Who owns Phoenix Suns as its sale rumors heat up?
According to Tuesday’s announcement, mortgage entrepreneur Mat Ishbia and the Phoenix Suns and Mercury owner Robert Sarver have reached a preliminary agreement for Ishbia to pay $4 billion to own a large part of the stakes of each team.
The completion of the deal is anticipated to take several weeks. Ishbia will go through an NBA verification procedure before the NBA’s board of governors can approve the sale. Ishbia is chairman, president, and chief executive of United Wholesale Mortgage, which calls itself the country’s largest mortgage lender.
The board isn’t supposed to meet before March, but if the vetting procedure is finished earlier, it may meet remotely. Ishbia was recently valued at $5.1 billion by Forbes. Ishbia played for Tom Izzo’s Michigan State team in the past, and he was a part of the Spartans’ 2000 NCAA championship squad.
Ishbia’s business is centered around teamwork, and he frequently mentions the principles he discovered while competing for Tom Izzo and Mateen Cleaves at Michigan State. Even an on-site full-court gym and an unofficial basketball league are available at his firm.
In a statement on Tuesday evening, Ishbia said, “I am extremely excited to be the next Governor of the Phoenix Suns and Mercury…Basketball is at the core of my life, from my high school days as a player to the honor of playing for Coach Izzo and winning a national title at Michigan State University. I’ve spent the last two decades building my mortgage business, United Wholesale Mortgage, into the number one mortgage lender in America and I’m confident that we can bring that same level of success to these great organizations on and off the floor.”