Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor said Tuesday night he is proceeding toward selling 30 percent of the team to a group led by Los Angeles private-equity investor Steve Kaplan, with conditions that Kaplan — a minority owner of the Memphis Grizzlies — would buy controlling interest when Taylor eventually decides to sell the team.
Taylor said he is working exclusively with Kaplan's group, and they have reached agreement on the 30 percent minority interest and a price Taylor wouldn't disclose.
Taylor said Kaplan and his group of investors must complete their due diligence on financial and other information concerning the franchise that Taylor bought in 1994 for $88.5 million. Lawyers for both men still have to draw up documents, Taylor said, and the NBA must approve the sale.
To gain that approval, Kaplan would have to sell his interest in the Grizzlies.
"Am I working with him? I am," said Taylor, a Mankato businessman who also owns the Star Tribune. "Is it proceeding? The answer is yes. Is it absolutely a deal? No, I can't say I have a deal. I don't want to come out and say I have it done. We're proceeding, and I'm satisfied with how it's going."
Taylor has said any prospective limited partner must guarantee the franchise will stay in Minnesota if that person or group eventually buys majority interest. At age 74, he said he is preparing for the day he'll no longer own the franchise.
A principal and group founder for Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management, Kaplan bought into the Grizzlies' ownership in 2012 and is that franchise's vice chairman.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported in April that a Kaplan group that included Indonesian billionaires Erick Thohir and Handy Soetedjo and former Grizzlies CEO Jason Levien tried unsuccessfully to buy the Atlanta Hawks and operating rights to the Hawks' Philips Arena.
