Sumner Redstone's stake in WMS Industries shrinks

Billionaire Sumner Redstone has further reduced his stake in slot machine maker WMS Industries Inc. to less than 1 million shares, according to a regulatory filing by the company on Wednesday.

Redstone, who controls media conglomerate Viacom Inc., now holds 966,999 common shares of the Waukegan, Ill.-based company. That brings his stake to just under 2 percent of the 48.9 million shares outstanding as of April 24.

Last July, Redstone's stake totaled 4.6 million, or 9.1 percent.

Redstone has been struggling with a debt crisis at his movie theater company, National Amusements Inc., that forced him to sell off $233 million in Viacom Inc. and CBS Corp. nonvoting shares in October.

In May, National Amusements completed the restructuring of $1.46 billion of debt and pledged substantially all of its assets as collateral. The agreement with lenders pushes back the debt's maturity to the end of 2010.

WMS also reported that Redstone has ended an agreement with WMS Chairman and CEO Brian Gamache that allowed Gamache to vote Redstone's shares.

WMS shares fell 82 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $30.24 in morning trading.