(Bloomberg) -- Jefferies Financial Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Rich Handler sold $65 million of shares in his investment bank partly to buy a present for himself — a yacht.

The CEO sold 1.5 million shares of Jefferies stock Wednesday at $43.50 each, according to a statement. It’s the first stock sale Handler has made in the 34 years he’s been at Jefferies, except for those used for tax purposes and charitable donations, the New York-based firm said. Proceeds from Wednesday’s sale are being used to buy a personal boat and pay tax obligations, Jefferies said. 

“My sale of shares today was a gift to myself and my family, and I do not intend to sell any further shares,” Handler said in the statement. “I remain extremely bullish on Jefferies and fully committed to helping us continue to build the best independent, global and full-service investment-banking firm.”

Handler owns about 19.25 million Jefferies shares after Wednesday’s transaction. The sale represents about 7% of his aggregate holdings, according to the statement.

Handler is buying the boat from billionaire restaurateur and casino magnate Tilman Fertitta, a Jefferies client, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing information that isn’t public. Fertitta, owner of the Houston Rockets basketball team and Golden Nugget casino empire, is a longtime friend of Handler’s. 

It’s not the first time Handler and Fertitta have done business together: the two men formed blank-check companies including Landcadia Holdings Inc., which went public eight years ago, and Landcadia Holdings III Inc., another special purpose acquisition company that eventually merged with a hardware supplier and is now known as Hillman Solutions Corp.

Fertitta has credited Handler with building a “juggernaut” that can go toe-to-toe with more established rivals.

“When we’re sitting around at night and talking and I think Rich is getting too big for his britches just because he’s worth a billion dollars now, I pull out my financial statements and put him back in his place,” Fertitta said in a 2021 interview.

Read More: Wall Street’s Anti-CEO Rich Handler in His Own Unfiltered Words

(Updates with Fertitta comments in last two paragraphs. A previous version of this story corrected a misspelling of Handler in fourth paragraph.)

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.