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Steve Ballmer Signs Deal To Buy L.A. Clippers For $2 Billion

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The tech mogul has won the bidding for the team and set a record price for an NBA franchise.

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Nov. 19, 2013.

REUTERS/Jason Redmond

LOS ANGELES — Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will buy the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion, the Associated Press reported Thursday. Ballmer's bid sets a record price for an NBA team and beat out a $1.6 billion bid from a group led by David Geffen, as well as a $1.2 billion bid from an investor group headed up by Tony Ressler and Bruce Karsh.

Ballmer and Clippers co-owner Shelly Sterling signed a "binding contract" for the sale Thursday, according to a statement from Sterling's lawyer. The statement describes Sterling as the "sole trustee" of the family trust that owns the team, meaning she would have had the authority to act alone.

Still unclear, however, is what role her estranged husband and team co-owner Donald Sterling will have in the sale. ESPN reported Thursday Donald has been found to be "mentally incapacitated" by experts. If true, that diagnosis would reportedly allow Shelly to move forward with the sale without Donald's consent. However, when asked if Donald's approval is needed, his attorney Max Blecher told BuzzFeed Thursday that "we think it is." Blecher also told BuzzFeed that Sterling has "not consented to any actual or prospective sale."

Neither Blecher nor Shelly's attorneys responded to BuzzFeed's request for comment on the alleged incapacitation.

Shelly met with Ballmer earlier this week and has been moving quickly to sell the team even as the NBA works to oust the family over her husband's racist comments. And looming on the horizon for the Sterlings was a June 3 hearing at which the NBA's Board of Governors planned to vote on terminating the family's ownership of the team.

In the statement from her attorney, Shelly said she is "delighted that we are selling the team to Steve, who will be a terrific owner."

Donald has been unclear about whether or not he would oppose the sale. Earlier this week, a 27-page document indicated he planned to fight the NBA's efforts to oust him.


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