Saul Katz

Saul B. Katz

• School Brooklyn College

• Born 1939 in Brooklyn, NY USA

Biographical Information

Saul Katz was a minority owner and President of the New York Mets. Born in Brooklyn, NY, he was a real estate developer and married Iris Wilpon, the sister of Fred Wilpon. The two became business partners, and co-founded Sterling Equities in 1972. The financial partnership first bought an ownership share in the Mets in 1980, joining principal owner Nelson Doubleday, and became principal owners in 2002 when they bought out Doubleday. He was named the team's President at that point, with Wilpon's son, Jeff Wilpon, being named Chief Operations Officer. The title was largely ceremonial, as it was the younger Wilpon who was responsible for day-to-day decision-making.

Along with Fred Wilpon, Katz was implicated in the Bernie Madoff financial scandal which rocked Wall Street in 2009. Sterling Equities had received over $300 million from the Ponzi scheme as one of the few investors to make money from the crooked edifice. The Wilpons and Katz were forced to pay a settlement worth $162 million to fleeced investors in the scheme. This could have forced the partners to sell the Mets, their most valuable asset, to raise the necessary funds, but they managed to stay afloat by bringing in outside investors, including Steve Cohen. Cohen eventually bought the team when it was put for sale in 2019, paying $2.4 billion in September 2020. Ironically, Cohen had also been implicated in a major Wall Street scandal, related to insider trading, in the 2010s. Katz and the Wilpons retained a small ownership share after the sale.