MGM Resorts to shift casino assets to new property company
MGM Resorts International plans to shift some of its casino-resort real estate into a separate company that will lease the properties back to MGM to boost value for shareholders and give both companies more flexibility to grow.
The Las Vegas casino giant announced Thursday it would create a real estate investment trust, or REIT, called MGM Growth Properties that would own 10 of its casino-resorts and assume $4 billion in debt.
In a conference call with analysts, MGM Resorts Chief Executive Jim Murren said his company would own a substantial interest of about 70% in the new company after it goes public in the first quarter of 2016.
“We’re in it together. We want to see [MGM Growth Properties] grow, and grow rapidly,” he said.
MGM Resorts also reported a $66.4-million profit in the third quarter, a turnaround from a loss a year earlier. MGM said it earned 12 cents a share because of a robust recovery in Las Vegas and a healthy convention calendar. In last year’s third quarter, it lost $20.3 million, or 4 cents a share.
The company said its recently expanded convention center at Mandalay Bay is already fully booked for 2016.
The new company would own Mandalay Bay, the Mirage, Monte Carlo, New York-New York, Luxor, Excalibur, the Park pedestrian mall that’s under construction between New York-New York and Monte Carlo and three regional properties in Michigan and Mississippi.
MGM Growth Properties would effectively become the landlord with MGM Resorts its renter.
The company took pains to say the deal wasn’t a spin-off because it was creating a new wholly separate company that would offer shares to the public, versus the shares going instead to current investors.
MGM Resorts says it will still own and operate the Bellagio, MGM Grand and Circus-Circus properties in Las Vegas and its stakes in Las Vegas Strip CityCenter complex of casino-hotels and retail, MGM China, Borgata casino-resort in New Jersey and the 20,000-seat Las Vegas arena now under construction.
