WWE’s McMahons Are In It For Love, Not Money

Notwithstanding this publication’s name, I sometimes browse SEC filings of companies outside the Hartford area. This is good, because as mesmerizing as I find the insurance business, now and then a person needs to read about professional wrestling.

So I’ve been thumbing through recent filings by Stamford’s World Wrestling Entertainment — the brains (well, sort of) behind WrestleMania and SummerSlam. The first thing I learned is that former Connecticut governor Lowell Weicker heads up the firm’s compensation committee. And the compensation situation at WWE is, surprisingly, quite tame.

As wrestling fans know, WWE is a mom-and-pop public company, founded and run by Chairman Vince McMahon and his wife, CEO Linda McMahon.

According to the proxy, Vince and Linda took no compensation at all for several years and they now receive what are, as these things go, modest salaries ($850,000 for him and $500,000 for her). They don’t take bonuses or stock awards. Apparently the McMahons are in the pro wrestling business not for money, but for love, which is somewhat more disturbing.

Playpen Or Ring?

I was also intrigued to learn from WWE’s 10-K filing that it owns a daycare facility near its Stamford operations. Probably this facility exists to serve the children of employees. But maybe it’s a farm system to turn toddlers into future WWE Superstars who will jump into the ring after Undertaker and Hardcore Holly become arthritic.

Even the wrestling business has its dry and serious side. According to the 10-Q, WWE is caught up in the “auction rate securities” fiasco and is stuck holding about $33 million of the darn things. Of course, this figure is merely an estimate. As you may have heard, the market for auction rate securities has vanished, so valuing them is now the accountant’s version of an extreme sport.

In any event, the 10-Q assures us WWE has a game plan, which is to keep hanging on to these securities until … well, until something changes.

Another company that’s waiting for things to get better is CBRE Realty Finance, a Hartford-based company whose business — yikes — is originating and acquiring various types of real estate loans.

Though the excitement of WrestleMania XXIV lingers in my head, I’ll try not to describe CBRE’s situation using cheesy terms like “smacked down” or “on the ropes.”

CBRE’s Waiting Game

According to CBRE’s recent 10-Q, it’s made nary a new investment since July of 2007. That, the firm says, was when the subprime mess began to morph into a credit crunch, drying up its ability to get financing. So for now, pretty much all CBRE can do is manage its existing investments and “await the credit and capital markets to improve and stabilize.”

Hope, as they say, is not a business plan. But never fear. CBRE has a well plotted strategy, which is to say it’s hired Goldman Sachs to help figure out what the heck to do next.

The 10-Q also says that some unhappy stockholders recently accused several of CBRE’s officers and directors of “knowingly” messing with the accounting for certain assets. The stockholders are asking CBRE to yank some money back from these folks and hand it over to them.

CBRE has formed a special board committee to investigate the matter, which should keep everyone busy while they wait around for the market to get its act together.

Wendy Fried, a freelance writer, is a contributing editor at footnoted.org and also blogs about matters corporate at her own site, proxyland.blogspot.com.