Wynn Resorts Ltd’s chairman Steve Wynn (pictured) spent approximately US$31.86 million to buy more than half a million of his company’s shares on the open market, according to a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. The shares were bought via an entity called Wynn Family Ltd Partnership.
Wynn Resorts is the parent of Macau casino operator Wynn Macau Ltd. The parent company’s shares on the Nasdaq in New York traded up 4.39 percent on Friday, hitting US$59.17.
Friday’s filing said that between Wednesday and Friday, Mr Wynn bought 572,850 shares in eight separate transactions at prices ranging between US$53.21 per share and US$59.19 per share.
The filing said that following the latest transactions Mr Wynn’s directly and indirectly held stake in the firm amounted to 11,741,477 shares.
The latest transactions mark the second time in two months that Mr Wynn has bought up company shares on the open market. In December, Mr Wynn spent about US$63.9 million to buy just over one million of his company’s stock.
Wynn Resorts on January 15 filed “preliminary expectations” of its financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2015. The casino firm said it expected its quarterly revenue and operating income in Macau to fall from the prior-year period.
Brokerage Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd on Monday issued a note on the latest stock purchase exercise.
“Mr Wynn’s purchases of Wynn Macau parent, Wynn Resorts [‘ stock], is positive to Wynn Macau as it highlights management’s view of current share prices being undervalued and confidence of the company’s future results (Wynn Resorts owns over 70 percent of Wynn Macau),” wrote analysts Vitaly Umansky, Simon Zhang and Bo Wen.
