Attorneys for Phoenix Suns minority owners Scott Seldin and Andy Kohlberg asserted as part of a lawsuit that Mat Ishbia’s actions earlier this year could leave in question Ishbia’s standing as the team’s majority owner.
The suit was filed in Delaware State Court on Nov. 24, but unredacted details were released by the plaintiffs on Tuesday.
Ishbia issued a capital call to minority owners in June, then another in July, each with a 10-day deadline. Seldin and Kohlberg maintain that they made their payments on time but under protest, particularly with new team shares valued at $10 million per unit after the price was previously $198 million per unit, according to ESPN.
Plaintiffs attorney Michael Carlinsky of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP said in a statement on Tuesday, “The updated redacted filing shows that the $250 million capital call issued with only ten days’ notice was designed to allow Mat Ishbia to unfairly increase his ownership stake by severely diluting the Minority Owners.
“The artificially low valuation of $10 million per unit bears no connection to the true value of the franchise, which Ishbia asserted was worth $7 billion or more in August 2025 based on his own market analysis.
“Now that Ishbia’s failure to fund consistent with the terms of his own capital call has come to light, we believe his ownership stake is at risk of significant dilution from 83.2% to 32.7%.”
According to the updated redacted filing from Nov. 24 and released Tuesday: “Ishbia abused his authority so thoroughly and set the terms of the capital as punitively as possible, …. the Minority Owners will take over majority ownership of the Company at an ownership stake of approximately 60%.”
The lawsuit also states: “As a result of Ishbia’s scheme to swap the debt for equity, Ishbia himself accordingly funded none of the new cash by the capital call deadline while the Minority Owners funded approximately 38% of it, despite owning only 13% of the Company.”
A spokesperson for Ishbia responded in a statement, according to ESPN, “There is nothing new here, and the claims are ridiculous. Unwilling to take responsibility and invest in the team, these guys are resorting to threats and publicity stunts to get Mat to buy them out just so they make more money.”
Ishbia completed his purchased of the Suns and the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury from Robert Sarver in February 2023 for $4 billion.
–Field Level Media
