Dallas-based Arctos Partners, the largest institutional investor in pro sports franchises—from the NFL’s Buffalo Bills to the NBA’s Utah Jazz and teams in the MLB, NHL, MLS and beyond—has signed an agreement to be acquired by KKR & Co. Inc., a leading global investment firm based in New York with offices around the world.

The deal is valued at $1.4 billion in initial consideration, including equity subject to vesting through 2033, plus up to an additional $550 million in future equity tied to both KKR share price and business-specific performance targets and vesting through 2031, the companies reported. Dallas Innovates first wrote about the acquisition in January, based on an earlier Bloomberg report.

[Composite image, DI Studio; Sources: Istockphoto; Logos: NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and MLS.]

“KKR is a preeminent global investment firm and ideally positioned to help us achieve the vision we have for Arctos,” Ian Charles and Doc O’Connor, Arctos co-founders and managing partners, said in a joint statement. “We see tremendous opportunity to better serve the sports industry and the sponsor community, but the key to that unlock is a partnership that will provide access to strategic, financial and operational resources to accelerate our existing businesses.”

“At the same time,” they added,”we’ll be able to leverage KKR’s broad range of products and capabilities to extend and enhance our relationships with leagues, teams, GPs, and sponsors. Through this transaction, we’ll become an even stronger partner to the markets and investors that we serve, which has been our goal from the very beginning.”

Tapping into the booming pro sports market

Founded in 2019, Arctos is an innovator in providing strategic capital to asset management firms through structured solutions. The firm manages approximately $15 billion in assets under management and provides tailored growth and liquidity solutions to sports franchises through Arctos Sports and alternative asset managers Arctos Keystone or GP Solutions.

KKR Co-CEOs Joe Bae and Scott Nuttall offered their own joint statement, saying “Arctos has created a distinctive and scaled platform across sports investing and capital solutions for asset managers, and the team has extensive experience in secondaries—three areas where we see significant long-term opportunity.”

“The team has complementary strengths, strong cultural alignment, and an entrepreneurial approach that fits well with KKR,” the firm’s co-CEOs added. “We look forward to working together to build a platform that expands opportunities across the entire KKR ecosystem.”

Some of the teams Arctos is invested in.

Arctos has scored big in recent years

Business has been thriving at Arctos in recent years, with stakes in teams spanning the top U.S. sports leagues, including the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Chargers, as well as in such NBA teams as the Philadelphia 76ers and Utah Jazz, Major League Baseball, the NHL, and Major League Soccer.

Last fall, the company launched a new business line called Arctos Capital Markets, a platform designed to connect high net worth investors with professional sports ownership opportunities. 

In 2024, Arctos closed its Sports Partners Fund II, an iteration of the firm’s flagship sports fund, with more than $4.1 billion in capital commitments from a diverse group of global investors, along with co-investment and parallel affiliated vehicles.

Strategy behind the deal

KKR said that the acquisition advances its strategy to grow its platform by building and acquiring complementary businesses in large addressable markets where KKR has the ability to be a leader. Bringing Arctos into KKR will provide access to capital and capabilities that will accelerate the growth of Arctos’ existing businesses while also deepening KKR’s sourcing and origination capabilities and expanding its long-duration capital base, the companies said.

Per KKR, here are some of the highlights of the combined business:

Exceptional Business and Management Team: Managing Partners Ian Charles and Doc O’Connor, supported by a 76-person team, bring decades of expertise in sports, GP solutions and secondaries. Charles is a pioneer and innovator in the secondaries space, having cofounded the first secondaries market advisory firm, Cogent Partners, and later spending over a decade at Landmark Partners, where he was a Partner and helped design and execute the firm’s private equity strategy. O’Connor brings over 40 years of experience and unparalleled relationships in the sports ecosystem, having previously served as CEO of Madison Square Garden Company, and prior to that as Managing Partner of CAA, where he built what became the world’s leading entertainment and diversified sports agency business.

Leadership in Sports Investing: Arctos provides KKR with an advantageous entry point into the sports franchise stakes sector, a category characterized by historical and expected long-term value appreciation and growing global demand. Arctos is the largest institutional investor in professional sports franchise stakes and the only firm approved for multiteam ownership across all five major U.S. leagues (NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, MLS). With access to the breadth of KKR’s asset management business and product suite, Arctos will have more ways to meaningfully partner with teams and owners.

Scaled and Growing GP Solutions Platform: As a top five player in GP solutions, Arctos’ Keystone platform offers flexible, non-dilutive capital solutions for GPs across private markets. This segment of the broader manager and fund finance market has grown rapidly in recent years and continues to expand. As part of KKR, Arctos will be able to provide GPs access to a bigger range of capital solutions, with greater flexibility on structure, permanence, and cost of capital.

New Platform for Secondaries and Solutions: The private equity secondaries market saw record activity in 2025, with LP-led and GP-led volumes of approximately $226 billion, up 41% from 2024 and a compound annual growth rate of roughly 20% since 2013. Arctos’ experience and leadership provide a strong foundation and clear path for KKR to build and scale a leading secondaries and solutions business.

Enhanced Sourcing and Origination: Arctos strategically expands the reach of KKR’s proprietary origination and sourcing engine with complementary synergies across private equity, credit, infrastructure, real estate, insurance and capital markets. Utilizing these sources of capital, Arctos will also be positioned to expand its existing relationships across leagues, teams, GPs and sponsors.

Enhanced Wealth and Institutional Distribution: Sports and GP solutions asset classes resonate strongly with high-net-worth and mass-affluent investors. Arctos will similarly be able to grow its client base by virtue of having access to KKR’s global network, distribution, and product development capabilities.

Taking into account the transaction, perpetual and long-dated capital would represent 53% of KKR’s $759 billion of AUM, KKR added..

Leadership

Upon closing, Arctos’ Managing Partners Charles and O’Connor will join KKR as partners, and Arctos’ full team and operations will become part of KKR. KKR will form a new investing business, KKR Solutions, which will be led by Charles. KKR Solutions will include Arctos’ Sports and Keystone businesses and serve as the home of a scaled multi-asset class secondaries business KKR will build over the coming years, the company said.

“Ian Charles is one of the most experienced leaders in the secondaries space.” Bae and Nuttall added. “We’ve known Ian for more than a decade and have worked closely with him, including on KKR’s first structured secondaries transaction—a milestone that ultimately laid the foundation for our Health Care and Technology Growth platforms, which today manage over $17 billion of capital. With the team’s track record and history of innovation, we know Arctos is the right partner to help us build a leading franchise across sports, GP solutions, and secondaries.”

More on the transaction

KKR has agreed to acquire 100% of Arctos in a strategic transaction valued at $1.4 billion in initial consideration, including equity subject to vesting through 2033, plus up to an additional $550 million in future equity tied to both KKR share price and business-specific performance targets and vesting through 2031.

Initial consideration of $1.4 billion consists of $300 million in cash, $900 million of equity to existing Arctos shareholders (with Arctos management’s portion subject to vesting through 2030), and $200 million of additional equity to be allocated by 2028 and subject to vesting through 2033.

The deal is expected to be accretive per share across key financial metrics immediately post-closing and is subject to regulatory and specified sports league approvals, as well as customary closing conditions, the companies said.

Don’t miss what’s next. Subscribe to Dallas Innovates.

Track Dallas-Fort Worth’s business and innovation landscape with our curated news in your inbox Tuesday-Thursday.