The rise, fall of a green L.A.-area bank firm

Aspiration Partners quickly drew celebrity investors with a focus on the climate crisis and carbon offsets. How it all blew up and prompted an NBA investigation involving the Clippers.

- By Salvador Hernandez

ANDREI Cherny, clockwise from top, is a co-founder of Aspiration Partners. Its investors include actor Leonardo DiCaprio. LA Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard is among those named in an inquiry into the online bank.

GINA FERAZZI Los Angeles Times

Aspiration Partners made a splash when it entered the green investing space in 2013.

The Marina del Rey firm billed itself as a socially conscious online banking company, offering investments and focusing its finances on the climate crisis. It also generated and sold carbon credits meant to help offset greenhouse gas emissions.

Soon, it collected celebrity investors such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, Robert Downey Jr. and Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft chief executive, philanthropist and owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.

But 12 years later, things have turned sour.

Earlier this year, the co-founder and another top company official agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud charges and scheming to bilk investors using falsified documents. Aspiration Partners went bankrupt.

And now, the company is at the center of a NBA investigation into whether a $28-million deal the firm cut with Clippers star Kawhi Leonard was designed to help the team circumvent the league's salary cap.

The Clippers have strongly denied that, and said neither the team nor Ballmer played any role in Leonard’s deal and that there was no intention to violate any NBA rule. Leonard also has denied any wrongdoing.

In a statement, the Clippers said Ballmer and his family are “focused on sustainability” and built the Clippers’ home arena at the leading edge of environmental design. Aspiration Partners was part of that effort, the statement said, and Ballmer was “duped on the investment and on some parts of this agreement, as were many other investors and employees.”