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When Warner Bros. Discovery decided to end its 35-year partnership with the National Basketball Association, some industry insiders worried the company was making a huge mistake. CEO David Zaslav is putting those fears to rest. "Not doing the NBA was a great decision for us," Zaslav said at a Morgan Stanley conference on Tuesday.
Disney CEO Bob Iger on NBA rights: It's our goal to stay in that relationship
Mike Vorkunov: Disney CEO Bob Iger, at the Morgan Stanley investor conference, on its involvement in the next NBA media rights deal: "We love our relationship with the NBA. That negotiation is unfolding. It's our goal to stay in that relationship because we love the sport."
They weren’t there to play pickup; the Morgan Stanley execs were at Gauchos Gym on behalf of Cole Anthony. Anthony hosted an event last Thursday called ‘The Playbook.’ He invited some of the area’s elite high school players, their parents, top financial minds from Morgan Stanley and high-level trainers to the gym. The Playbook had a distinct purpose: helping the next generation of top New York City-area players thrive on and off the court in basketball’s complex financial landscape. “I feel like I’d be doing these kids an injustice if I didn’t try to leave my mark and help,” Anthony said. “I know it’s rough out there, I know a lot of these kids [and their parents] are going on this path blind…. It’s a difficult journey for people at every level. I felt like it was a duty for us to do our part and help out, even a little bit.”
Anthony’s group had worked with the Morgan Stanley department on past events with his charity, 50Ways Foundation. They partnered together to support the 2022 Empire Invitational, which provided aid to underprivileged New York City-area kids. After the success of that event, Anthony and his manager, Bryce Council and NYC basketball brand Empire Invitational approached Morgan Stanley with their ideas for The Playbook. It was an easy yes, Richards says. “Cole’s passion and buy-in, given his own career path and perspective as a NYC area product turned NBA player, was icing on the cake,” Richards says. “And our shared commitment to giving back and empowering the next generation following a similar path to Cole was a perfect fit.”
Former Morgan Stanley advisor Darryl Cohen was arrested on Thursday morning for allegedly defrauding current and former NBA players including Jrue Holiday, Chandler Parsons and Courtney Lee.
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Joe Tsai has indicated he plans to sell a major chunk of his Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. stake through Morgan Stanley as he increasingly shifts his fortune away from the e-commerce giant. A holding company for Alibaba’s co-founder filed this month to sell 3 million of the Chinese firm’s American depositary receipts — roughly 8% of Tsai’s holding — through the New York-based bank, according to data from The Washington Service, which said the document indicated a trading plan. The stake is worth about $260 million, based on Thursday’s closing price.
Overtime is looking to launch new leagues — and now it has an extra $100 million to make it happen. The company raised nine digits in a Series D round led by Formula 1 and Atlanta Braves parent company Liberty Media and Morgan Stanley’s Counterpoint Global team.
Experienced? The broker had two decades with blue-chip firms like Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Merrill Lynch. Connected? He said he specialized in assisting athletes in all sports, with a client list of 70 current and former pros. But instead of pursuing a “conservative to moderate investment strategy,” the Holidays now allege, the broker, Darryl M. Cohen, steered $2.3 million of their money to “dubious individuals and entities” — and now most of the money is gone.
Other athletes said they had a similar experience. Chandler Parsons and Courtney Lee, who also played in the N.B.A., said that Cohen and Morgan Stanley improperly diverted $5 million and $2 million of their investments and that most of that money has similarly disappeared. So Parsons, Lee and the Holidays have filed claims against Morgan Stanley with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a self-regulatory organization known as FINRA which oversees brokerage firms. “I feel violated and taken advantage of,” Parsons said in a statement provided to The New York Times via Phil Aidikoff, a longtime securities lawyer in Beverly Hills, Calif., who represents the athletes as well as another claimant, in separate cases filed last year.
Officials at Morgan Stanley declined to comment. But in a regulatory filing, the firm said it had terminated Cohen in March 2021 because of allegations involving “transactions not disclosed to or approved by Morgan Stanley.” When reached on his cellphone, Cohen said, “I’ll get back with you.” He did not respond to a follow-up message, and his lawyer, Brandon S. Reif, said, “No comment.”
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Darryl Matthew Cohen had been part of the Global Sports Entertainment Group at Morgan Stanley, the division that caters to athletes and entertainers, according to the law firm Erez Law, which is investigating Cohen. According to public records cited by the law firm, two former National Basketball Association players, Chandler Parsons and Courtney Lee, are suing Morgan Stanley over allegations that payments were made without the approval from their accounts between 2017 and 2019. The athletes — who are seeking $5 million in damages — alleged that they were encouraged, presumably by Cohen, to get a liquidity access line of credit for real estate and life insurance policies, Erez Law says.
The NBWA partnered with Morgan Stanley which has a wealth management division for athletes and entertainers known as Morgan Stanley Global Sports and Entertainment.
Payton added that he still keeps in touch with Walker, his former Miami Heat teammate, and talked to him about two months ago. Walker has been teaming up with Morgan Stanley's global sports and entertainment division to teach young athletes how to handle their money, and last year he produced "Gone In An Instant," a documentary about his experience with being generous to a fault with friends and others. "He's doing a lot of things with a lot of companies trying to go around (and) tell his story," Payton said. "He made a mistake and he realized it after everything was gone and he's trying to prevent other people from doing the same thing."
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