Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS), the casino company led by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, voted a special dividend (LVS) that will pay its controlling shareholder about $1.2 billion before an expected increase in federal taxes.
With about 437 million shares of Las Vegas Sands, or around 52 percent of the stock (LVS), according to an April regulatory filing, Adelson, 79, and his wife, Miriam, will collect $1.2 billion from the special dividend and another $611 million annually. The special dividend takes effect before an expected increase in dividend taxes from the current 15 percent.
Companies are paying special dividends at four times the pace of last year as Congress is poised to let the tax on dividends rise next year.
From the end of September through yesterday, 68 companies in the Russell
3000 stock index declared a one-time cash payment to shareholders, up from about 15 in the year-earlier quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. More than a dozen said they acted because of a pending dividend-tax increase.
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