Ari Emanuel converted a portion of his ownership interest in Endeavor into a cash payment of $173.8 million with Silver Lake’s deal to take the company private, according to a regulatory filing. Patrick Whitesell, a top Endeavor exec who’s leaving the company, received $100 million in cash.
Emanuel, who founded the talent agency in 1995 and most recently served as CEO of Endeavor, is now executive chairman of the newly renamed WME Group, which will be led by Mark Shapiro. Emanuel also continues as CEO and executive chair of TKO Group, which houses UFC, WWE and other sports properties.
Per an Endeavor filing Monday related to the go-private deal, on March 22, 2025, Emanuel and his living trust updated the exec’s rollover agreement to exclude $173,805,032.50, which he received as a cash payment with the closing of the Silver Lake transaction. In total, Emanuel rolled over ownership interests with a total value of $290.27 million into the newly private company, Endeavor Group Holdings Inc., which is the parent company of WME Group and TKO Group. Emanuel’s rollover amount is $26 million more than was originally agreed upon in April 2024.
Whitesell, who is exiting as executive chairman of Endeavor/WME with the go-private deal to launch a new Silver Lake-backed media investment company, received $100 million in cash under the sale. Per the SEC filing, Whitesell is rolling over ownership interests with a value equal to a total of $265.7 million into the newly private entity — which is $50 million more than was originally agreed upon in April 2024.
Silver Lake now holds approximately 87% of the total voting securities of Endeavor Group Holdings Inc. According to Silver Lake, when consolidating all of the value of TKO into Endeavor, the combined total enterprise value of the company is $25 billion — making it the largest private-equity sponsor public-to-private investment transaction in more than a decade and the largest ever in the media and entertainment sector.
Meanwhile, Emanuel had waived his right to a $25 million transaction bonus with the sale of Endeavor’s assets, as previously disclosed.
For 2023, Emanuel received a compensation package from Endeavor worth $83.9 million, which included $4.91 million in salary, a $34.65 million bonus and $43.47 million in stock awards. Roughly three-fourths of that total was attributed to Emanuel’s role as CEO of TKO Group, the holding company that includes WWE and UFC, from which he had a pay package in 2023 valued at $64.9 million. According to Endeavor’s filing, Emanuel’s total compensation attributable to Endeavor was $18.97 million in 2023, compared with $19.1 million in 2022.
