B.C.-based group planning bid for Vancouver Whitecaps, minister says

British Columbia Jobs Minister Ravi Kahlon says the provincial government has been approached by a local group that wants to buy the Vancouver Whitecaps.

The potential B.C.-based bid for the Major League Soccer team comes after the announcement of a formal offer by a U.S. group to buy and relocate the team to Las Vegas last week.

"We just had a group that's reached out to us that has been organizing apparently for a few weeks to put a bid in for the Whitecaps," Kahlon told reporters in Victoria on Wednesday.

Kahlon called it "a positive development for Whitecaps fans and of course for the province."

He said the group was doing "due diligence" and he understood that it would share more information soon about a bid that is "grounded in a plan to keep the team here."

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Kahlon, who is a longtime Whitecaps fan and season-ticket holder, said the group had contacted his office but wasn't seeking any help from the province.

He said the potential bidders "do seem serious."

A group led by billionaire businessman Grant Gustavson announced last week that it had submitted a bid to Major League Soccer to buy the Whitecaps that would include a privately financed, soccer-specific stadium in Las Vegas.

Gustavson, 30, is the grandson of Public Storage co-founder B. Wayne Hughes and the son of billionaire Tamara Gustavson, one of the company’s largest shareholders.

While Kahlon said he did not have a time frame for the local bidders going public, "I would say sooner would be better, because there's a lot of anxiety amongst Whitecaps fans that they want to see a local proponent come forward."

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