Vince McMahon sells more than 2.0 million shares of WWE stock on Monday, informs company of future plans, UPDATE – Sales Price disclosed

By James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor

Vince McMahon

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Update: The Reuters news service picked up on McMahon’s stock transaction Monday. Reuters noted that McMahon informed WWE that he intends to continue in his executive role “for the foreseeable future.”

The SEC filing was released Monday evening after the stock market closed. The stock was down 3.7 percent in after-hours trading on Monday night. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts on Tuesday.

WWEStockAfterhoursMay16***

WWE CEO Vince McMahon cashed out more than 2.0 million shares of Class A common WWE Stock on Monday (May 16) for purposes of estate planning.

WWE filed an SEC document on Monday disclosing the “block trade” transaction allowing McMahon to sell a large number of shares.

Update: WWE did not disclose what the sales price was. In a follow-up SEC filing on Tuesday, WWE disclosed the sales price of $16.50 per share, translating to gross proceeds of $36.2 million.

The transaction was completed under the Vincent K. McMahon 2013 Irrevocable Trust, which was established by McMahon “for estate planning purposes for the benefit of Mr. McMahon and certain members of Mr. McMahon’s Family.” The beneficiary identified in Tuesday’s SEC filing is Linda McMahon.

The block trade represented a sale of about six percent of WWE’s outstanding Class A common stock.

WWE noted the sale was “executed for liquidity and asset diversification” purposes, not pointing to a future sale of the company. Although, McMahon’s overall ownership interest in the company went from majority shareholder to just under 50 percent.

After the sale, McMahon beneficially owns more than 37 million shares of Class B McMahon Family stock, or “86 percent of the Company’s total voting power and approximately 48.8 percent of the Company’s total outstanding shares of common stock.”

The trust itself still owns 1.547 million shares of Class B common stock.

– WWE disclosed a key item at the end of the filing that “Mr. McMahon informed the Company that he has no current plans to sell any shares of the Company’s stock and that he intends to continue in his capacity as the Company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for the foreseeable future.”

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