Wynn Resorts founder Steve Wynn recently completed the purchase of nearly million in Wynn Resorts shares, boosting his ownership stake to 11.6 percent.
Wynn now owns 11.7 million shares of Wynn Resorts stock, and a shareholder agreement with his wife requires both of them to approve any sale of the shares, so he likely will keep them for some time.
Wynn bought $31.9 million worth of WYNN shares from January 20-22 at an average price of $55.62 to buy 522,850 shares, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. In January, Wynn paid another $63.9 million to buy more than a million shares at an average cost of $63.61.
Wynn is the single largest shareholder in Wynn Resorts, which owns casinos in Las Vegas and Macau and recently cautioned its fourth-quarter earnings likely will be down more than 25 percent due to a downturn in revenues in Macau.
While Wynn has increased his holdings in Wynn Resorts, the company in January filed a lawsuit challenging the Nevada Public Utility Commission’s ruling that it must pay $15.7 million to stop buying power from NV Energy, which is the state’s largest utility and owned by billionaire Warren Buffet.
Wynn Resorts’ lawsuit accuses state regulators of using an “untenable scheme” to determine the exit fee, which the Public Utilities Commission ruled Wynn Resorts must pay to stop buying power from NV Energy.
NV Energy claims the fee is necessary to offset anticipated energy sales to Wynn Resorts’ two casino properties that the utility calculated when investing in improvements to ensure reliable electrical service to Wynn Resorts and other Las Vegas casinos.
The Public Utilities Commission earlier ruled Wynn Resorts, Las Vegas Sands, and MGM Resorts International must pay a combined $126.6 million to stop buying power from the utility, which says it would have to raise rates on its mostly residential customers to offset the costs if the casinos pursue their own energy sources.
The casinos argue that NV Energy is gouging them, Nevada residents, and other energy customers by charging unreasonably high rates and generating a 27 percent profit that, ultimately, is transferred to Buffet-owned companies located outside of Nevada.
Wynn Resorts, in its lawsuit, additionally argues that the Public Utilities Commission is reinterpreting and revising state law without the legislative authority to do so.
