{"id":94159,"date":"2025-06-12T18:16:31","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T18:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/94159\/"},"modified":"2025-06-12T18:16:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T18:16:31","slug":"boston-celtics-retain-jpmorgan-bdt-msd-bankers-to-handle-nba-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/94159\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston Celtics Retain JPMorgan, BDT & MSD Bankers to Handle NBA Sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe owners of the Boston Celtics<\/a> have retained JPMorgan Chase<\/a> and BDT & MSD to facilitate the sale<\/a> of the NBA<\/a> franchise, according to someone with direct knowledge of the process.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe two firms will work together in the sale, said the person, who was granted anonymity because the details are private. It\u2019s a prestige contract: The Celtics, one of the most recognizable brands in U.S. sports, are expected to fetch more than anyone has ever paid for control of an NBA team.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Celtics owners announced the sale<\/a> last month, less than two weeks after the franchise won its NBA-record 18th championship. Wyc Grousbeck<\/a>, the team\u2019s governor, later said he wants the sale to happen in two phases\u201451% now and the rest in 2028, with the provision that he stays in control until the second transaction closes.<\/p>\n

\n\tSportico\u00a0values the Celtics at $5.12 billion, fourth-most in the NBA and 21st among all U.S. franchises. The highest valuation ever set in an NBA control sale was $4 billion, from Mat Ishbia<\/a>\u2018s 2022 purchase of the Phoenix Suns.<\/p>\n

\n\tGrousbeck\u2019s group bought the Celtics in 2002 for $360 million. The consortium, which includes Bain Capital senior advisor\u00a0Steve Pagliuca<\/a>\u00a0and Abbey Group founding partner Bob Epstein, is named Banner 17 for their desire to win the Celtics\u2019 17th\u00a0title, which was accomplished in 2008.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tThe group is selling because of family estate planning, a common reason<\/a> for major (and minor) sports transactions. Family patriarch Irv Grousbeck is around 90 years old, and his estate planning over the past few years has centered around what happens to the family\u2019s most valuable asset when it ultimately passes to his four children. The Celtics have appreciated about 14x over the course of their ownership, which is a lot of money tied up in an illiquid asset. The family has ultimately decided to turn that into cash.<\/p>\n

\n\tJPMorgan Chase has a long history of providing stadium financing and advising clients on sports team transactions. BDT & MSD<\/a> is the result of the 2023 combination<\/a> of Byron Trott\u2019s BDT & Co. and Michael Dell\u2019s MSD Partners. The Jordan Park Trust Company, as the Grousbeck family advisor, oversaw the advisor selection process and will continue to be actively involved in the sale process.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe multi-phase preference may prove difficult. It would involve someone paying billions for an asset without gaining immediate control, and it would also require NBA approval. The last NBA team to sell in set phases, the Minnesota Timberwolves, is currently locked in a legal battle<\/a> over the contract, and commissioner Adam Silver told<\/a> Sportico in April that the league may have to \u201creassess what sort of transactions we allow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t(This story has been updated with information that the Jordan Park Trust Company oversaw the advisor selection process.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owners of the Boston Celtics have retained JPMorgan Chase and BDT & MSD to facilitate the sale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,45,75,3798,46,20482,6,9307],"class_list":{"0":"post-94159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-celtics","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-celtics","11":"tag-bostonceltics","12":"tag-celtics","13":"tag-jpmorgan-chase","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-wyc-grousbeck"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114671765881066177","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}