Bank executive says he’s the mystery buyer of NFL star’s $9M Charlotte mansion
A Capital One executive said Sunday that he owns the $9 million south Charlotte mansion of former Carolina Panthers’ star linebacker Shaq Thompson.
“I’m the owner of the property,” Neal Blinde, Capital One president of commercial banking and former Wells Fargo treasurer told The Charlotte Observer in a phone interview.
Merced Real Estate Holdings LLC owns the mansion, records show. Blinde said he owns the LLC.
Wells Fargo executive Bryant Holloway Owens is listed as the manager of the LLC in its articles of incorporation filing with the North Carolina Secretary of State’s office in Raleigh, the Observer reported Saturday.
Blinde isn’t listed as part of the LLC. He said Charlotte lawyer Bill Mills, listed as the organizer of the LLC, is his real estate attorney.
Mills confirmed that Blinde bought the mansion, although he and Blinde declined to say why Owens is part of the LLC. Both said Owens has no financial interest in the LLC.
The LLC’s address in county property tax records is the same as Owens’ home address in south Charlotte. Owens told the Observer he has no financial stake in the LLC but declined to discuss his involvement.
“Bryant is a great guy, a longtime friend of mine,” Blinde, former six-year treasurer at Wells Fargo, told the Observer.
Under N.C. law, a person can be listed as the manager of an LLC without having a financial or other interest in it, Mills said.
A record-setting sale in Charlotte neighborhood
The Nov. 7 sale of the 11,000-square-foot, custom-built estate set a record in the Carmel Park neighborhood, on Carmel Park Drive off Fairview Road, according to Florida-based Premier Sotheby’s International Realty.
Agent Ben Bowen of the firm’s Lake Norman office in Cornelius sold the home.
The sale was the third-highest ever of a home in Charlotte, Premier Sotheby’s officials said in a statement, citing the national Multiple Listing Service database of real estate transactions.
This story was originally published December 8, 2025 at 5:51 AM with the headline "Bank executive says he’s the mystery buyer of NFL star’s $9M Charlotte mansion."