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 "I believe they are the right people and the right fit at the
right time," Kohl said at a news conference in Milwaukee announcing
the purchase as Lasry and Edens grinned nearby.
The Bucks, valued by Forbes at $405 million and ranked as the last
team in the 30-member league, have been on the block since late last
year, Kohl said. He said Lasry and Edens, who are lifelong
basketball fans, won the bid in part because of their commitment to
keep the team in Wisconsin.
Lasry runs Avenue Capital together with his sister, Sonia Gardner,
and Edens co-founded Fortress Investment Group.
The two men, whose firms are headquartered in New York, emerged as
potential buyers only recently and beat out a group led by
Seattle-based former Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve
Ballmer.
Kohl, a Wisconsin native, bought the team 29 years ago, and said he
was committed to keeping it in his home state.
Lasry said that for him and Edens buying the team is a "dream come
true" and underscored the pair's intention to build a new arena and
help the team win a championship. "We have a strong desire, some
would say an insane desire, to win," Lasry said at the news
conference.
The National Basketball Association still needs to finalize the
deal.
Lasry and Edens now join a growing list of Wall Street billionaires
who have turned their love of sports into team ownerships.
[to top of second column] |
Steven A. Cohen, whose SAC Capital Advisors changed its name this
month to Point72 Advisors after pleading guilty to insider trading,
owns a minority stake in the New York Mets baseball team. Jeffrey
Vinik, who once ran Fidelity's Magellan Fund before launching his
own hedge fund, owns the Tampa Bay Lightning hockey team and John W.
Henry, a former commodities trader, owns the Boston Red Sox baseball
team.
The Bucks, which last year had an operating profit of $11 million on
$109 million of revenue, according to Forbes, hired Allen & Company
to find buyers for the team.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Boston;
editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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