The former owner of the Lakers has launched a series of sell-offs, and now even the Cadillac team that has just entered F1 is also put up for sale.

The former owner of the Los Angeles Lakers Mark Walter has not stopped selling off his assets, and new items have been added to the for-sale list recently. 

According to a report by The Guardian, Fenway Sports Group (FSG), the owner of Liverpool Football Club, has entered into negotiations with Mark Walter to acquire a majority stake in the Cadillac F1 team, with the transaction value expected to exceed 2 billion pounds. 

Mark Walter has successively invested in or held a number of sports assets through TWG Global, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chelsea, Los Angeles Sparks, and the Cadillac F1 team. Over the past year, Mark Walter first acquired and then sold 84% of the shares of the Lakers, gaining $2.5 billion in asset appreciation through the transaction.（Related link: Lakers owner sold the team at lightning speed in 3 days, valuation soared by 2.5 billion after one year, NBA teams have become wealth management products） 

The eagerness to sell the Lakers is not just to earn a small price difference. Before that, the more important trigger was the exposure that Walter was under federal investigation in the United States. 

The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York are investigating how approximately $16 billion in loans under the insurance company controlled by Walter entered the balance sheet of TWG Global, another holding platform under his control. 

After the news was made public, Walter sold his Lakers shares at lightning speed in August this year, and also sold his 13% stake in Chelsea. In addition, according to Bloomberg's report last month, Walter is seeking to sell the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks for $700 million, and this week multiple media outlets said Walter intends to sell the Cadillac F1 team. 

While Walter was selling other sports assets, TWG Global issued a statement in August saying that the Cadillac F1 team and MLB's Los Angeles Dodgers would not be sold. However, the situation has obviously changed two months later. 

The most awkward part is that the Cadillac team has just gone through a long admission dispute to finally enter F1. Now, the team has not even completed its first season, and its main investor may change. 

The potential buyer FSG involved in this transaction is also one of the multi-club model players in the sports industry. This Boston-headquartered American company owns MLB's Boston Red Sox, the Premier League's Liverpool team, and NASCAR's RFK Racing team. 

This summer, FSG sold 38% of Liverpool's shares to a consortium whose members include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. After completing the partial stake sale, the valuation of Liverpool FC has reached 5.5 billion pounds, while FSG only spent 300 million pounds to acquire the club in 2010, which means FSG has abundant funds on hand. 

The Guardian quoted sources as saying that the remarkable growth of F1 in the past decade, especially in the U.S. market, is the main reason that attracted FSG's attention to the event. Since being acquired by Liberty Media in 2017, F1's annual revenue has more than doubled to $4 billion, and the value of its TV broadcast rights continues to grow. 

The Cadillac team is currently in its first season as an F1 team. It is one of only two U.S.-headquartered F1 teams, based in Indianapolis. On March 7, 2025, the FIA and FOM officially approved Cadillac to enter the 2026 F1 season. Cadillac is currently at the bottom of the constructors' standings and has not scored any points. 

As a team built from scratch to enter the F1 event, TWG Global has played a significant driving force behind it. 

Cadillac's initial application to enter F1 was led by the Andretti family, an important figure in the U.S. racing industry. The racing operator controlled by Andretti and the U.S. auto giant General Motors (GM) submitted a joint application, but it was rejected by FOM on the grounds that the team could not bring sufficient commercial value to the event, and the new team would also dilute the commercial revenue of existing teams. 

After F1 rejected Andretti's proposal, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse, leading the U.S. Department of Justice and Congress to launch an investigation into F1 owner Liberty Media. After that, the core of the application shifted from Andretti to General Motors and Cadillac. 

In November 2024, F1 announced that it supported Cadillac as the 11th team to enter F1 in 2026. In addition to GM's promise to develop its own power unit after entering F1, TWG acquired Andretti Global and became the leading operation and investment force of the team. 

According to previous reports from Sportico, TWG and General Motors paid a $450 million "dilution fee", which was divided equally among all teams to make up for the dilution of league revenue caused by the increase in the number of teams, and additionally invested "at least $1 billion for the preparation and operation of the team". 

Why did Walter invest huge sums of money to build the Cadillac team while considering selling part of its stake? 

We have to go back to his behavior on other sports assets, as well as the financial and regulatory pressures he is facing. 

What he is currently facing is not a separate "sports investment investigation", but a federal investigation surrounding his financial empire, insurance companies and related investments. The core of the investigation is whether he used his own insurance company to finance his business empire. 

The insurance companies controlled by Walter's business system manage the funds of policyholders, while he also controls other enterprises in need of financing. At present, investigators suspect whether the insurance companies have invested a large amount of funds in these investments occurring in related enterprises, and these related transactions have not been properly disclosed. This does not mean that all transactions are illegal, but regulators need to judge whether this is just an accounting error or involves intentional concealment. Up to now, the investigation is still ongoing, and TWG also stated in a statement that "there is no fraud". 

Combined with this point in time, Walter's previous transactions involving the Lakers and Chelsea can release a large amount of cash, which may be used to cope with the capital and regulatory pressures faced by his insurance business. Selling the Cadillac team is most likely still the result of his forced cash withdrawal. 

After the Cadillac team was formed, Walter said in an interview with SBJ that despite being an investor, he was "deeply involved" in the operation of TWG Motorsports, including every major decision of the F1 team. "This sport is full of great challenges, which takes time to overcome, but our goal is to reach the podium and become the representative team of the United States." 

Walter ultimately failed to keep his promise to hold Cadillac, which makes people wonder if he has already put a price tag on the shares of the Los Angeles Dodgers?

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Lanxiong Sports" (ID: lanxiongsports), written by ZHANG Yuwei, published with authorization from 36Kr.