Larry Kestelman’s Aussie basketball league the NBL faces a very hostile takeover bid

NBL owner and executive chairman Larry Kestelman. Picture: Getty Images

The name Jared Novelly isn’t likely to chime with readers of this column, unless it suddenly emerges that they bear a passion for Australian basketball or questing through the weeds of American politics.

We’re going to assume it’s neither, so here’s what you need to know …

First, Novelly is a billionaire who owns a basketball team called the Illawarra Hawks. Second, he’s Donald Trump’s ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa – don’t ask us why, we haven’t a clue. And third – and most importantly – he’s just started a tremendous corporate war with rich-lister Larry Kestelman.

Who’s Kestelman? He’s the Melbourne rich-lister who resurrected the National Basketball League in 2015, buying it out at the request of – yes – his mother. Over the next decade Kestelman pumped $70m into the game, transforming it from a kickable dog into something marginally less embarrassing.

In comes Novelly, like some marauding foreign coup-artist bent on invasion. On Thursday he mobilised a hostile takeover of the league to kick out Kestelman, emailing club owners such as Tesla’s Robyn Denholm, owner of the Sydney Kings, with a term sheet full of details of a buyout plan.

Sydney Kings owner Robyn Denholm. Picture: Bloomberg

Illawarra owner Jared Novelly will join Trump’s administration.

Naturally this found its way to us, this email, its contents spilling over with actual threats to file “multiple actions” against the NBL’s ownership by the end of the month should a deal not be inked to Novelly’s satisfaction.

“I am taking one last shot to try to allow the current ownership to leave peacefully while saving face and reputation,” Novelly wrote. Does this chest beating sound familiar? We’ve heard these thunderous MAGA threats somewhere before, haven’t we? All hell will break loose … You’re gambling with World War Three … They’re eating the dogs …

Novelly’s also doing this just days out from the NBL’s grand final decider on Sunday between, yes, Novelly’s team, the Hawks, and Kestelman’s club, Melbourne United.

“I apologise if this initiative offends any of you,” Novelly wrote, “that is very far from my intent, but I’m not willing to let the status quo continue and I see this as a reasonable path forward.”

Novelly’s email speaks of seven club owners who voted in January to “determine a new path forward” on account of numerous grievances with the NBL, namely “integrity concerns and financial transparency”.

He also alleges that audit firm KPMG found “a history” of club distributions being calculated “inconsistently”, among other matters. Under his plan, set out in the term sheet, Kestelman would be given a $9m cash payout funded by each of the clubs – except for Tasmania’s JackJumpers, which were sold last month to Queensland’s Altor Capital for $35m, the proceeds of which Kestelman would be permitted to keep.

Hyunjung Lee of the Illawarra Hawks, whose club is owned by Trump ambassador Jared Novelly. Picture: Getty Images

“Larry is effectively getting $44m for NBLCO,” Novelly said. The offer also includes some type of “recognition of Larry’s significant work developing the league to this point”. Novelly hadn’t decided on what exactly would be appropriate, but he spitballed some ideas for the club owners, including naming Kestelman honorary president of the league or naming “a trophy or any future in-season tournament after Larry (eg, the Larry Kestelman Cup)”.

We’re almost certain Kestelman won’t be impressed by these overtures. The guy pours $70m into the game and carefully nurtures it back from oblivion … only to be offered half his money back, a pat on the head and a scheisse trophy?

“We consider that this would be a gesture of good faith that would allow us and Larry to manage public perception of the transaction,” Novelly wrote.

If this is Novelly’s idea of diplomacy, we have serious concerns for the governments of New Zealand and Samoa. Next he’ll dangle a trade tariff reduction in front of them in exchange for an island.

Donald Trump lauded Novelly as a “highly respected philanthropist”, and we’re guessing the President hardly cares that Novelly’s mentioned a few times in the Paradise Papers, nor that the Novelly family fortune – a vast wealth built on oil – is structured through a series of trusts domiciled in Bermuda.

We’re not saying that’s unusual, or shady.