Laurene Powell Jobs, a prominent philanthropist and one of the country’s wealthiest people, is selling her stake in Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE) to private equity firm Arctos Partners and Qatar Investment Authority, a Qatari sovereign wealth fund, MSE announced on Wednesday.
MSE owns the NBA’s Washington Wizards, the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, the NHL’s Washington Capitals, the G League’s Capital City Go-Go and Monumental Sports Network.
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Powell Jobs, whose late husband was Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, has owned a minority share of Monumental since 2017. She runs the Emerson Collective, which is known for its venture capital investments and philanthropic work.
It is not clear how much of her stake QIA and Arctos will each take.
QIA bought into Monumental Sports in 2023, taking a 5 percent stake. That deal came just months after the NBA changed its rules to allow sovereign wealth funds to buy into its teams.
Arctos is a leading sports private equity firm. It was one of the first to invest in NBA teams and has taken stakes in dozens of teams across professional sports. In the NBA, it holds ownership stakes in the Golden State Warriors, Utah Jazz, Sacramento Kings and Philadelphia 76ers.
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Individual sovereign wealth funds and private equity companies can own a maximum of 20 percent of a team, and a team can sell no more than 30 percent to them in total. They can only be passive investors, with no governing ability.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards, Washington Mystics, NHL, NBA, WNBA, Sports Business
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