Miriam Adelson (pictured in a file photo), the largest stockholder at casino group Las Vegas Sands Corp, is selling US$2 billion of her shares, to be used toward “the purchase of a majority interest in a professional sports franchise,” said the company in a Tuesday filing.
A 4.6-percent interest in Las Vegas Sands, which is now held by the Miriam Adelson Trust, is being offered on the market. A 51.8 percent interest in the casino firm held directly by Ms Adelson – the widow of the group’s founder Sheldon Adelson – will also be diluted by 0.5 percentage points, to 51.3 percent, on completion of the exercise.
In a separate filing on Tuesday, the group said just under 46.3 million shares would be available, at a price to the public of US$44.00 per share. The group’s stock was trading at US$47.66 on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday (November 28).
“We will not receive any proceeds from the sale of our common stock being offered hereby, and all proceeds from this offering will be received by the selling stockholders,” Las Vegas Sands clarified in the filing.
Multiple U.S. media outlets reported separately that the “Adelson family” would buy a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks – a National Basketball Association (NBA) team – from billionaire Mark Cuban.
Ms Adelson and the trust in her name currently hold a collective 57.0 percent interest in Las Vegas Sands, the parent of Macau operator Sands China Ltd. The U.S.-based company also controls the Marina Bay Sands casino resort in Singapore.
Subject to the closing of the offering, Las Vegas Sands says it intends to repurchase up to US$250 million of the common-stock shares brought to market under the exercise, “at the same per share price to be paid by the underwriters to the selling stockholders”.
The company announced a US$2 billion stock repurchase programme during its third quarter earnings call in mid-October.
Goldman Sachs & Co LLC and BofA Securities are joint book-running managers for the offering announced on Tuesday. The exercise is scheduled to close on December 1.
The selling stockholders and certain related trusts “are expected to enter into lockup agreements for a period of 365 days from the pricing date of the offering, during which time they will be restricted from engaging in certain transactions with respect to shares of the company’s common stock,” noted Tuesday’s filing.
In April 2020, the company suspended its quarterly dividend programme due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The programme started again earlier this year, and the group paid a US$0.20 dividend per share in, respectively, August 16 and November 15.
(Updated 10.21am, Nov 29)
