机构投资者评论Institutional Investor Review：资本向善 专业求真 有温度 有态度
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Joe Tsai, the current chairman of Alibaba, has landed two major events in his family business this month.
On the one hand, the NBA's Brooklyn Nets, which Tsai Chongxin bought for more than $3 billion a few years ago, are about to receive a check for 5 billion yuan from one of the world's richest families (the parent company received $688 million in investment), and on the other hand, Blue Pool Capital, the investment company launched by Tsai Chongxin in 2015, has recently raised a new fund of $500 million.
The landing of these two happy events is related to a figure who has a deep relationship with Alibaba and Tsai Chongxin, who is now Oliver Weisberg, CEO of Blue Pool Capital and former Alibaba investor.
Overall, under the chairmanship of Oliver Weisberg, Blue Pool Capital is quite bullish on the future of the sports sector, and has now begun a strategic transformation from a family-run model to an open asset management model.
An investment from Ali has achieved many years of cooperation
Blue Pool Capital was launched by Joe Tsai in 2015, with the participation of Jack Ma and Alibaba executives.
The current CEO of Blue Pool Capital, Oliver Weisberg, is a Harvard University alumnus who worked at Goldman Sachs in his early years, and represented Goldman Sachs in his investment in Alibaba when it was just starting out (invested in late 1999-early 2000 and served as a member of Alibaba's board of directors); In 2006, Oliver Weisberg joined Citadel, a hedge fund founded by billionaire Ken Griffin; After 9 years of work, he stepped down from his position as managing director in mid-2015 and officially joined Blue Pool Capital (as a partner of Blue Pool Capital in Hong Kong), which had just started operations, and officially "merged" with his old friend Joe Tsai.
Today, Oliver Weisberg is fluent in Chinese and is not only the CEO of Blue Pool Capital, but also the CEO of Blue Pool Capital's sports investment vehicle "J Tsai Sports", which is deeply in line with Tsai Chongxin's passion and vision in the sports field.
Sports fans are an NBA invisible "big guy"
Tsai Chongxin's love for sports is probably the second biggest identity label in addition to his "Alibaba" identity. He's a huge basketball fan (investing in basketball, football, hockey, sports media, and more).
Around 2018, Tsai bought a 49% stake in the NBA's Brooklyn Nets from Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, and then acquired the remaining 51% and the rights to operate the Barclays Center in 2019, "spending" a total of $3.5 billion (including debt).
Currently, Tsai and his wife, Clara Wu Tsai, and Oliver Weisberg, CEO of Blue Pool Capital, sit on the boards of the Brooklyn Nets, the New York Liberty (acquired from the Women's Basketball Association of the United States) and BSE Global, the parent company of the Barclays Center. On June 19 this year, "BSE Global" officially announced a cooperation with the Koch family in the United States - Julia Koch, one of the richest women in the world, and her family will acquire 15% of the shares of "BSE Global" (Tsai Chongxin and his family still retain control, holding 85% of the shares; The transaction is subject to final approval by the NBA Board of Governors, etc.).
IIR Note: Julia Koch is the widow of the late billionaire David Koch (died in 2019), Julia Koch and her three children inherited a 42% stake in Koch Industries from her husband, and according to the Forbes Global Billionaires Real-Time Ranking, Julia Koch and her family are currently worth about $65.4 billion. It is about 475.28 billion yuan, ranking 24th on the Forbes real-time list of global billionaires. David Koch's brother, Charles Koch, chairman of Koch Industries, is currently worth $59.5 billion, ranking 26th on the real-time charts.
According to Forbes and other media reports, the Koch family wrote a check for $688 million (of which $492 million was used to repay shareholder loans, and the Koch family will also receive the right of first refusal to acquire any control sale of "BSE Global" in the future), making the post-investment valuation of "BSE Global" reach $6 billion (including debt, up to 14 times PS!). ), becoming the highest-valued deal by an NBA team to date.
As for why "BSE Global can obtain such a high valuation, Forbes analysis said that the NBA league may reach an 11-year broadcast contract of up to $76 billion with TV broadcasters in the future, and the Nets, as the top team in the NBA, may receive considerable dividends from the NBA's increasing broadcast rights fees.
In fact, if you compare the different types of sports investments, investing in NBA teams is much more profitable than investing in other sports (PitchBook estimates that the average return on investment in Major League Baseball from 2002 to 2021 was 669%, the average return on investment in the National Hockey League was 467% over the same period, and the average return on investment in NBA teams was as high as 1057% over the same period).
It's easy to see why the ultra-rich are so interested in NBA teams these days, with Julia Koch, writing a check for $688 million to the Joe Tsai family, and saying that she was "honored to join the Joe Tsai family" to shape and advance the team's next step.
IIR Note: At the end of 2022, Mat Ishbia, CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage, a mortgage company, agreed to acquire the NBA team Phoenix Suns and the WNBA team Phoenix Mercury at a total valuation of $4 billion. Late last year, basketball legend Mark Cuban sold a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks to the Adelson family of Las Vegas Sands Corp. at a $3.5 billion valuation. Just recently, news broke that the Golden State Warriors, one of the NBA's most successful teams in recent years, were also rumored to be looking to sell their stakes, with a potential valuation of $7 billion.
In addition to the super-rich, private equity institutions have long been eyeing NBA teams, but due to the limitations of the NBA and not allowing private equity institutions to hold a majority stake in NBA teams (according to IIR inquiries, the NBA does not allow private equity institutions to have more than 30% ownership in the team, and a fund can only have a maximum of 20% ownership), and the "space" that private equity institutions can play is limited.
Among the limited number of private equity institutional participants is Blue Owl Capital, which is deeply involved in investing in several NBA teams. In 2020, it became the first fund to be licensed to buy LP shares in NBA teams (the fund is called "Dyal Homecourt", which is now part of the Blue Owl GP Strategic Capital Fund as a result of the merger), and currently Blue Owl Capital is a minority investor in at least three NBA teams: the Atlanta Hawks, the Sacramento Kings, and the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Blue Owl Capital is also a listed alternative asset investment company invested by Tsai Chongxin's Blue Pool Capital, and still retains a small stake (it was reduced earlier this year).
Look at more sports, family office transformation
At the end of March, Blue Pool CEO Oliver Weisberg expressed his enthusiasm for investing in sports at the Milken Institute's first Global Investors' Symposium in Hong Kong. He said that the sports sector will be the focus of Blue Pool Capital's investment in the future, and he even believes that sports has become an actual asset class now. ）。
In addition to a clear preference for sports in terms of investment direction, Blue Pool Capital has also recently made adjustments to its business strategy.
The US$500 million fund is part of Blue Pool Capital's new long-term strategy to open up its asset management business to external clients.
IIR, according to a report by Bloomberg, Blue Pool Capital's new fund "Harborside" attracted contributions from a sovereign wealth fund and a number of global family offices, and from the perspective of investment, it is to bet on hedge funds and private credit funds.
The "NBA" officially opened for business, and it will be a "strategic investor" in the sports industry IIR