Private investments firm Tracinda Corporation has revealed that it will be selling the around 16% stake it holds in American casino giant MGM Resorts International to Swiss investment bank UBS for approximately $500 million.
Las Vegas-based Tracinda Corporation was owned by Kirk Kerkorian, who was also instrumental in the establishment and success of MGM Resorts International, until the casino entrepreneur’s death at the age of 98 in June of 2015.
Named after Kerkorian’s daughters, Tracy and Linda, Tracinda Corporation explained that it intends to offload all of its stake in MGM Resorts International to UBS for an agreed “strike price” of $23.94 per share before February 21 with the final compensation potentially set to include option payments.
Tracinda Corporation had held about 89.17 million MGM Resorts International common shares with investment analysts indicating that their price has recently been buoyed by improved trading conditions in Nevada and Macau, where the Las Vegas-based casino operator holds a majority stake in MGM China Holdings Limited, along with the possibility that the firm currently led by James Murren might win one of up to three inaugural casino licenses being proposed in Japan.
Buckingham Research Group Incorporated analyst Christopher Jones declared in a Monday note that MGM Resorts International, which operates properties including the Borgata Hotel Casino And Spa in Atlantic City and Michigan’s MGM Grand Detroit, looks likely to record its “best quarter in history” for the initial three months of 2017 although he added that the current price of shares in the casino giant “don’t reflect this outlook”.