WMS Cutting the Slack

WMS Industries, Inc. is easily one of the largest slot machine makers in the world. The slot machine company however, has seen better times. They are feeling the pinch of the economy and the fact that many casinos are not rushing to change out their slot machines nearly as much as they did before, because people just aren’t playing them as much. But now it looks like they are taking another hit.

Sumner Redstone has sold a large portion of his share in the slot machine company. The media magnate used to hold 8% of the slot machine company and now he only holds 5.8%. Redstone has been in the news recently for the fact that he was having some financial problems, and thus the sale of the slot machine sales was not a large surprise.

The total holdings gave him about $95 million going off of current prices and some thought that he might sell all of his stock in the slot machine company. Instead, he sold roughly one third of his stock. The fact that there was talk that he might be dumping all of his stock in the slot machine company caused many other stock holders to start attempting to liquidate their shares as well, causing a run on the company.

The company was forced to come up with $1.6 billion in accelerated payments, which was hard for the slot machine company and its holdings to do. However, the fact that Redstone did not sell all of his slot machine shares was good news for them and relieved the fears of many of the other shareholders.
 

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