Mar 30, 2024

I recently learned that the Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx are no longer for sale, as Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore missed a March 27 deadline for completing their purchase of a control stake. The team owner, Glen Taylor, once viewed Rodriguez and Lore as saviors who pledged to keep the team in Minnesota, but relations soured over the past year. The pair didn’t receive a heads-up about the announcement, despite already owning nearly 40% of the team.

In other news, Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years behind bars for his role in defrauding FTX customers, investors, and lenders, marking the final chapter of crypto and venture capital’s most embarrassing story. Additionally, there were several venture capital deals, including Brandtech Group raising $115m in Series C funding, Skyflow raising $30m in Series B funding, and Vizcom raising $20m in Series A funding. There were also private equity deals, such as Apollo agreeing to buy a majority stake in auto parts supplier Panasonic Automotive from Panasonic Holdings for around $2b and Flexpoint Ford agreeing to buy a majority stake in Accuserve, a property repair services platform, from Aquiline Capital Partners.

Lastly, the corporate debt maturity wall is crumbling, as the amount of high yield debt coming due in 2024-2026 has been cut by 40%, or $329 billion, thanks to a flurry of refinancing activity. This represents one of the most aggressive instances of maturity extension in the history of leveraged finance.

Stay Well!