Despite Mark Walter continuously saying none of his other sports assets are up for sale, Sportico broke news this week that Walter has been privately shopping the Cadillac Formula 1 team. Walter hasn’t hired an investment bank to broker the transaction, which likely means he wants to move quickly and save money on fees. And while no deal has been finalized, the Wall Street Journal reports Fenway Sports Group (owner of the Boston Red Sox) has emerged as a potential buyer.
Anyone who reads this newsletter isn’t surprised by this announcement. Even though Walter released a statement this summer saying the Lakers sale was a one-off transaction and none of his other sports investments would be affected by the DOJ’s investigation into his insurance firms, the numbers still didn’t make sense.
The $12.5 billion Lakers sale gave Walter some of the cash he needed to backfill the loans federal investigators were looking into, but he still needed to liquidate about $5 billion or more. That’s ultimately why Walter sold his stake in Chelsea and is now looking to sell the WNBA’s Sparks and the Cadillac Formula 1 team.
But that’s the kind of information you can read anywhere. The more important questions revolve around how much Walter will profit from a sale, how much money the team lost last year, what Fenway Sports Group would actually be buying, why one of the firms Walter is accused of washing money through helped finance a motorsports facility in Indiana, what this means for the future of the Cadillac Formula 1 team, and why a $3 billion valuation might be justified.
Let’s get into it…
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