April 4 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Tom Hicks’s holding company for the Texas Rangers baseball team defaulted on $525 million in loans after missing interest payments, Bloomberg data show.

Hicks Sports Group, which also owns the Dallas Stars hockey team, is involved in negotiations with its lenders over the terms and covenants of the loans, Hicks Sports said in an e- mailed statement. Describing the situation as a “business dispute,” the team owner decided to withhold last week’s interest payment “as part of its negotiations,” according to the statement.

“We are simply asking the lenders to be reasonable,” Tom Hicks, 63, said in the statement. “They need to understand that these important assets must be managed with long-term perspective and a commitment to winning.”

The company missed payment on a $350 million term loan with an interest rate of 2.5 percentage points above the London interbank offered rate, or Libor; a $100 million so-called second-lien loan, with an interest rate of 5.5 percentage points plus Libor; and a $75 million revolving bank loan that pays 2 percentage points over Libor.

“Like so many other companies and institutions, HSG has been impacted by a global credit crisis which no one could have anticipated,” Tom Hicks said. “The company is not asking for additional money; it is only asking for full access to the interest reserve account and revolving credit line as well as some amendments in the debt covenants.”

The loans were arranged by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Barclays Plc in 2006 and mature in 2010 and 2011, according to Bloomberg data.

Separate From Football

The loans are related to the Rangers and Stars, and not to the English Premier League’s Liverpool Football Club, which Hicks also owns, the statement said.

The default will have “absolutely no impact on operations of either team,” the company said. Hicks Sports’ finances are “completely separate” from Liverpool F.C., Hicks Acquisition Co., Hicks Equity Partners and Hicks Holdings, as well as Tom Hicks’s personal and family interests, according to the statement.

Last month Forbes estimated Tom Hicks’s net worth at $1 billion.

Hicks and Montreal Canadiens owner George Gillett, bought Liverpool for 174 million pounds ($258 million) in February 2007 and assumed 45 million pounds in debt. Gillette is considering selling his stake in both the soccer and hockey teams, Canadiens President Pierre Boivin said in a statement last month. Hicks said in February he wasn’t selling his stake in the team.

Last week, MLB.com reported that Hicks had hired Merrill Lynch & Co. to explore selling as much as 49 percent of the Rangers, citing Hicks. The Web site said Hicks was also seeking to sell a minority stake in the Stars.

Hicks bought the Stars for $84 million in February 1996 and the Rangers in January 1998 for $250 million from a group headed by former President George W. Bush.

To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Kuriloff in New York at akuriloff@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 4, 2009 00:05 EDT