is the first to report how Mat and Justin Ishbia–who acquired control of the Suns last year–recently increased their stake in the team.
The billionaire brothers who control the Phoenix Suns just completed a nearly $400 million deal that boosted their stake in the NBA team. In a series of transactions with at least four of the team’s minority owners over the last two months, an entity controlled by Mat and Justin Ishbia swapped stock in their family mortgage giant, UWM Holdings, for additional shares of the Suns, sources told .
“Mat negotiated the right to purchase more of the team at the original valuation from back when he bought it in 2023,” a spokesperson for Mat Ishbia, who is the the largest shareholder of both the Suns and UWM, told . “He has this right until the end of 2024 and is exercising it. He has gotten significant inbound interest at valuations of $5B+ based on the increase in revenue, performance of the organizations and the new media deal. Mat has no intention of selling any shares of the teams (Suns or Mercury) to anyone at this time.”
The Ishbia brothers acquired an estimated 56% of the Suns and the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury in 2023 in a deal that valued the team at $4 billion. valued the Suns at $4.3 billion for our annual list of the NBA’s Most Valuable Teams released Thursday, and Sportico recently valued the Mercury at $105 million. Based on the terms of the latest deal, estimates the Ishbia brothers now own 66% of the teams. Their father, Jeff Ishbia, is estimated to own an additional 1%. The Ishbias’ spokesperson declined to comment on ’ estimates.
“The transaction allowed Mat to accomplish two important objectives,” the spokesperson for Ishbia added. “Mat wants to increase his ownership position in the Suns and Mercury whenever he can. Second, making more of UWM’s shares available on the public market benefits the company. Most importantly for Mat, this benefits both organizations and is great for all the investors.”
Previously, just 6% of UWM’s total shares traded publicly; now the public float is 10%. As part of their effort to increase that float, during the first half of September, the Ishbia brothers’ holding company also quietly sold nearly $100 million of stock for cash on the open market. Prior to the end of August, the Ishbias hadn’t sold any stock since 2021, when they took public the now $10.8 billion (market capitalization) company that their father founded.
Crain’s Detroit Business previously reported that the Ishbias swapped nearly $115 million of UWM stock on October 10 for membership interests in a privately held LLC that were owned by the Suns’ former vice chairman, Sam Garvin. Garvin is a Scottsdale, Arizona-based marketing entrepreneur who first invested in the team in 2004. is the first to confirm that LLC is the entity that owns the NBA team, as well as the Mercury.
Also not previously reported: The Ishbia brothers’ holding company undertook similar transactions with at least three other Suns minority owners, who over the last two months received a total of nearly $285 million of the Ishbias’ UWM stock in return for membership interests in the same Suns-owning LLC. Those minority owners are all businessmen with ties to Arizona: John Landon and Steve Hilton, who cofounded and each formerly served as CEO of Scottsdale-based publicly traded homebuilder Meritage Homes, and Tom Rogers, who runs his family’s Tucson-based R&R Products, a manufacturer of replacement parts for the commercial golf and turf industry. The four minority owners of the Suns declined to comment. It is not clear if those minority owners sold some or all of their Suns stakes.
Last year, the Ishbia brothers took over a team in turmoil. Robert Sarver, the largest shareholder prior to the sale to the Ishbias, put the Suns and Mercury up for sale in September 2022, after an NBA investigation found that he had engaged in “conduct [that] included the use of racially insensitive language; unequal treatment of female employees; sex-related statements and conduct; and harsh treatment of employees that on occasion constituted bullying.” Sarver said in a statement issued at the time, “While I disagree with some of the particulars of the NBA’s report, I would like to apologize for my words and actions that offended our employees.”
Mat Ishbia, who is worth an estimated $10 billion, serves as the Suns’ governor and owned an estimated 43% stake in the team before the transactions with minority owners over the last two months. Justin Ishbia, who is worth an estimated $5.1 billion, serves as alternate governor and owned an estimated 13% stake prior to the end of August.
The Ishbias now hold 90% of UWM’s stock, after selling a 4% stake in the business over the last two months. Mat Ishbia, who has served as CEO since 2013, controls an estimated 75% of the family’s shares, while Justin Ishbia, who passed on a job at the family firm to found and run $9.1 billion (assets under management) private equity firm Shore Capital Partners, owns an estimated 23% of the clan’s UWM stock. Their father Jeff, who founded UWM’s predecessor in 1986, owns an estimated 2% and still sits on UWM’s board alongside both of his sons.
It’s been an eventful few years for the nation’s largest home lender by loan volume, whose stock is down 35% since January 2021, when it merged with a special purpose acquisition company at the height of both the SPAC boom and a refinancing frenzy driven by all-time low mortgage interest rates. The Ishbias’ holding company cancelled a secondary offering of an additional 3% stake in UWM that was set for November 2021, after announcing that “the market’s reaction to the Offering resulted in a share price level at which [the Ishbias’ holding company] SFS is not willing to sell.”
Last month, a federal court dismissed a class action lawsuit alleging that UWM improperly pressured brokers to steer deals its way, costing both borrowers and competitors like billionaire Dan Gilbert’s Rocket Companies heavily (another similar class action lawsuit is still ongoing and UWM has denied the allegations in both cases). The company’s shares are up 33% over the last year, as mortgage interest rates have fallen from their peak in October 2023.
