GAMING

Founder Sells Circus Circus Shares: The sale by William Bennett, former chairman of Circus Circus Enterprises Inc., severed his ties to the company he founded in the early 1970s and built into one of the nation’s biggest casino operators. Salomon Bros. sold the 6.43 million shares, a 7.5% stake, in private transactions at about $29.50 apiece. That was a 3.7% discount on the stock’s closing price of $30.63 Wednesday, said John Bloom, a partner at McCowan Associates, which holds 503,725 Circus Circus shares. The shares rose $1.25 to $31.88 on Thursday on trading of 2.1 million shares, more than double the three-month daily average. The stock’s increase in value came as a relief to shareholders, who had feared Bennett’s sale might drive the price lower.