We know UFC President Dana White made out like a bandit when the UFC sale went through. According to estimates, the UFC Prez made about $360 million dollars for his part of the UFC’s $4 billion dollar sale. But that’s all chicken feed compared to what the majority stake holders, Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta will walk away with.
Forbes.com ran looked into the recent UFC sale and here’s what they had to say as to the expected earnings for the the Fertitta brothers:
“Following the sale, brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, who purchased the nearly bankrupt organization for $2 million in 2001, are worth an estimated $1.9 billion apiece after netting out estimated taxes. The whopping buyout has helped boost each brother’s net worth by half a billion dollars since March of this year.
“In a press release announcing the deal in July, WME|IMG confirmed that it had brought in private equity firms KKR and Silver Lake Partners as strategic investors, and that MSD Capital, L.P. and MSD Partners, L.P. (owned by billionaire Michael Dell) would provide preferred equity financing. WME also stated that Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta would retain a “passive minority interest in the organization,” though representatives have declined to elaborate on the brothers’ new equity stakes. FORBES estimates that they will retain 8% apiece, and that they will each walk away with nearly $870 million in post-tax cash.”
For a little added perspective, that $4billion dollar sales price they got out of it was a bout 2000x what they bought the promotion for back in January of 2001. That’s a hell of a turnaround, even when you account for the money they sunk into Pride and the reported cash they invested into developing the promotion in those early, rough years. Now the only question is, what can a couple of guys with an extra billion dollars kicking around find to do in a city like Las Vegas?
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