Vince McMahon, After Quitting TKO Board, Is Selling $311 Million in Stock Back to WWEs Pare

July 2024 · 5 minute read

WWE founder has earned about $1.5 billion in sales of TKO shares to date

Vince McMahon continues to cash out his stock in TKO Group Holdings, the company formed by the merger of WWE and UFC that is majority-owned by Endeavor.

McMahon, the founder of WWE, resigned from the board of TKO Group in January 2024 in the wake of sexual assault and sex trafficking allegations against him by a former employee as detailed in a civil lawsuit. McMahon has strongly denied the allegations.

On April 7, McMahon entered into a stock sale agreement with TKO, which will purchase 1.85 million of his shares in TKO at a per-share price of $89.01 for an aggregate amount of $165 million, per an SEC filing Monday. TKO intends to retire the shares of stock purchased under the pact; the company intends to fund the share repurchase with approximately $150 million from a revolving credit facility and with cash on hand.

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In addition, on April 5, Endeavor agreed to purchase 1.64 million shares of McMahon’s Class A common stock of TKO (also for $89.01 per share) for a total of of $146.2 million. Endeavor expects to fund the stock repurchase with cash on hand, according to a separate 8-K filing with the SEC.

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McMahon will receive $311.2 million total from the two stock repurchase deals. All told, he has now earned about $1.5 billion through TKO stock sales, including $670 million last November, $408 million in March, and $100 million last month under the completion of a prepaid forward contract with Morgan Stanley Bank.

After the pair of stock repurchases go through, McMahon will own approximately 8 million shares in TKO Group. According to the company’s most recent 10-Q, McMahon has pledged 7.17 million of his shares as collateral “to secure his obligations under loans” from Morgan Stanley Private Bank, National Association.

The disclosures come after the WWE’s WrestleMania 40 was held this weekend at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field. The wrestling entertainment company said Sunday marked the highest-selling single night in WWE history with in-person attendance of 72,755.

Stephanie McMahon, Vince McMahon’s daughter — who had resigned as co-CEO of WWE in January 2023 — made a surprise appearance WrestleMania XL on Sunday. “Every WrestleMania is special for its own reason,” Stephanie McMahon said in the ring. “But I think WrestleMania 40 might be the one I am most proud of, because this is the first WrestleMania of the Paul Levesque era,” referring to her husband, a.k.a. Triple H, who serves as chief content officer and head of creative at WWE.

Separately, last week Endeavor announced a deal to go private with private-equity firm Silver Lake that will give the company an equity value of $13 billion. TKO Group is not part of the Endeavor-Silver Lake transaction and will remain a publicly traded company. Silver Lake’s buyout of Endeavor is projected to close in the first quarter of 2025.

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