Who Is Celtics Buyer Bill Chisholm?

How wealthy is private equity executive and future Boston Celtics owner Bill Chisholm, exactly?

Current Celtics partner and former Bain chairman Steve Pagliuca alluded to Chisholm having liquidity issues in a letter to fans Thursday. 

He implied Chisholm’s bid to buy the Celtics, which beat out Pagliuca in a surprise, would come with onerous debt, and perhaps be unable to afford the Celtics’ massive luxury-tax bill in the coming years. 

The Celtics could owe as much as $500 million in salary and tax penalties as soon as next season. That was a loss that owner Wyc Grousbeck was willing to foot, but his father Irving—who quietly held a much larger stake—wasn’t.

Now, that bill will fall to the 56-year-old Chisholm, who is set to take over as owner next season, even as Grousbeck remains CEO for three more years.

A spokesperson for Chisholm’s new ownership group declined to comment when asked whether it was accurate to call him a billionaire, but it almost assuredly is. The company he founded, STG (previously Symphony Technology Group), has $12 billion in assets under management, a source confirmed. Though the precise ownership structure of STG is unclear, STG’s site lists Chisholm as cofounder, managing partner, and chief investment officer.

NBA rules require the controlling owner to own at least 15% of the team. At a $6.1 billion purchase price, that would mean Chisholm put in at least $900 million. (Private equity firm Sixth Street reportedly contributed $1 billion in financing toward the purchase.) 

But the mystery around Chisholm’s wealth just underscores how little was known about the man before he vaulted onto the national scene this week. Here’s what else Front Office Sports was able to find about the man who says he is “up for this challenge” and aims to “bring more championships home to Boston.”

Family

Chisholm is from the North Shore suburbs of Boston but has long lived and operated out of the San Francisco Bay Area. 

According to public records, Chisholm owns a home in the ultra-wealthy Bay Area enclave of Atherton, Calif., home to Silicon Valley heavyweights like Marc Andreessen and Golden State Warriors player Steph Curry. Popular real estate websites estimate the property is worth around $16 million or $17 million.

Though Chisholm does not live in Boston—he has a summer home in Nantucket—he told The Boston Globe he “intends” to buy a home in the city.

His wife, Kimberly Ford Chisholm, is a writer and literary lecturer. The two both attended Dartmouth, and according to her author pages, she went on to earn advanced degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and University of California, Berkeley. A 2008 SFGATE article about her book Hump: True Tales of Sex After Kids says Bill Chisholm is “a self-admitted ‘typical East Coaster,’ and is sometimes embarrassed by California frankness, but he’s fully committed to his wife’s cause.” According to the book, her husband came up with its title.

Politics

According to federal election records, both Chisholm and his son Will have donated to Rep. Josh Harder (D., Calif.), a venture capitalist who was elected to the House in 2019. Harder did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

Chisholm’s wife is a prolific donor to liberal causes, giving Harder more than $31,000 between 2018 and 2022, and $2,000 to Kamala Harris’s campaign in last year’s presidential election. In 2020, writing under the byline Kimberly Ford, she wrote an op-ed saying Mount Rushmore should be removed from the Native land it sits on. Her great-grandfather, Gutzon Borglum, sculpted it.

Sports

While at Dartmouth, Bill Chisholm played soccer and was part of the 1990 Ivy League title-winning team. His sons, Will and Quentin, also played soccer at Dartmouth, and his daughter, Aidan, is a writer.

Chisholm says he has “been a die-hard Celtics fan my entire life,” telling The Boston Globe he watches or attends every game. The Chisholms attended a Celtics game last month incognito with Grousbeck, according to the Globe. He told the newspaper he wanted to maintain the team’s winning traditions—last summer’s NBA title extended the franchise’s league record to 18. “I’m all about winning championships and raising banners,” he said.

Business

Chisholm has worked at Bain and PaineWebber but made his fortune at STG investing in tech companies. He is still relatively obscure in the business world; a New York Post headline Thursday screamed “Never heard of the guy,” while The Wall Street Journal wrote “No One Knows Anything About Him” in a headline Friday. 

Chisholm is still looking for more investors in his Celtics purchase, according to Axios.