DOJ调查古根海姆帝国，沃尔特急售湖人套现25亿美元

Mark Walters, one of America's wealthiest financiers. And the real story is Mark Walter was in the backwaters of finance in the late 1990s. No one knew him. He was running a asset backed securitization firm tied with the commercial paper marketplace. But the real trick, the real game changer for him, was a meeting with one of the descendants of the original Guggenheim dynasty, Meyer Guggenheim, the mining baron from the Gilded Age.

Right. He meets his great grandson, who's not happy with how advisers have been dealing with that family money. They come up with this plan when he folds his firm into their family office, and today somehow become no connection to that family. But somehow he's become a torch bearer for that great family name, for that Guggenheim name. Because once he fell that firm, he grew dad into Guggenheim Investments. Guggenheim securities, run by former best and CEO Alan Schwartz of the best.

With all that money expanding into other investments, most prominently a stable of expansive and some glittering sports teams Los Angeles Dodgers, the Chelsea Football Club, um, Cadillac F1 team and up until recently, the Los Angeles Lakers. And only reason we're all talking about this is the shock news that came out here as a professional sports team owner selling a team, flipping a team less than a year after he bought it.

The Lakers are getting the treatment like it's some sort of fixer upper on the new Jersey shore. I know I've never heard the term flipping in in conjunction with like a professional sports team, only the ranch style homes. And you get the sense that in some ways it was very lucky for him. We don't have any information that suggests that he was quietly going around shopping the Lakers because, again, only, you know, he doesn't need the money.

And in October 2025, did he even get the approval for this? But somehow someone clearly told Bob Iger and Josh Kushner, at least that's our understanding that, hey, you guys should knock on the door all you're showing interest in the NBA universe. He might need the money. They go in there, they make an offer he can't refuse. And suddenly he's flipped the team for more than 2.5 billion. What he paid for less than a year ago, which is incredible in itself.

As one finance executive put it to us, it feels like a lucrative fire sale. Yeah, it's got a lot of money. It accelerates his bid to solve for the other problems in his financial empire. And that is why this is in the news. That is why we all want to talk about Mark. Walter is in addition to the sports team, as he said, he also owns insurance. His old model, almost a pioneer on Wall Street in some sense, was to take that sleepy, boring insurance money, deploy them in not just bonds and equities and, you know, treasuries out there, but go and find other more complex investments, whether that was to back his Dodgers budgets or some of the other pieces of his sprawling business universe.

So do we know what the problems are at the insurance companies? That it kind of started this whole thing. Right. And there was a filing from the insurance company that said, oops, we got a subpoena in February from, uh, the government. And we did some numbers again and looks like our affiliated investments, which is money that let's just short hand it is from Wolters insurers going to other parts of Wolters businesses.

Well, much higher than previously thought. How much higher? We went from some of about at least one of the insurance from the Delaware life. We went from 3% being affiliated assets to 40% being affiliated assets. You can see why that would make regulators nervous. That is a big change. The sense here is, and that is what prosecutors and regulators are looking at. But third party intermediaries use just to borrow the money and then channel them off to other parts of what does business without the insurance company or even the ratings from having a true picture of where that money was going?

And that's been the focus. That's why Walter, through his holding company, is racing. Racing to cut back this high 40% rate of affiliated investments, presumably to make sure that regulators can get comfortable again with this remediation plan if they're able to do that. And that's why the sudden influx from the liquor sale when it happens will be good. There are other options are exploring to try and raise money to be able to pay down some of these.

Restructure the debt is here. Do we know how much the total hole is? I don't know if hole is necessarily the right time because we don't understand that. It's not like he has to get rid of all of it. But we're talking about suddenly roughly $20 billion across as to insurers being in affiliated assets, and the goal is to try and bring it down substantially. Okay. Is do we know I mean, did so he didn't necessarily want to sell the Lakers even though he made a lot of money on the sale.

He didn't definitely wait. It stands to reason to someone who's collected sports seem someone who's also invested in the sports team, invested emotionally, not just through his wealth. Rachel thinks. Yeah, yeah. And like, look, look at what the Dodgers are doing. Two times defending World Series champion. They were out there at the Rose garden just last month being affected by President Donald Trump. So you wouldn't think that he wanted to buy this as if it was some private equity deal where he could wring out some efficiencies and then sell it for a higher price the very next year.

That wasn't the goal. But from all the mood music we're hearing, it certainly helps. So there was some reporting, I think, last week where he had, uh, Mr. Walter discussed putting up Guggenheim Securities. Uh, you know, maybe they're putting up for collateral or selling it or monetizing it somehow. Where where are we with that? I mean, is there is there? Should we expect more asset sales from his collection? Look, things are very fluid.

That our understanding was even before the first set of new stories. And the probe came out even before anyone knew anything about the Lake Lakers being up for sale. And just judging by the timeline. Way before the Kushner and Iger even went up to him and said they would like to buy the Lakers, they have had early deliberations with different folks in the market trying to find various ways they could raise money. And one of the options was, could we do some nine month to 12 month loans where you could give us 500 million or 1 billion?

And we backed up guarantee that with collateral in the form of various assets, including the equity stake in Guggenheim Partners, which again tells you the stated path to recovery. Some of the lenders were saying the potential lenders were saying would have been if they failed to pay back the money that they could enforce on that collateral, which tells you you don't. You wouldn't normally want to put your Crown Financial jewel out there and say, okay, I could use that as collateral.

So it tells you what they were thinking about in the in the realm of the art of the possible. It is unclear whether that is still a live deal, but what is clear is they are exploring all options possible to make sure they get out of this insurance mess.