Can someone give me the cliff notes of how/why Vince is in charge again? Who signed up for that, and why?
He officially became an employee of the company again last Friday. It's pretty clear that Vince wanted the acquiree of the WWE to allow him to retain power.
Some Background
In July 2022, he resigned as an employee and board member after crap came out. But as we have learned this was purely voluntary from a "best for business" view.
He never did enough wrong (or the WWE) to have him severely sanctioned by the SEC, so that he was forced out by them.
In January 2023, he came back as a board member but not an employee - this did restrict his ability to get involved in active operations (in theory anyway). A corporate governance issue. And for the most part, while there were rumblings he was around, nothing really out there saying that he was in control of any shows or meddling much.
Last Friday, he was hired back as an employee of the company. Obviously the timing of this was to have the contract in place before an acquisition / merger was completed. As an employee again he can get into the weeds and active operations all he wants.
As to why he was able to become an employee again?
- It would seem that was really important to Vince when he considered sale agreements. Power over the day to day.
- With WWE he was the controlling voting shareholder what he wants, he gets. Nothing wrong with that, shareholders understand that as a risk when you buy into WWE.
- Endeavor agreed to his senior employee role, and that's probably a big part as to why he agreed to sell to theml. He may have not agreed otherwise.
- So he was back at it heavily involved on RAW on Monday, pissing everyone off.
The only difference going forward is that Endeavor ultimately controls the WWE and Vince... so theoretically if they get pissed with him or his performance, they can let him go. He is just a big shareholder, who no longer controls the company. And if they let him go he gets a nice severance. But its not about the money for Vince, its about wanting to keep some power.
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On another note.
Did piss off some shareholders? I'm sure it does. On the day of the sale, the shares fell from $90 to $85... (about 6%) ... I think those that bought in looking to capitalize on an outright sale, were disappointed by the fact that this was a de facto merger. So they sold out.
But in 2 days the price has risen back from $85 to $99. The "longer term value" shareholders I think liked the deal. From my perspective it was a good deal because WWE shareholders get 49% of the value of UFC, to give up 51% of the value of WWE. And apparently, the UFC is worth quite a bit more than the WWE - 30% based on internal valuations per Endeavor.
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