Pablo Torre immediately placed Magic Johnson near the center of the questions raised in his new hour-long investigation into the financial empire of Dodgers controlling owner Mark Walter.
The episode, produced with reporting from Hunterbrook Media, examines insurance-company investments connected to the Dodgers’ television business and a fund associated with Johnson. Its findings were drawn from insurance statements, regulatory records and SEC filings.
Johnson has not been charged with wrongdoing. No regulator has publicly concluded that the EquiTrust transactions highlighted in the report were improperly classified. The federal investigation disclosed in public filings has focused on Walter’s broader insurance network, not the Dodgers’ baseball operations.
The federal investigation surrounding Walter
Federal authorities are examining whether private-credit investments held by Walter-controlled insurers were incorrectly reported as unaffiliated. Delaware Life Insurance Company and Clear Spring Life and Annuity Company received subpoenas from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, while the Securities and Exchange Commission has been conducting a parallel investigation.
The issue became more serious when Delaware Life restated its financial statements. Investments classified as affiliated rose from less than five percent of invested assets to 42 percent at the end of 2025.
TWG Global, Walter’s holding company, has proposed exchanging up to $6.5 billion of related-party investments for assets classified as independent. The transaction remains subject to regulatory approval. TWG says it is cooperating with authorities and insists there was “no fraud.”
Affiliated investments are not automatically illegal. The distinction matters because common ownership can influence both sides of a transaction. Regulators require disclosure so they can determine whether an investment was fairly valued and appropriate for the insurer.
The $350 million Dodgers television deal
The new reporting connects Johnson to the story through EquiTrust Life Insurance Company, the insurer he later acquired from Guggenheim Partners. Walter co-founded Guggenheim, which continued managing EquiTrust’s investments after Johnson took control.
Hunterbrook found that EquiTrust acquired $350 million of debt in 2014 from American Media Productions, the company behind SportsNet LA and the Dodgers’ long-term local television agreement.
Guggenheim still owned EquiTrust when the debt was acquired, although Johnson’s planned purchase had already been announced. SportsNet LA was struggling through a distribution dispute at the time, leaving much of the Los Angeles market unable to watch Dodgers games.
The arrangement placed EquiTrust money into a television company connected to a baseball franchise owned by Walter and Johnson. Hunterbrook reported that EquiTrust’s filings treated the position as an unaffiliated investment.
That classification may have been proper. Hunterbrook acknowledged that it does not possess every agreement required to make a legal determination. The unresolved question is whether the relationships surrounding the transaction were close enough to require affiliated treatment and additional regulatory scrutiny.
The Johnson-connected infrastructure fund
The second transaction occurred after Johnson had taken control of EquiTrust.
In August 2017, shortly after JLC Infrastructure Fund I began raising capital, EquiTrust invested in the fund. Johnson and his longtime business associate Eric Holoman were connected to JLC, while Holoman was also serving as EquiTrust’s chief executive.
By the end of 2025, EquiTrust’s position carried a reported value of approximately $100.5 million. When combined with holdings by the two Walter-linked insurers, the total insurer investment in JLC reached approximately $280 million. That represented almost two-thirds of the fund’s reported gross asset value.
Hunterbrook also found that the same Johnson-controlled trust appeared within the ownership structures of EquiTrust and JLC’s investment manager. Despite those overlapping relationships, the insurer filings reviewed by Hunterbrook listed the JLC holdings as unaffiliated.
The report does not establish that the classification violated insurance law. It does explain why Johnson may face questions about who approved the investments and how those relationships were presented to regulators.
EquiTrust’s sale adds another connection
EquiTrust was sold in 2025 to Amistad, an insurance group led by Holoman. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Amistad is among the intermediary businesses being examined within the wider federal investigation into Walter’s financial network.
It remains unclear whether Johnson retained an interest after the sale. Hunterbrook said Johnson’s representatives and the other parties contacted did not respond to its detailed questions about the transactions.
What this means for the Dodgers
The public evidence does not show misconduct by the Dodgers or a threat to the club’s ability to meet its player obligations. This is an ownership-finance investigation concerning the disclosure of relationships between insurers and connected businesses.
The Dodgers are relevant because one of the highlighted investments involved the company behind SportsNet LA. Walter and Johnson also remain members of the club’s ownership group.
Dodgers president Stan Kasten has said the franchise is not for sale and does not expect the federal investigation surrounding Walter’s companies to change team operations.
“The Dodgers are not being sold. There’s no process that has been started to sell it, period. We are planning only to win.”
TWG has also rejected suggestions that it must unload the Dodgers to support its insurance businesses.
The remaining question is whether regulators received an accurate account of the relationships surrounding these investments. Torre and Hunterbrook have identified documents that warrant examination, but the legal conclusions belong to federal authorities and insurance regulators.
Until those conclusions arrive, this remains an ownership-finance investigation with a direct Dodgers connection, not a proven scandal inside the baseball club. The Sporting Page will continue following the federal inquiry and any response from Magic Johnson.
Source disclosure: Hunterbrook Media’s report stated that Hunterbrook Capital held short positions in certain securities at the time of publication. The report said those positions could change and that its work was not investment advice.
