Ben Navarro, the founder and chief executive of Sherman Financial Group, is interested in purchasing the National Football League’s Carolina Panthers, according to a published report.
Sherman Financial is one of the nation’s largest debt buying organizations.
The Panthers are up for sale after Jerry Richardson, the founder and only owner of the team in its two-decade history, agreed to put the team on the block following allegations of sexual and racial misconduct in the workplace. The team is expected to be sold for at least $2 billion.
Navarro is a former executive at Citigroup who founded Sherman Financial in 1997. He and his wife have four daughters, one of whom is a promising tennis player, according to the report. She has committed to playing at Duke University. Her father owns the tennis club where she trains.
Navarro’s father, Frank, is a former football coach who worked at Princeton and Columbia universities.
Navarro would become the second financial services executive to purchase a sports team in the past six months. Tom Dundon, the former CEO of Santander Consumer USA, a subprime auto lender, recently purchased the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes.
From the report:
Navarro appears to keep a low public profile, but his main charitable venture is well-known in South Carolina. He privately funds Meeting Street Schools, a nonprofit educational venture in the state that opened a public school under private management in a low-income part of North Charleston in 2014.
