MGM Resorts, seeking cash, sells stakes in MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay casinos for $4.6B
MGM Resorts International is selling the real estate assets of the MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay casinos on the Las Vegas Strip to a joint venture for about $4.6 billion.
The joint venture includes private-equity and real estate company Blackstone Group and MGM Growth Properties LLC. The new venture will be owned 50.1% by MGM Growth Properties and 49.9% by Blackstone and lease both properties back to MGM Resorts for an initial rent of $292 million.
The Mandalay Bay was the site of an October 2017 shooting that left 58 people dead. It is the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
MGM Resorts in October 2019 agreed to pay up to $800 million to help compensate the shooting victims and their families. The settlement creates the third-largest victims compensation fund in U.S. history, according to the Associated Press, citing Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw multi-billion dollar compensation procedures after the Sept. 11 attacks and the BP oil spill.
The Las Vegas shooting, which left 58 dead and wounded hundreds of others, occurred during an outdoor country music festival. The shooter, Stephen Craig Paddock, killed himself in a Mandalay Bay hotel room. Authorities later found assault-style weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and bump stocks that allow a user to rapidly fire a gun.
MGM Resorts recently announced it was selling the real estate of the Bellagio casino to a joint venture with Blackstone for about $4.25 billion. Last month MGM Resorts said it closed on the sale of Circus Circus Las Vegas and 37 adjacent acres for $825 million.
The deal for MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay announced Tuesday is targeted to close in the first quarter.