Lakers Owner Sells Team for Record $12.5 Billion Amid Federal Probe
From the desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law
Guggenheim Partners CEO Mark Walter has sold his majority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers just as federal regulators investigate potential financial improprieties at insurance and annuities companies that he owns, InvestmentNews reports.
Multiple reports confirm that former Disney CEO Bob Iger and Thrive Capital CEO Josh Kushner bought the Lakers from Walter for $12.5 billion, a record-breaking price for a sports franchise, according to InvestmentNews. Walter had purchased his controlling stake in the team from the Buss family, who had owned the franchise since 1979, just over a year earlier, selling now for $2.5 billion more than the $10 billion valuation he paid in June 2025.
InvestmentNews reports that this quick turnaround came less than a month after Bloomberg reported that the FBI, the SEC, and the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan are investigating Delaware Life Insurance Co. and Clear Spring Life and Annuity Co. The probe examines whether these insurers failed to disclose that billions of dollars of their private credit holdings actually backed other parts of Walter's business ventures. After the companies received grand jury subpoenas in February, an internal investigation uncovered "errors" in their financial reporting, according to Bloomberg's reporting, as cited by InvestmentNews.
Delaware Life and Clear Spring operate as subsidiaries of Group 1001, under Walter's TWG Global holding company. TWG Global said in a July 20 statement to Bloomberg that it is aware of and cooperating with the investigation.
InvestmentNews reports that Delaware Life previously had told regulators that related parties connected to Walter's other businesses accounted for roughly 3 percent of its invested assets, about $1.4 billion. The corrected figure now exceeds $17 billion, representing at least 39 percent of the company's total invested assets as of the end of 2025.
Peter Dziedzic, a financial services marketing professional who co-founded Life Insurance Strategies Group, told InvestmentNews that selling a sports asset at the holding company level does not by itself reveal anything about a life insurer's statutory surplus, since any liquidity reaching the insurer would show up in filings as a separate transaction. He noted that money moving the other direction, through an extraordinary dividend request, would raise more concern.
S&P Global Ratings revised Delaware Life's outlook from stable to negative following the new disclosures, while affirming its A- credit and financial strength rating. Delaware Life since has begun a remediation plan to reduce its affiliated investment exposure. InvestmentNews also reports that, following the Lakers sale, TWG Global has approached investment firms about deals to raise cash to help pay down loans held by its insurers under federal scrutiny.
Eccleston Law LLC represents investors and financial advisors nationwide in securities, employment, transition, regulatory, and disciplinary matters.
Tags: eccleston, eccleston law, federal investigation, securities law, financial regulation, guggenheim partners, insurance and annuities
