Churchill Downs buys back 1 million more shares of stock

Churchill Downs Inc. is buying 1 million shares of its stock from an affiliate of The Duchossois Group, as the Duchossois family continues to wind down its holdings in the company.

The company said Monday it will pay $123.75 per share, below the market price of $134.37 in late-morning trading Tuesday. It will pay for the shares with cash and borrowings.

The Duchossois family became the largest shareholder in Churchill Downs when the family’s Duchossois Industries merged its Arlington International Racecourse with the Louisville, Ky., company in 2000.

The family and its affiliates have been selling back blocks of shares to the company since at least 2015.

The Churchill Downs corporate website lists Craig Duchussois as holding 240,000 shares, or 0.32 percent, of the company’s stock as of March 1. He is the only Duchossois affiliate listed. Craig Duchossois is the son of Duchossois Industries founder Richard Duchossois, who died early last year at age 100 and was the patriarch of Arlington Park for 38 years before CDI closed the Chicago-area track in 2021.

Churchill Downs has market capitalization of about $10 billion, according to Yahoo Finance.