Stamford Advocate

WWE founder Vince McMahon to sell over $300M of company stock

- By Paul Schott

STAMFORD — WWE founder Vince McMahon, who resigned amid controvers­y in January from the sports-entertainm­ent firm’s parent company, is offloading another nine-figure block of company stock — this time, for a total of more than $300 million.

Through an agreement reached Sunday with TKO Group Holdings, Stamford-based WWE’s parent company, McMahon will sell about 1.85 million of his TKO shares, at a per-share price of about $89, for a total of $165 million, according to a TKO filing on Monday to the Securities and Exchange Commission. TKO plans to retire those shares. The new filing also reported that McMahon and Endeavor, which holds a majority stake in TKO, agreed last Thursday for Endeavor to purchase around 1.64 million of McMahon’s TKO shares, for about $89 per share, for a total of about $146 million.

Including the latest transactio­ns, McMahon will have earned about $1.5 billion from selling portions of his stake in TKO, which was created last year through the combinatio­n of WWE and mixed martial arts organizati­on UFC. Last month, McMahon made two stock sales that totaled more than $500 million. Late last year, he sold approximat­ely $670 million of his shares.

After closing the latest stock sales, McMahon will own about 8 million TKO shares. Based on TKO’s opening share price of $93.50 on Monday, 8 million shares would be worth $748 million.

During TKO’s earnings call on Feb. 27, TKO President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Shapiro said that McMahon was not coordinati­ng with TKO executives before deciding to sell company stock.

“He’ll do whatever he’s going to do,” Shapiro said. “We’re on the sideline, we’ll have a look, we’ll see. We have no idea on timing. We’re not having any discussion with him. He’s given us no point of view on his motive, or if he plans to sell or not sell, or if he does, how much. So we’re going to wait around and find out.”

On. Jan. 26, McMahon resigned as TKO’s executive chairman and

from the company’s board of directors, a day after a former WWE employee filed a lawsuit in federal court in Connecticu­t

that accused him and another former WWE executive of sexual assault and traffickin­g. McMahon denied the lawsuit’s accusation­s, but he said in a written statement that he decided to resign, “out of respect for the

WWE Universe, the extraordin­ary TKO business,” and all those, “who helped make WWE into the global leader it is today.”

McMahon’s departure has not disrupted WWE’s programmin­g. On Saturday

and Sunday, WWE held the latest edition of its marquee annual event, WrestleMan­ia, at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelph­ia. Stephanie McMahon, Vince McMahon’s daughter, who resigned as WWE’s co-CEO

and chairwoman in January 2023, opened the proceeding­s on Sunday night. She proclaimed it to be, “the first WrestleMan­ia of the Paul Levesque era.” Paul “Triple H” Levesque is Stephanie McMahon’s husband,

WWE’s chief content officer and widely regarded as one of WWE’s greatest-ever wrestlers.

Attendance for the two nights of action at Lincoln Financial Field totaled more than 145,000, according to WWE.

 ?? Jessica Hill/Associated Press ?? WWE founder Vince McMahon speaks at an event in Hartford in 2010. On Monday, WWE's parent company, TKO Group Holdings, disclosed that McMahon would sell more than $300 million of his shares in the company.
Jessica Hill/Associated Press WWE founder Vince McMahon speaks at an event in Hartford in 2010. On Monday, WWE's parent company, TKO Group Holdings, disclosed that McMahon would sell more than $300 million of his shares in the company.

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