Firm led by Golden Knights owner sells Summerlin headquarters

A firm led by Golden Knights owner Bill Foley has sold its Las Vegas headquarters back to another company overseen by the billionaire hockey boss.

Cannae Holdings sold its office building in Summerlin for $12.2 million to its former parent company Fidelity National Financial, records show. The sale closed last month.

A separate subsidiary of Fidelity National previously owned the building and sold it years ago to Cannae, which leased space there to Fidelity National for more than $300,000 a year before it sold the building outright to the company, according to property records and securities filings.

All told, the back-and-forth deals involving a suburban office building off Town Center Drive and Summerlin Parkway underscore Foley’s extensive and at times overlapping business interests.

The 80-year-old mogul is the longtime chairman of Florida-based Fidelity National, a real estate transaction-services giant, and he is the chairman, CEO and chief investment officer of Cannae, a holding company that buys stakes in operating businesses. According to Forbes magazine, Foley has a net worth of $2.8 billion.

Cannae was split off from Fidelity National several years ago, and its portfolio includes a sizable stake in a Foley-led group that owns professional soccer teams overseas.

Fidelity National, meanwhile, has paid hefty sums to Foley’s other ventures, including more than $1.3 million one year to the Golden Knights, primarily for tickets, according to a securities filing.

Representatives for Cannae, Fidelity National and the Knights did not respond to requests for comment.

Sell then rent

Fidelity National, which made almost $1.4 billion in net earnings last year, issues title-insurance policies and handles escrow accounts, recordings and other components of real estate transactions.

It also has close ties to Las Vegas.

Its Western regional headquarters are in Las Vegas, most of its board meetings have been held here and three of its board members, including the chairman, live in Las Vegas, the company has said.

Fidelity National subsidiary Chicago Title Insurance Co. bought the Summerlin office building, 1701 Village Center Circle, for $9.3 million in 2015, records show.

Cannae, which split off from Fidelity National in 2017, bought the building from Chicago Title in early 2020 for the same price the seller had paid, property records show.

Fidelity National reported the sale to Cannae in a securities filing, saying it then paid around $312,670 in rent to the company through the rest of 2020 for “our continued use of office space in the building.”

It went on to pay Cannae almost $1 million total in rent from 2021 through 2023 for space in the landlord’s corporate headquarters, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

‘Increased loyalty’ to company

Beyond the deals for the office building, Fidelity National has done business with other Foley-linked ventures.

Fidelity National said a filing with the SEC that in the “ordinary course of business” in 2023, it made payments to certain companies owned in whole or in part by its chairman.

This included more than $1.3 million to the Golden Knights, primarily to buy season tickets and other tickets for “client entertainment and employee recognition.” It also paid more than $600,000 to Rock Creek Cattle Co. — a 30,000-acre ranch in Montana that offers fly fishing, horseback riding and other activities — mainly for company events.

Additionally, it paid around $251,770 to Foley Family Wines to buy wine for employee recognition and about $142,340 to Foley’s other affiliated companies, primarily for traveling to and hosting company events, Fidelity National reported.

The amounts charged to the company in these transactions were “fair and reasonable and represent market rates that would be charged to unaffiliated third-party customers for the same types of services,” Fidelity National said.

It also said that it receives “intangible business benefits” from these activities, as they foster “increased loyalty” to the company.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.