2 Hedge Fund Titans Agree to Buy the Milwaukee Bucks

Two Wall Street bigwigs, Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens, have a taste for distressed assets.

So the Milwaukee Bucks, the basketball team that currently holds the worst record in the N.B.A., is right up their alley.

Mr. Lasry, the chief executive and chairman of the Avenue Capital Group, and Mr. Edens, the co-chairman of the Fortress Investment Group, have agreed to buy the Bucks for about $550 million, the league announced on Wednesday. Their task now is to try to revitalize the flagging team, just as their hedge funds have done numerous times with unloved debt and equity investments.

For basketball fans, a major point to take away from the announcement was that the new owners planned to keep the Bucks in Milwaukee. Herb Kohl, the former United States senator who owns the franchise, said in a statement that Milwaukee “is and will continue to be the home of the Bucks.”

But the deal also aroused intrigue on Wall Street, as Mr. Lasry and Mr. Edens add their names to the list of wealthy financiers with personal investments in sports. They set an ambitious goal on Wednesday: winning an N.B.A. championship.

“Having each built competitive teams in the business world, we will apply that same intensity and determination as owners of the Milwaukee Bucks,” the two said in a statement.

The Bucks have won only 15 games this season, and lost 66, putting them at the bottom of the N.B.A. rankings. The team has won the league championship only once, in 1971.

One thing the new owners have is money. They plan to spend at least $100 million to build a new sports arena in Milwaukee, according to the announcement on Wednesday. They also said in the statement that they had “attended various sporting events in Milwaukee and Green Bay over the years.”

Basketball teams can be a magnet for Wall Street billionaires. Joshua Harris, a co-founder of the private equity giant Apollo Global Management, led a group to buy the Philadelphia 76ers in 2011. Mr. Harris and his partners then bought the New Jersey Devils hockey team last year.

Stephen Pagliuca, a managing director of Bain Capital, was part of a group that bought the Boston Celtics in 2002. Another private equity investor, Tom Gores, bought the Detroit Pistons in 2011.

In baseball, Steven A. Cohen, the fallen hedge fund titan, owns a small stake in the Mets, and John W. Henry, the hedge fund manager who bought The Boston Globe last year, is the principal owner of the Red Sox.

Ownership by a Wall Street titan does not guarantee success. According to Dan Primack of Fortune, four basketball teams that were bought by private equity and venture capital investors did only slightly better after the new owners took over.

The deal for the Bucks is subject to approval by the N.B.A.’s board of governors.

For Mr. Lasry, the co-founder of Avenue, the deal provides a diversion as he steps back from some investing responsibilities at the firm.

Last year, amid speculation that Mr. Lasry was being considered for the role of ambassador to France, Avenue reorganized its management, promoting Richard P. Furst to chief investment officer. Mr. Lasry did not get the ambassador job, but he told his investors he was “very grateful to have been considered.”