Kirk Kerkorian
Co-founder 1969Background
Kirk Kerkorian, a billionaire financier, acquired the MGM film studio brand and opened the original MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in 1969, establishing the foundation for the company's dominant presence on the Las Vegas Strip and initiating a decades-long consolidation of the global gaming industry.
Role at MGM Resorts International
MGM Resorts possesses a complex, dramatic founding story, representing the aggressive amalgamation of legendary Las Vegas real estate, heavily orchestrated by arguably the most powerful, ruthless billionaire in the history of modern gaming. The foundational origins of the modern corporate entity are entirely synonymous with the legendary financier Kirk Kerkorian. Kerkorian was a brilliant, intensely secretive billionaire who had made fortunes trading surplus WWII airplanes and investing in early Las Vegas real estate. He was an aggressive, strategic corporate raider who believed in the potential of the Las Vegas 'mega-resort.' In 1969, Kerkorian executed his first masterstroke. He bought the prestigious Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film studio, not because he cared about making movies, but because he desperately wanted to leverage its glamorous, iconic brand name and film library. He utilized the prestigious MGM brand to build the original MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in 1973 (which, at the time, was the largest hotel in the world). However, the defining corporate architecture of the modern company was established in 2000. Kerkorian executed a hostile, aggressive $6.4 billion mega-merger, acquiring Steve Wynn's prestigious Mirage Resorts (which included the iconic Bellagio). In 2005, he struck again, executing a $4.8 billion acquisition of the Mandalay Resort Group. Through decades of ruthless, financial consolidation, Kirk Kerkorian transformed a struggling Hollywood film studio into the dominant kingmaker of the Las Vegas Strip.