SMI Accepts Offer From Smith Family To Take Company Private

SMI this morning announced that its board has accepted the offer from the Smith family’s Sonic Financial Corp. to buy out non-Smith shareholders and take the company private. The deal still needs to be approved by non-Smith shareholders, but it would see SMI pay $19.75 per share, which is about 10% more than the original offer of $18 and a 42% premium to the share price from late April, when the bid was originally announced. The move takes NASCAR yet another step closer to seeing its two major track operators go from public to private companies in a year or less. Attention in the sport has been fixated for months on whether this move will be a precursor to the Smith family selling SMI to NASCAR, and SMI now being on the verge of being private will likely on further intensify the talk.