Three Years Ago, Mat Ishbia Pledged $4.6 Billion Of His Company's Stock To Buy The Phoenix Suns. Now His Lender Wants More Collateral

Mat Ishbia became a billionaire by building United Wholesale Mortgage into the largest mortgage lender in America. In 2023, he used that fortune to buy control of the NBA's Phoenix Suns and WNBA's Phoenix Mercury in a deal that valued the teams at $4 billion.

But Ishbia didn't simply have $4 billion sitting in a checking account.

Around the time of the Suns acquisition, Ishbia's family holding company pledged more than 805 million shares tied to United Wholesale Mortgage as collateral for loans from JPMorgan. At the time, those shares were worth roughly $4.6 billion.

That arrangement worked just fine as long as the value of Ishbia's company remained strong. Three years later, however, United Wholesale Mortgage's stock has collapsed, and JPMorgan reportedly wants Ishbia to put up more collateral.

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It's the latest complication in what has suddenly become a very difficult stretch for the billionaire mortgage mogul.

United Wholesale Mortgage recently stunned investors by revealing a $603 million loss related to interest-rate hedges. The loss stemmed from UWM's failed attempt to acquire Two Harbors Investment Corp., a mortgage-servicing-focused real estate investment trust.

UWM agreed to buy Two Harbors in late 2025 in a transaction valued at roughly $1.3 billion. In anticipation of taking ownership of Two Harbors' mortgage assets, UWM entered into interest-rate hedges designed to protect the portfolio against changes in rates.

Except UWM never ended up acquiring the portfolio.

Two Harbors abandoned the proposed UWM transaction in March and instead accepted a cash offer from another buyer. UWM was left with hedges related to assets it never received, and unwinding those positions ultimately resulted in the $603 million loss.

UWM has since sued Two Harbors for breach of contract and fraud, seeking more than $500 million in damages.

The loss helped push UWM into a major financing agreement with Oaktree Capital Management. Oaktree is providing $1.5 billion, while Ishbia's family holding company is contributing another $150 million. A proposed rights offering could add another $400 million.

Oaktree isn't providing that money cheaply.

Its investment comes in the form of preferred stock carrying a 10% annual cash dividend, equivalent to $150 million per year on the initial $1.5 billion investment. Oaktree is also receiving warrants, two board seats and substantial protections over major corporate decisions.

UWM also suspended its common-stock dividend.

That's particularly significant for Ishbia. Because his family controls the overwhelming majority of UWM, those dividends had generated hundreds of millions of dollars in annual cash payments for him. Now that source of liquidity has disappeared at the same time the value of his UWM holdings has plunged.

And that brings us back to JPMorgan.

Ishbia's borrowing relationship with the bank has actually expanded since the Suns purchase. According to a recent securities filing, approximately 653.8 million interests tied to his UWM ownership are pledged against five JPMorgan loans with principal amounts of:

$610 million, $605 million, $435 million, $225 million and $460 million.

Combined, that's $2.335 billion worth of loans.

The Financial Times reports that after UWM's recent stock plunge, JPMorgan requested that Ishbia provide additional collateral.

That's the central risk of borrowing heavily against stock. A billionaire can own billions of dollars worth of shares and use those shares as collateral without selling them and triggering taxes. But if the stock price falls sharply, the lender's cushion disappears. The borrower may then have to pledge additional assets, repay part of the loan or otherwise renegotiate the arrangement.

And UWM's stock has fallen sharply. Shares plunged roughly 35% following the company's latest financial disclosures and have lost around 70% of their value this year.

None of this means Mat Ishbia is broke or that the Phoenix Suns are about to be seized by JPMorgan. He still controls an enormous ownership stake in UWM, and his sports franchises themselves are highly valuable assets. Ishbia has also pushed back against descriptions of the Oaktree investment as a bailout, characterizing it instead as a strategic partnership that eliminates uncertainty about UWM's near-term financing.

But the episode offers a striking illustration of how billionaire fortunes actually work.

Ishbia became extraordinarily wealthy because of his ownership of one company. He then pledged a huge portion of that ownership to support billions of dollars of personal borrowing while simultaneously spending billions to acquire an NBA franchise.

Now the company that made him rich has suffered a $603 million loss, its stock has cratered, its dividend has been suspended, and the bank holding billions of dollars worth of Ishbia's personal loans reportedly wants more collateral.

For one of America's richest sports owners, that's an uncomfortable number of problems arriving at exactly the same time.