Perth Wildcats owner Mark Arena’s remarkable life from a cyber security star to leading a NBL powerhouse

New Perth Wildcats owner Mark Arena has revealed he bought the club to invoke new passion in his working life, saying he had no desire to start another business. Arena paid the first instalment of $21 million to Sports Entertainment Group on Wednesday to take a 52.5 per cent stake in the club. He will pay another $15 million by 2026 before having the chance to have full ownership in 2028. Having built cyber security firm Intel 471 from scratch and then sold it to global juggernaut Thoma Bravo in 2021, Arena’s life changed forever. A Wildcats fan since he was a child, he said buying the club would allow him to follow his passion. “I‘ve been very successful with tech and cyber security. I always ask myself, would I be willing or prepared to do it again? I’m not,” Arena told The West Australian. “It is building a start-up from scratch. I worked extremely hard for almost nine years on that. I definitely don’t want to do that. I feel like I lost five years of my life. “I was thinking what would be the passion? I didn’t come from money. I’ve been successful now so how can you get the passion back? Get involved with sport. “Obviously, I want to win, but also be successful on the on the business side, because the more money we get in the business side, the more money we’ve got to spend within the club. And success equals success.” Arena emailed SEG CEO Craig Hutchison in the days before the Wildcats hosted Tasmania in December expressing an interest in becoming a minority shareholder. He was offered the chance to invest in the overall SEN Teams business which involved multiple sporting clubs, but declined saying he was only interested in purchasing the Wildcats. Having then watched Melbourne United being valued at $40 million when NBL owner Larry Kestelman sold a 10 per cent stake in the club in March, Arena felt comfortable about paying that sized figure for the Wildcats. Arena will work full-time for the Wildcats as the owner. The club will also establish a board that includes Hutchison, SEN Chief Operating Officer Jodie Simms and Pentanent Chairman David Buckingham. Arena is determined to discover ways to make the club even bigger. “I’m going to be here long term. That’s my plan,” he said. The father-of-two grew up in Greenwood, went to at Sacred Heart College and then studied software engineering at ECU. He later moved to Canberra with wife Teresa as a Technical Specialist for the Australian Federal Police, became elite at tracking cyber criminals and later shifted to the Netherlands where he excelled at his craft working alongside friend and former FBI employee Jason Passwaters. Arena then started Intel 471 and worked for more than 15 hours every day to build a company which was immensely successful at “tracking bad guys and selling intelligence on cyber threat actors.” Arena moved back to Perth after selling his company and started assessing the next stage of his life. “I stayed to CEO for about a year but then I decided that wasn’t that’s not the right role for me,” he explained. “I’m still on the board there. I’m chairman of the board of a drone security company which does the same thing but is selling intelligence on drone threats. So how does Hezbollah use drones against the Israelis, or the Russians using drones against the Ukrainians.” The Wildcats experienced a rollercoaster ride after Sports Entertainment Group bought the club from Jack Bendat. The club’s famous finals streak came to an end after 35 years, they were knocked out of the Play-In tournament in 2023 and then made the semifinals last season. Arena is determined to connect with fans and has already launched a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” thread. He is determined to win more titles but warned the league had never been stronger. “Who wouldn’t want to win championships?” he asked. “The NBL is more challenging than it has ever been. But I still think we are the most successful club, have the most members, probably the most revenue and the best stadium in Australia for basketball. “I’m hoping with a focus here of being West Australian again with someone who is here every day, grinding it out and pushing everybody, hopefully, that’s what brings success both off and on the court. “It’s unrealistic to expect that we’re going to have the same level of success that we had with Jack Bendat. Following up that, which would have been a tough job for me or anybody. Hutchy took a lot of unfair criticism for that.”