauer Transportation Services in 1991 and Associated Logistics Solutions in 1994. (Both have since changed their names.) Roughly 25 years later, he formed Andlauer Healthcare Group as a subsidiary of his management company to move several healthcare supply-chain businesses under one umbrella. It went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2019 and currently has a market capitalization of more than $1.4 billion. Andlauer owns a 52% stake worth roughly $750 million.
Coupled with proceeds from Andlauer’s 2019 IPO, cash from selling shares since the public listing and his other assets–which include a reported 10% to 20% stake in the Montreal Canadiens–Forbes estimates that Andlauer’s net worth exceeds $1 billion. Andlauer, who also cofounded Toronto-based private equity firm Bulldog Capital Partners, did not reply to a request for comment.
Despite being worth more than eight times the $92 million Melnyk paid in 2003 to purchase the team, the Senators are still one of the least valuable franchises in the league, according to Forbes’ latest estimates, ranking 24th, and most recently valued at $800 million. The reported $1 billion sale price, however, will set a new record for the NHL, exceeding the Pittsburgh Penguins sale to Fenway Sports Group at a $900 million valuation in 2021. Andlauer’s group is believed to include a slew of local investors and Toronto native and four-time Grammy winner Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye.
Andlauer’s love of hockey predates his pursuit of the Senators by two decades. He took over as majority owner of the American Hockey League’s Hamilton Bulldogs in 2004, after first investing a year earlier, and oversaw the club’s victory in the 2007 Calder Cup. In 2009, Andlauer invested in the Montreal Canadiens, now the third-most valuable NHL franchise at $1.85 billion, as part of a group led by Geoff Molson, the seventh-generation descendant of Molson Brewery founder John Molson. Andlauer, who has served as the team’s alternative governor, sold the Bulldogs to the Canadiens in 2015. That same year he bought the amateur Belleville Bulls and relocated them to Hamilton, where they won the Ontario Hockey League Championship in 2018 and 2022.
Once the deal closes, he will have to divest his stake in the Canadiens in order to comply with league ownership regulations. The NHL did not reply to a request for comment.
Andlauer will have his work cut out for him as the Senator muddle through the lengthy process of building a new arena. The franchise has struggled on the ice as well, failing to hoist the Stanley Cup since returning to the league in 1992. Ottawa won 11 championships from 1903 to 1934, during its original run, before a 58-year absence from the league.