Vince McMahon reimburses WWE.
A new SEC filing states that Vince McMahon has reimbursed WWE for $17.4 million in costs related to the sexual misconduct investigation against him.
From the filing:
On March 20, 2023, World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (the “Company”) entered into a reimbursement agreement (the “Agreement”) with Vincent K. McMahon, the Company’s Executive Chairman, director and controlling stockholder. The Agreement provides that Mr. McMahon will pay the Company approximately $17.4 million to reimburse the Company for the costs that have been incurred and paid by the Company and/or its subsidiaries, through January 31, 2023, in connection with and/or arising from the investigation conducted by a special committee of the Company’s board of directors, related revisions to the Company’s financial statements and other related matters. Such payment was made on March 23, 2023. The Agreement further provides that Mr. McMahon will also review in good faith and reimburse the Company for additional costs incurred by the Company and/or its subsidiaries subsequent to January 31, 2023 (or that have been incurred by the Company and/or its subsidiaries and not yet paid as of January 31, 2023), in connection with and/or arising from the same matters.
The Agreement also includes a release of Mr. McMahon by the Company regarding the recovery of the costs described above and a release of the Company by Mr. McMahon regarding the investigation and related matters described above.
On June 15, 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported that the WWE Board had launched an investigation into Vince McMahon over alleged sexual misconduct and hush money. McMahon retired as WWE CEO on July 22, 2022, but returned to the board as the controlling shareholder in January 2023.
In SEC filings in August 2022, WWE revealed a total of $19.6 million in unrecorded expenses by McMahon. The investigation into McMahon wrapped in November 2022.
On January 12, WWE announced that they engaged with outside advisors to review strategic alternatives in relation to upcoming media rights negotiations. One strategic alternative is a potential sale of the company, which would happen before media rights deals for WWE Raw and WWE SmackDown are locked in.
