Dealing the cards: Gateway Group gets $90 million in loans to fund buy. (Gateway Acquisition Group buys St. Louis Cardinals and Busch Stadium)

The new owners of the St. Louis Cardinals are financing about $90 million of the $150 million purchase price, according to people familiar with the deal.

Gateway Acquisition Group, which includes Southwest Bank Chairman Andrew "Drew" Baur, borrowed about $45 million from Provident Bank in Cincinnati to fund the purchase of the Cardinals and the stadium from Anheuser-Busch, those people said. Another $45 million was borrowed from a local bank to buy property surrounding the stadium also owned by Anheuser-Busch, they said.

Baur declined to comment on the financing amounts, but in an interview this past week he said the lenders in the deal were Boatmen's Bank, Southwest Bank and Provident.

The group is thought to be putting up about $60 million in cash for the purchase, which is scheduled to close Feb. 15.

"The buyers have put a significant amount of equity into this deal," said an individual close to the group. "This is not a highly leveraged deal."

There were no contingencies in the contract and Anheuser-Busch isn't funding any of the purchase price, Baur said. He declined to give percentage ownership of the team, but DeWitt is said to have the deepest …