US mortgage lending billionaire Mat Ishbia has agreed a deal to acquire the Phoenix Suns and Mercury basketball teams at a valuation of $4bn, in what would be a record transaction for a National Basketball Association franchise.

An agreement between Ishbia — together with his brother Justin — and the teams’ current owner, Robert Sarver, will give the brothers more than 50 per cent ownership of the two teams. The deal is still subject to due diligence and approval by the NBA’s board of governors before a transaction can go through.

As it stands, the $4bn valuation of the Suns and its sister team, the WNBA’s Mercury, comes in at almost double the enterprise valuations of other recent NBA transactions. The 2019 sale of the Brooklyn Nets to Alibaba co-founder Joseph Tsai for $2.35bn, was a US professional sports record.