It appears as though the Milwaukee Bucks will have a new owner in the coming months. Reports indicate that Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry has reached a deal to sell his portion of the team to Jimmy and Dee Haslam for $3.5B.
The deal represents the 2nd highest figure ever paid for an NBA franchise, trailing only the recently completed sale of the Phoenix Suns.
With the agreement, which still needs to be approved by the NBA’s board of governors, Lasry completes a tidy piece of business which will see him recoup a nearly seven-fold profit on his initial investment.
The 63 year old private equity manager purchased the club from Herb Kohl in 2014 for $550M, and helped redevelop Milwaukee’s downtown core with the creation of the “Deer District” around the club’s new arena.
The icing on the cake for Lasry is the fact that although he will no longer have any official ties to the team, he will retain most of the real estate holdings surrounding the Fiserv Forum area moving forward.
The Avenue Capital Group CEO won’t be leaving the sports sector entirely, as he was an early investor in Major League Pickleball, and could look to reinvest in other professional sports franchises as well.
New owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam are no strangers to the world of professional sports as they’re also the owners of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns and MLS’s Columbus Crew.
While the sale is not yet official, it’s largely expected to be approved without issue at the NBA level when the other franchise ownership groups next convene.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner
Photo: Keith Allison. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.