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After all, the sides had been in the middle of an exclusive negotiating window for roughly a month.

What did come as a surprise, however, was that Dundon’s ownership group now includes a new — and notable — investor: The Cherng Family Trust.

The trust is the investment firm of Andrew and Peggy Cherng, Mizzou alumni and the founders of Panda Express and the Panda Restaurant Group, and their family. The Cherngs have a net worth of $7.5 billion, according to Forbes, meaning they would be the wealthiest investors in Dundon’s group.

What do we know about the largest financial backers of the group poised to own the Blazers? Here are a few details:

• The Cherng Family Trust was founded in 2001 and handles the family’s wealth management, which includes a large real estate portfolio, direct private equity and fund investments, and significant philanthropic endeavors, according to the trust’s web site. The trust’s alternative assets are managed by CFT Capital Partners, which oversees an asset portfolio of more than $3 billion.

• The Cherngs are self-made billionaires who built the foundation of their wealth off the Panda Express fast-food restaurant chain, which they founded in 1973. Andrew Cherng’s backstory has been well told. He was born in China, moved to Taiwan and Japan as a child with his family, then immigrated to the United States to attend college at age 18. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Baker University and a master’s degree in applied mathematics from the University of Missouri.

Armed with the degrees, he moved to Los Angeles in 1972 to help family run a restaurant called Ting Ho. A year later, he and Peggy — who met at Baker and married in 1975 — opened their own Chinese restaurant in Pasadena with Andrew’s father, Ming-Tsai Cherng. They called it Panda Inn. Ten years later, the Cherngs opened the first Panda Express at the Glendale Galleria II mall in Glendale, California.

Anyone who has nibbled on orange chicken and fried rice at a mall or airport in the decades since is likely familiar with the popular chain. It has evolved into one of the most successful and recognized Asian fast-food restaurants in the world, featuring 2,600 locations in 11 countries and employing roughly 53,000 associates. The business remains family-owned today.

• The Cherng family has an Oregon connection. Peggy, who owns three college degrees — including a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Missouri — earned her undergraduate degree in applied mathematics from Oregon State in 1971. She spent four years in Corvallis and has been honored by the university multiple times as an alumna, including as an Alumni Fellow of the College of Science in 2000 and with an invitation to give the College of Business Dean’s Distinguished Lecture in 2012.

• The Cherngs have made plenty of headlines over the years for their philanthropy. The couple operates a charitable arm called Panda Cares, which has raised more than $415 million since 1999. Much of the support goes to children’s health, education and disaster relief, according to its web site.

The organization has supported more than 16 million youth, granted more than 5,200 college scholarships, donated 1.1 million books and served more than 2.1 million meals, according to its 2024 annual report. Last year alone, Panda Cares donated $19.4 million to health causes and $14.6 million to education causes, according to the annual report. In 2023, the organization made $100 million donation to City of Hope, the national comprehensive cancer center. Over the years, the Cherngs also have given $30 million to Caltech for an endowment in the medical engineering department and a $25 million gift to a hospital in Los Angeles to help fund its surgical program.

They've also to the University of Missouri.