Aug 13 (Reuters) – Billionaire Mark Walter offered to pledge his equity stake in Guggenheim Partners as part of a broader effort to raise billions of dollars for his insurance companies in recent weeks, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.
Investors were offered double-digit yields to lend capital to Walter’s TWG Global holding company, the report added, citing people familiar with the matter.
TWG has been exploring a range of deals with investors in a bid to clean up loans on the balance sheet of its insurance companies, Delaware Life and Clear Spring Life and Annuity, that have drawn scrutiny from federal prosecutors, it said.
Those talks have continued even after a deal was struck to sell Walter’s Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, Bloomberg News reported.
Guggenheim Partners and TWG did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. Reuters could not independently verify the report.
Venture capitalist Joshua Kushner and former Disney CEO Bob Iger are set to purchase the Los Angeles Lakers, with the deal valued at a record $12.5 billion, Reuters reported earlier this week, citing sources.
Walter had purchased a majority stake in the NBA team last year in a deal that valued the club at $10 billion.
Walter is CEO of the parent company of Guggenheim Securities, the firm’s brokerage, and Guggenheim Investments, its money manager.
Separately, the Financial Times reported earlier this week that Rob Camacho, who joined Walter’s firm TWG Global from Blackstone two years ago, has approached investors in recent weeks to refinance some of the loans held by the TWG insurers, as part of a plan developed with regulators.
Walter’s company has thrown out a number of differently structured deals to help pay down or restructure the loans on the books of his insurance companies, the Bloomberg News report said.
(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
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