Names In The News

Gates And Phil Knight Investing In Buyout Fund

The SEC Thursday filed charges against Earthboard Sports Inc. Founder HUBERT JEFFREYS, along with former brokers TIMOTHY BELL and TRACY EDWARDS, accusing them of making fake announcements – like VANS INC. was planning to acquire the company — to fraudulently raise about $5M from investors over a six-year period (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 2/25)....The 1980 ARENA in Lake Placid, NY, where late U.S. Olympic hockey coach HERB BROOKS led the team to its ’80 Gold-Medal victory, has been renamed 1980 RINK, HERB BROOKS ARENA. The announcement capped a 25th anniversary celebration of the ’80 Games (AP, 2/24)....Microsoft co-Founder BILL GATES and Nike Chair PHIL KNIGHT have invested in a new buyout fund of as much as $2.5B being raised by OAK HILL CAPITAL PARTNERS LP, a firm started by Texas billionaire ROBERT BASS (BLOOMBERG NEWS, 2/24)....In Boston, Cosmo Macero Jr. reports Boston-based restaurateur PATRICK LYONS is developing a club called “GAME ON” that mixes Red Sox fanfare with a VIP nightclub setting at Landsdowne and Brookline Avenue. There will be a 500-foot-long bar, “overlooked by luxury suite-style skyboxes,” a five-way speaker system and about 90 HDTVs to show the games. Lyons has reportedly “worked out a lease agreement with the Red Sox” (BOSTON HERALD, 2/25)....The U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE will provide a $3M appropriation in October to THE FIRST TEE. The First Tee has already received funding of $4.5M in the past two years from the Departments of Justice and Education (GOLFWEEK, 2/26 issue).