Grizzlies Owner Robert Pera Announces He Will Keep Team, Buy Shares From Two Minority Owners
Grizzlies owner Robert Pera announced Monday that he will retain control of the team by buying the shares of minority owners Steve Kaplan and Daniel Straus.
Pera, Kaplan and Straus were part of a buy-sell agreement that was put in place when Pera purchased the team in 2012 from Michael Heisley, according to Ronald Tillery of The Commercial Appeal.
According to Tillery, when Pera bought the team from the late Heisley, former NBA commissioner David Stern suggested the men put the buy-sell arrangement in place in case Kaplan and Straus did not like being minority owners under Pera. Kaplan and Straus initiated the buy-sell agreement in the fall of 2017, which forced Pera to either buy their shares of the team based on a valuation set by Kaplan and Straus, or sell them his shares based on that same valuation.
Pera decided he would buy Kaplan's 14-percent stake in the team and the 14-percent stake Straus owned instead of selling his 25-percent stake. According to Tillery, the price set by Kaplan and Straus has not been revealed yet.
When Pera bought the team in 2012, his group paid $377 million, according to Tillery. In February, Forbes listed the Grizzlies as the second-least valuable team in the NBA, ahead of only the Pelicans, and set the team's value at $1.025 billion.
