Billionaire businessman and former three-term New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has reached an agreement to join the prospective Minnesota Timberwolves ownership group of Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez, league sources briefed on the agreement tell The Athletic.
Bloomberg, ranked by Forbes in April as the 12th-richest person in the world, brings a major investor to the Lore-Rodriguez group, which currently owns nearly 40 percent of the Timberwolves and WNBA’s Lynx and is in a battle with Glen Taylor for majority control of the franchises.
Lore and Rodriguez had an agreement with Taylor on a gradual purchase of controlling interest in a multi-step process at a $1.5 billion valuation. The group purchased two chunks of the team in 2021 and ’23 to get to 36 percent equity. They were working to purchase another 40 percent stake for majority control in March when Taylor called off the deal.
Lore and Rodriguez had made a late change in their financing for that $600-plus million chunk, going to Dyal Capital after the Carlyle Group withdrew from the bid. Taylor said at the time that Lore and Rodriguez didn’t have the money to complete the transaction and also missed several benchmarks in the agreement along the way.
Lore and Rodriguez disputed that characterization, saying they…
