Mixing Business with Pleasure

Tonight I’ll be heading over to the Faux Garden to watch the Boston Celtics demolish the Atlanta Hawks. This is obviously a pleasure engagement, but there may be a bit of business thrown in, since the Celtics are wholly-owned by investors. Let me be more specific: The Celtics are owned by private equity pros, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists.

Most people know the principals – Wyc Grousbeck (Highland Capital Partners) and Steve Pagliuca (Bain Capital). But did you know that the limited partnership group also includes such names as TPG Capital’s David Bonderman, Tudor Investment Corp.’s Jim Pallotta and Accel Partners’ Jim Breyer? Pallotta is even said to be building a backup practice facility at his new Weston mansion, just in case the regular spot springs a leak.

Here’s a list of some additional Celtics LPs: Richard Aldrich (RA Capital Associates), James Cash Jr. (Harvard Business School), Paul Edgerley (Bain Capital), Bill Egan (Alta Communications), Bill Helman (Greylock), Glenn Hutchins (Silver Lake Partners), Joe Lacob (Kleiner Perkins), Stephen Lewinstein (Stephen R. Lewinstein Associates), Stephen Luczo (Seagate), Michael Marks (KKR), David Roux (Silver Lake Partners) and Mark Wan (Three Arch Partners).

If you’re hoping to get five good minutes with any of them, you better have pricy enough tickets to enter the Lexus Club. Yeah, I hadn’t heard of it either, until I was hooked up with great seats last month. It’s on the ground floor, with big-screen TVs and a nice bar. It’s also where most attending owners spend halftime. I was only there for 10 minutes, but that was long enough to bump into two of the aforementioned LPs…