Ares Capital Management’s billionaire founder Tony Ressler has entered the bidding for the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, fronting a group that includes former All-Star Grant Hill, three people familiar with the matter said.
The people requested anonymity because the bidding process is private.
Ressler declined to comment through a spokesman, Bill Mendel at Mendel Communications.
Hill declined to comment, and Hawks spokesman Garin Narain has said the club will not comment on the sale process until it is complete.
The Ressler-led group also includes BTIG’s Steven Starker and Marquis Jet cofounder Jesse Itzler, one of the people said.
Mark Rachesky, whose MHR Fund Management is the largest investor in Lions Gate Entertainment, is no longer a part of the group, the people said.
Aaron Palash, a spokesman for Rachesky at Joele Frank, declined to comment.
BRUCE LEVENSON
The Hawks hired Goldman Sachs Group and Inner Circle Sports to manage the sale of the team, which is on the market after lead owner Bruce Levenson self-disclosed a racially insensitive e-mail in July last year.
Goldman Sachs spokesman Andrew Williams declined to comment. Inner Circle Sports founder Rob Tilliss did not return an e-mail request for comment.
Levenson’s group bought the basketball team for US$189 million in 2004.
Ressler and Hill were part of a group that unsuccessfully bid to purchase the Los Angeles Clippers, who were bought by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for a record US$2 billion.
OTHER BIDS
Hill and former NBA player Junior Bridgeman had been part of another group bidding on the Hawks.
That group, which included ComPsych founder Richard Chaifetz, had been eliminated from the process.
Memphis Grizzlies limited partner Steve Kaplan is fronting another group bidding on the team, which are to enter the playoffs as the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
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