Walter holds a 12.8% stake in BlueCo, the consortium that owns Chelsea, alongside an equal share held by Todd Boehly, with Behdad Eghbali of Clearlake Capital owning the majority 61.5%.
A person familiar with the matter told reporters that Walter has expressed interest in selling that stake, coming weeks after he agreed to sell the LA Lakers for a record $12.5bn (£9bn) to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner, brother of Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared — less than a year after buying a majority stake in the NBA franchise.
The US Attorney's Office and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating how billions of dollars in loans extended to companies tied to Walter or his conglomerate, TWG Global, ended up on the books of his insurance businesses after passing through a third entity, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Bloomberg has reported that the FBI executed at least one search warrant to seize a mobile phone as part of the inquiry. TWG Global told the Financial Times it is "aware of and cooperating with the investigation."
Walter, 66, made his fortune as a co-founder of investment bank Guggenheim Partners in 1999, and beyond Chelsea and the Lakers his sporting interests include Ligue 1 side Strasbourg — also owned by BlueCo — a stake in the LA Dodgers, majority ownership of the WNBA's LA Sparks, and North America's top women's ice hockey league. He became a Chelsea minority owner in 2022 as part of the consortium led by Boehly and Clearlake that completed the club's takeover that year.
The scale and speed of the Lakers sale, agreed within days once talks began, has fuelled speculation in US sports business circles that the investigation may be a factor behind Walter's decision to begin cashing out of his holdings, though no charges have been filed against him and TWG Global has not commented on any connection between the two.
Announcing the Lakers sale, Walter said: "Owning the Los Angeles Lakers has been one of the great honours of my life. It has been an extraordinary investment, but what I will carry with me is the community, the fans, and a city that treats this team as family."