- Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle have sold their remaining Penguins shares, per DK Pittsburgh Sports
- Lemieux holds no stake in the franchise for the first time since he bought it out of bankruptcy in 1999
- Read below for the one piece of PPG Paints Arena he could still hang onto
Mario Lemieux does not own a piece of the Pittsburgh Penguins anymore.
Lemieux and longtime business partner Ron Burkle recently sold every one of their remaining shares, two sources told Dejan Kovacevic of DK Pittsburgh Sports. That drops the 60-year-old to zero for the first time since he pulled the franchise out of bankruptcy in 1999.
Both men had been hanging on by a thread. Lemieux kept a small slice after Fenway Sports Group paid $900 million for the Penguins in 2021, and Burkle held a bigger one. Neither survived the handoff to the Hoffmann Family of Companies, whose $1.7 billion purchase cleared the Board of Governors in June.
He wanted the whole thing back. Lemieux assembled a group and chased the sale himself, and the Hoffmanns beat him to it.
That first rescue was a lot messier. Pittsburgh filed for bankruptcy in 1998 while owing Lemieux $32.5 million in deferred salary, and rather than chase the check, he converted $20 million of it into equity and led the group that kept the team in the city. His purchase got league approval that September.
Take a look back at how that rescue came together:
Five Stanley Cups came out of the two runs. Lemieux lifted it as a player in 1991 and 1992, then watched his team win it again in 2009, 2016 and 2017. He is still the franchise leader in goals with 690 and points with 1,723.
Losing the shares does not have to mean losing the building. Penguins governor Geoff Hoffmann was asked in June whether Lemieux would have a place under the new group, and he did not hedge.
“I’m really hopeful that he’ll be a part of this in whatever way, shape or form makes sense for him. We’d love for him to be part of it. We know what he means to the Penguins, what he means to the city and what he means to the NHL. Everybody would embrace him with open arms.”
One idea already floating around, according to a source, is Lemieux keeping a suite at PPG Paints Arena for himself, his family and his friends.
The shares are gone. The No. 66 hanging in the rafters is not going anywhere.
