World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. Chairman Vince McMahon appears within the ring throughout the WWE Monday Night Raw show on the Thomas & Mack Center August 24, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Vince McMahon plans to sell a considerable chunk of his stake in TKO, the parent company of WWE, the wrestling empire founded by his father, TKO said in a release Thursday
TKO’s stock fell greater than 6% on Friday, closing around $79.
McMahon intends to sell 8.4 million of his shares, price about $700 million. He owned greater than 28 million shares as of August, based on a regulatory filing. The corporate said it and a number of other executives need to buy shares from McMahon. The longtime wrestling honcho has a net price of $2.8 billion, based on Forbes.
The move might be a sign that McMahon, 78, plans to get out of his family business, which has been the dominant player in skilled wrestling for about 4 a long time, launching the careers of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, John Cena and lots of other crossover stars.
Earlier this yr, WWE merged with UFC to form TKO, which is majority owned by Endeavor Group, the talent agency and media company run by Ari Emanuel.
McMahon is executive chairman of TKO. In August, WWE said he was served with a federal grand jury subpoena related to allegations that he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush money to women who accused him of sexual misconduct. He said on the time he has “at all times denied any intentional wrongdoing and proceed to achieve this.”
He also went on medical leave in July after he had spinal surgery.
Endeavor, meanwhile, is exploring strategic alternatives as its market value hasn’t lived as much as expectations because it went public in 2021. Endeavor’s biggest shareholder, investment firm Silver Lake, said it could take the corporate private.
