Elaine Wynn, the largest single shareholder in US casino giant Wynn Resorts and ex-wife of founder Steve Wynn, has told the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) she no longer has any interest in claiming a seat in the company’s boardroom.
The 78-year-old, who holds an 8.84% in Wynn Resorts, was last week unanimously found suitable by the regulator as a beneficial owner of the company after she formally requested to be withdrawn as a director. She had previously served on the Wynn Resorts board for 13 years from 2002 to 2015 before shareholders voted her out.
Having fought to retain her place since – not to mention launching a high-profile proxy campaign in 2018 against former board members known to be supporters of her ex-husband – Elaine Wynn last week told the NCGB she had ended her bid for reelection following the appointment of former Harrah’s boss Phil Satre as Wynn Resorts Chairman in November 2018. Satre had joined the Wynn Resorts board at Elaine Wynn’s prompting three months earlier.
“The company needed to have a better face, a better leadership personality, and so I was most fortunate to be able to reach out to Mr. Satre, who has been a long admired and well-respected and well-regarded leader in our industry who has vast experience, is above reproach with extraordinary integrity,” Wynn told the NGCB, as reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
“He and I were merely acquaintances; we had no friendship or no long-standing relationship, other than my appreciation from afar.”
Wynn added that she now enjoyed communication with a number of Wynn Resorts executives which allowed her to keep her finger on the pulse, but that at 78 she had also passed the company’s boardroom age limit of 75.
Satre’s 2018 appointment as Chairman followed a campaign by Elaine Wynn that saw multiple directors ultimately stand down, and was contingent on her agreeing not to pursue any more boardroom changes.
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