IN JULY 2012, as he was struggling to keep his fledgling company afloat and trying to hold together a shaky agreement to buy the Memphis Grizzlies, Robert Pera flew to Aspen, Colorado, to have dinner with a man named Pitt Hyde.
Hyde, the wealthy founder of the automotive parts retailer AutoZone, was a part owner of the Grizzlies and more than twice Pera’s age. As they ate, Hyde told a story that captivated the then 34-year-old Pera. It was about 1978, Hyde told him, the year Pera was born, when Hyde was just 36 himself and had joined the Walmart board of directors. Walmart founder Sam Walton himself drove to the airport to pick Hyde up in a run-down pickup truck and then took them back to their spartan corporate office, where the “boardroom” featured folding tables and chairs.
Pera liked to think of himself as embodying Walton in those days. Much like Walton’s retail chain began selling low-priced goods to underserved towns in the 1960s, Pera’s networking company, Ubiquiti Networks, sold WiFi to underserved corners of the world from Africa to Asia.
Walmart went on to become the biggest company in the world (starting in 2001, per Fortune) and Walton one of its richest people. After the meeting with Hyde, Pera took to his personal blog and wrote: “I also aspire to drive Ubiquiti’s transformation from David to Goliath one day just as Walton did.”
A decade later, Pera is richer than Walton ever was. His company has soared and so has his net worth, to $15 billion and rising. The average NBA fan might know the richest owners in the league are the LA Clippers‘ Steve Ballmer, worth around $100 billion depending on how Microsoft’s stock does on any given day, and the Cleveland Cavaliers‘ Dan Gilbert, worth more than $20 billion. But Pera, who ranks third among league owners, is a relative ghost, rarely seen and never heard, unlike some of his courtside-sitting, cheerleading peers.
Because of Pera’s deepening pockets — he’s in line to take in $135 million this year on his Ubiquiti stock dividends alone — the Grizzlies are in position to keep their current roster of players and potentially add more.
This summer, Grizzlies’ franchise player Ja Morant is in line to receive his first huge contract, one that could exceed $200 million, putting him on par with fellow young star Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks. Earlier this season, Grizzlies cornerstone Jaren Jackson Jr. signed a $105 million extension. Over the next two years, core young players Desmond Bane, Dillon Brooks, Brandon Clarke and Tyus Jones all will be looking to get paid.
In conversations internally and with executives on other teams, the Grizzlies have been consistent with their message: When the time is right, Pera will spend what it takes.
The time appears to be right.
IN THE MONTHS after Pera agreed to buy the Grizzlies in June 2012, he got caught up in a financial whirlwind. His company was accused by the U.S government of violating sanctions by selling products to Iran and North Korea and he faced fierce battles with counterfeiters, an issue outlets in China alleged the company dealt with by working with the Chinese mafia.
Ubiquiti’s stock price plunged by as much as 75%.
Pera scurried to defend his firm, while at the same time trying to purchase the Memphis franchise. He flew from one of his bases in Taiwan around the U.S. to try to secure financing. As part of that effort, Pera found himself on the set of the film “Runner Runner” in Puerto Rico, where he met with and wooed musician Justin Timberlake into becoming an investor in the Grizzlies.
“From day one, [Pera is] someone who worked hard to make things happen behind the scenes,” says former NBA player Elliott Perry, who is one of the team’s part owners. “He was always doubling down and trying to find ways to support the team.”
“He watches from a distance, but he’s very involved day-to-day and knows everything that’s going on. He has trust in the people he’s put in place, and he stays out of their way.”Elliott Perry, the Grizzlies’ alternate governor on the NBA board of governors, on Robert Pera
It took five months, but Pera found partners. He paid a value of $377 million but controlled only about 25% of the shares. Then NBA commissioner David Stern, who had seen Pera’s net worth rise and drop dramatically and was aware of the financial scandals that had enveloped Pera’s company, engineered an obscure agreement that tossed Pera a lifeline. Stern allowed him to close the transaction, while also not guaranteeing he could keep the team long term. Stern installed an unusual “buy-sell clause” that would force Pera to buy out his two biggest partners or sell the team to them after five years, essentially making him buy the team twice.
Within three months of the purchase, the Grizzlies traded off several players, including star Rudy Gay, to get out of the luxury tax and save on payroll, triggering the belief the team was headed for a period of austerity. But as Ubiquiti’s stock recovered and profits soared in the ensuing years, Pera began to spend in kind.
By 2016, he had greenlit contract extensions for Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph and Mike Conley as the team expanded the popular “Grit n’ Grind” era, when the Grizzlies made seven consecutive playoff appearances. By 2017, with Ubiquiti stock up more than fivefold since the day he bought the team, Pera was paying for the league’s fifth-highest payroll. Conley and Gasol were later traded only when the team decided on a rebuild, which has led to this point — a 54-23 Grizzlies team sitting in second place in the Western Conference.
PERA BOUGHT OUT his two largest minority partners in the Grizzlies in 2018 — he sold $60 million in stock just before making the deal, which was less than 2% of his holdings at the time — to increase his stake to more than 50%. The deal valued the team at $1.2 billion, more than a 200% increase in five years.
Last season, the Grizzlies had a $132 million payroll as Pera was willing to take on the salaries of Gorgui Dieng and Dion Waiters to acquire future draft picks and other young players. Two years ago, he cleared Andre Iguodala‘s salary for the same purpose.
Along the way, he paid to upgrade the Grizzlies’ facilities, spending millions renovating the locker room and expanding the training and weight rooms, and he deepened the team’s front office, scouting and medical departments. He almost never involves himself directly in league business, league and team sources say.
“He watches from a distance, but he’s very involved day-to-day and knows everything that’s going on,” says Perry, who is the Grizzlies’ alternate governor on the NBA board of governors. “He has trust in the people he’s put in place, and he stays out of their way.”
Pera is in touch daily with Zach Kleiman, the Memphis general manager he put in charge in 2019, and Jason Wexler, the team president who has been one of the franchise leaders since Pera bought the team.
“They’re ‘team Slack,'” jokes one league executive, referencing the medium through which Pera is known to often communicate with his leadership. “They should do a commercial for it.”
Pera has granted only a few media interviews over the past decade. Part of the reason, sources say, is because he’s focused on running his technology company in a highly competitive field. Though it’s based in New York, the company does business all over the world.
But soon he might speak volumes with his checkbook. The Grizzlies haven’t spent into the luxury tax since 2005, but the option could be back on the table. The team has been sending signals it intends to be aggressive in retaining and acquiring talent, league sources say.
The two small-market teams that have won titles in the past decade, the Cavs and Milwaukee Bucks, had ownership willing to go into the luxury tax to surround their superstars with talent. Spending doesn’t always equal winning in the NBA, and having a wealthy owner doesn’t always guarantee success. But in small markets, there is often pressure on ownership once the contending team is in place.
These Grizzlies have plenty of work to do — they haven’t won a playoff series since 2015 — even with Morant’s on-court growth lifting all the franchise’s boats.
“Our goal is to win the championship, and I feel like as long as we stay locked in, continue to grow together, play together, that goal can be achieved,” Morant said in late February about his vision for the team’s future. “We just got to stay the course, take it day by day and let it play out.”
They would never dare refer to themselves as a possible Goliath, but the man backing them from the shadows is already there.
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