Werner Group Signs to Purchase Padres : Baseball: Television producer will run the team. He and nine partners are expected to pay Kroc $75 million.

An investment group of 10 Los Angeles and San Diego businessmen, led by television producer Tom Werner, signed a letter of intent Monday to purchase the San Diego Padres, club owner Joan B. Kroc said.

Terms of the agreement were not released, but sources have set the price at $75 million.

The deal still must be approved by the other 25 major league baseball owners. Jerry Kapstein, Kroc’s son-in-law who has been handling sale negotiations, said he expects no difficulty obtaining that approval. Kapstein said the purchase could be completed within 60 days.

Werner said he was not prepared to make any announcements concerning any possible personnel changes until after his group assumes control of the team. He said he will seek advice from Kapstein during the transition. Kapstein, who took over as the team’s chief executive Feb. 22, said he has no plans to remain with the team after the sale.

The Kroc family has owned the team since 1974. Kroc said she is selling the team so she can spend more time with her family.

Werner, 39, will serve as the investment group’s chairman and managing partner. He is a partner in Carsey-Werner Co., which produces “The Cosby Show” and “Roseanne,” two of the highest-rated shows on television. The investment group consists of Werner and nine general partners, eight from San Diego. Individual shares were not disclosed, but sources in the group said Werner will own less than 50% of the club.

“Each one of us has a strong commitment to the San Diego Padres, and we are dedicated to sustaining the tradition of this great ballclub in the years ahead,” Werner said.

Kroc said, “From the beginning, I said it was very important to me that there would be a local connection. We never considered anyone that wasn’t somehow bound to San Diego.”

One of Kroc’s considerations in selling the team is that the new owner would keep it in San Diego beyond the team’s current lease, which expires March 31, 2000. The agreement among the partners requires that 75% of the ownership approve any decision to move or sell the club, according to a member of the ownership group. He added that, since San Diego interests will control more than 25% of the team, any move seems unlikely.

Three of the members of Werner’s group will serve as vice chairmen. They are Russell Goldsmith, chairman and chief executive officer of Republic Pictures and a former Harvard classmate of Werner’s; Art Engel of San Diego, president of Southwest Marine, a ship repair company; and Art Rivkin, former owner of Coca Cola Bottling Co. of San Diego.

Rivkin said the San Diego group came together in December, and it was through discussions with Wolfe and the offices of major league baseball that the group of San Diego businessmen merged with Werner’s interests.

The ownership group combines Werner’s business acumen in the entertainment field and the stability of local San Diego ownership. It was a deal in which each side said it needed the other.

The San Diego partners needed Werner’s interest in directly overseeing the club, and Werner needed the San Diego group to satisfy Kroc’s and major league baseball’s interest in maintaining local influence with the team.

“Tom Werner is going to be the boss,” Rivkin said. “We are going to be on the board of directors, on committees, be actively involved, but Werner calls the shots.”

Werner said he will purchase a residence in the San Diego area.

He said his work in the entertainment field should help him in running the Padres.

“My background is in television production,” Werner said. “I run a successful television production company, and I feel I knew a lot about audiences.”

The rest of the general partners are San Diego businessmen: Malin Burnham, chairman of John Burnham & Co. and the First National Bank; Jack Goodall Jr., chairman, president and chief executive officer of Foodmaker Inc., owner of the Jack In The Box restaurant chain; Leon Parma, president and owner of Coast Distributing Co., the San Diego distributor for Anheuser-Busch products; L. Robert Payne, chairman of Grossmont Bank and and co-owner of the Doubletree Hotel in San Diego; Ernest Rady, chairman and president of American Assets Inc., and investment and real estate development firm; and Scott Wolfe, a partner in the law firm of Lathman & Watkins.