Former Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer in $2bn deal to buy LA Clippers

Steve Ballmer, the former chief executive of Microsoft, is poised to buy the Los Angeles Clippers basketball franchise after agreeing a $2bn deal, according to a trustee of the team's owner.

Shelly Sterling, who co-owns the team with her husband Donald Sterling, said in a statement released through her lawyers that she had signed a binding contract with Mr Ballmer for him to take control of the team. His bid trumped rival offers, including one from David Geffen.

Mr Sterling has previously said he does not want to sell the team.

Ms Sterling enlisted Bank of America to identify buyers for the Clippers after Mr Sterling was threatened with expulsion by the National Basketball Association. The league's threat came after Mr Sterling was secretly recorded making disparaging remarks about black people.

"I am delighted that we are selling the team to Steve, who will be a terrific owner," Ms Sterling said in a statement released by Greenberg Glusker, her counsel. "We have worked for 33 years to build the Clippers into a premiere NBA franchise. I am confident that Steve will take the team to new levels of success."

Ms Sterling said that she was "acting under her authority as the sole trustee of The Sterling Family Trust which owns the Clippers."

Adam Silver, the NBA's commissioner, vowed last month to do "everything in my power" to force Mr Sterling to sell. Under NBA rules, an owner can be removed if 75 per cent of the league's owners vote for expulsion.

But while Ms Sterling has solicited offers, Mr Sterling has yet to decide whether he will fight the NBA's ruling, according to people familiar with the matter.

Any deal will also have to be accepted by the NBA.

"I will be honored to have my name submitted to the NBA Board of Governors for approval as the next owner of the Los Angeles Clippers," Mr Ballmer, who stepped down as Microsoft CEO in February, was quoted as saying in the same statement. "I love basketball. And I intend to do everything in my power to ensure that the Clippers continue to win - and win big - in Los Angeles. "

Mr Sterling, who has an estimated net worth of $1.9bn thanks to investments in real estate, bought the Clippers in 1981 for $12.5m. Since then the value of professional sports franchises has exploded along with a boom in the value of media rights.

The bulk of Mr Ballmer's personal fortune estimated by Forbes to be worth $20bn is still tied up in Microsoft. The steady sale of shares by co-founder Bill Gates to fund his philanthropic work recently left Mr Ballmer as the company's largest individual shareholder, with a stake now worth $13.5bn.

A basketball enthusiast who once coached his son's school team, Mr Ballmer often said that work left him little time for outside interests other than sport, with golf another personal passion. He had already sought to elevate his interest in basketball even before last August's announcement he would retire early from the software company, with his involvement more than a year ago in a failed bid for the Sacramento Kings.

Mr Ballmer could pay for the Clippers with the extra money he has made on his Microsoft stake since announcing he would quit the company. Growing confidence on Wall Street that a shake-up at the company would finally help it break out of a long share price slump has pushed the former chief executive's interest up by $2bn.

Microsoft money has already cornered sports franchises on the west coast. Paul Allen, the company's co-founder, owns the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers, as well as the Seahawks football team in his home town of Seattle.

The Los Angeles Times first reported Mr Ballmer's $2bn bid for the Clippers.

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