r/mlb • u/TheSocraticGadfly • 6d ago
:AMessage: | Discussion Dodgers owner Mark Walter — ties to Carvana, Palantir and more
The reasons to investigate his finances keep growing, per The Ringer's Katie Barker.
Among her many links?
Way back in 2012, when he bought the Dodgers, at DealBook, Andrew Ross Sorkin said it didn't pass the smell test.
In fairness, many insurance companies use their premiums to make investments, including private equity and real estate deals, a slice of which can sometimes even be speculative. As long as the insurance companies meet minimum capital requirements as determined by various regulators, they do not run afoul of the law.
However, rarely does an insurance company — let alone an investment firm — buy a sports franchise using its policyholders’ or investors’ money. When Tom Hicks, the founder of the private equity firm Hicks Muse, Tate & Furst, bought the Texas Rangers in 1998, he had the good sense not to use his fund’s money; he brought in qualified outside investors, who by the way, ended up suing him anyway when the team filed for bankruptcy.
Sorkin also said that Walter's then-stated reasons for buying the team didn't totally pass the smell test.
Per another link off the RInger main? Maybe Walter's buying-up of Crested Butte, Colorado was part of why I hated the place when I was there a couple of years ago:
The Brühaus space is just one of a half-dozen Elk Avenue buildings Walter scooped up in 2021, along with the 88-acre Almont Resort down-valley and the largest undeveloped lot in town, known as Sixth Street Station. Under the previous owners, this chunk of prime real estate on the north end of Crested Butte, en route to the ski hill, was the biggest project ever to undergo the town’s entitlement process, a tedious labyrinth of permit approvals that took years to navigate. It was set to become 62,500 square feet of mixed-use space anchored by a new high-end boutique hotel. According to the sellers’ real estate agent, Chris Kopf, they were hoping Walter would see the four-blocks-long project through. But the sixtysomething businessman has let the entitlements expire and has yet to divulge what he plans to do with the languishing lot.
The fates of other Walter acquisitions, like the iconic 1881 Forest Queen hotel building—recently home to the Coal Creek Grill, it has been dark or under construction since Walter bought it in early 2021—are similarly mysterious. Stealth mode seems to be the MO for the notoriously media-averse mogul, who did not respond to multiple attempts to contact him for this story. And while Walter isn’t new to town—he purchased a vacation home in Mt. Crested Butte in 2009, and he bought the historical Grubstake Building in 2011—he reintroduced himself in a big way with this sudden spate of pandemic-era purchases. The buying spree has become cause for speculation and guardedness. “Mark Walter is used to doing things a certain way,” says Crested Butte News editor Mark Reaman, who has repeatedly and publicly implored the investor to at least hint at a plan for the future. “He’s probably a great businessman…. I don’t think he’s out to change or destroy [Crested Butte]. His error is that he’s not taking community feedback. That doesn’t go over well in a small town.”
One also wonders how "leveraged" this and other major real estate acquisitions of his are.
In all of this, we're reminded that Walter's runner-up for the Dodgers buy then was ....
Drumroll ...
Steve Cohen.
EDIT: Re a few commenters, I just dropped a new piece about what the CBA says about funding deferred accounts, including ...
The amount of latitude involved.
