Key Takeaways
- Magic Johnson bought EquiTrust Life Insurance Company from Mark Walter in 2014, around the same time the insurer loaned $350 million to a Walter-controlled media company.
- Pablo Torre questioned Johnson’s silence after EquiTrust’s 2025 sale to Amistad Financial, which Eric Holoman—Johnson’s longtime business partner and EquiTrust’s former CEO—helped lead; Johnson’s representatives did not respond.
- No one has accused Johnson of wrongdoing, but the deal faces renewed attention amid federal scrutiny of Walter’s business empire and insurers’ use of policyholder money for affiliated investments.
Pablo Torre is digging deeper into Mark Walter's financial dealings, and this time Magic Johnson and a $350 million transaction are at the center of the story.
On the latest episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, the Pulitzer winner and guest Sam Koppelman examined Johnson's ownership of EquiTrust Life Insurance Company and its financial relationship with Walter. According to Torre, EquiTrust loaned $350 million to a media company controlled by Walter around the same period that Johnson acquired the insurer from the Guggenheim CEO in 2014.
That relationship is receiving renewed attention amid federal scrutiny of parts of Walter's business empire and questions surrounding the use of insurance companies to finance affiliated investments.
While no allegation has been made that Johnson committed wrongdoing, Torre is questioning the circumstances surrounding EquiTrust, its Walter-linked financing, and what happened to the insurer years later.
"You'd think, given the scale of this transaction... You'd think that Magic Johnson might celebrate this transaction — the transaction that made him a billionaire," Koppelman said.
Instead, he noted, Johnson never mentioned the EquiTrust sale on his famously active social media account.
"Which is conspicuous, given how often [Johnson] tweeted about EquiTrust and Holoman previously, one might say," Torre added.
Holoman is Eric Holoman, Johnson's longtime business partner and the former president of Magic Johnson Enterprises. He had also served as EquiTrust's president and CEO before becoming managing founder of Amistad, the company that ultimately purchased the insurer.
Torre said he contacted Johnson's representatives about his findings but had not received a response.
The questions surrounding EquiTrust also arrive just days after another Walter-connected financial arrangement involving LeBron James became public.
Bloomberg reported last month that King James Funding, an LLC controlled by James, secured nearly $300 million through asset-backed bonds purchased by two Midwestern life insurers: North American Company for Life and Health Insurance and Midland National Life Insurance Company. Guggenheim advised the insurers at the time.
Those bonds, first issued in 2018, were backed by future non-NBA income connected to James' business empire, including revenue from his lifetime Nike deal.
James' representative described the transactions as a common securitization strategy for someone of his wealth and stressed that James had no affiliation with Walter, Guggenheim, or the insurers beyond their involvement in the financing.
Bloomberg also reported there is no indication James' transactions are connected to the federal inquiries involving Walter's businesses.
The sports connections run unusually deep. Walter and Johnson have been business partners since their group purchased the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012. Johnson also served as the Lakers' president of basketball operations when LeBron James signed with Los Angeles in 2018, and Walter later purchased a stake in the Lakers before eventually taking control of the franchise.
