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LAS VEGAS / Bloomberg
MGM Resorts International has reached an agreement to sell its Shops at Crystals mall in Las Vegas to a Simon Property Group Inc. partnership for $1.13 billion, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction.
The deal may be completed soon, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the terms have not been made public. Representatives for Simon Property and MGM Resorts declined to comment on the deal.
The property is part of MGM’s CityCenter, a $9 billion casino, hotel and retail complex on the Las Vegas Strip that is co-owned by the Dubai investment firm Infinity World Development Corp. The Las Vegas-based casino operator has been trying to reduce its debt load, in part due to pressure from Jonathan Litt’s activist firm Land & Buildings Investment Management LLC.
MGM Resorts put the mall up for sale three years ago, but halted the process after failing to get the offers it wanted. Since then, tourism to Las Vegas has grown. Real estate values in the city have also risen and the mall has added tenants, according to John Knott, who heads the casino practice at brokerage CBRE Group Inc. in Las Vegas.
The Shops at Crystal deal was reported by newsletter Real Estate Alert.
MGM Resorts International is Nevada based gaming, hospitality and entertainment company. It generated about $9.8 billion in 2013. It owns and operates 15 properties in Nevada, Mississippi, and Michigan, and has 50 percent investments in four other properties in Nevada, Illinois and Macau, China.
The company began operations in 1987 as MGM Grand, Inc., and became MGM Mirage in 2000, after acquiring Mirage Resorts. In the mid-2000s, growth of its non-gaming (lodging, food, retail) revenue began to outpace gaming receipts and demand for high-rise condominiums was surging, with median property prices in Las Vegas twice the national average.
Simon is an electronic game of memory skill invented by Ralph H. Baer and Howard J. Morrison,
with software programming by Lenny Cope.
, The original version was manufactured and distributed by Milton Bradley but now the game is currently manufactured by Hasbro.