Kirk Kerkorian Bought MGM Three Times and Sold It for Parts

From Fresno to the Sky

Kirk Kerkorian was born in Fresno, California, in 1917, the youngest of four children of Armenian immigrants. His father, Ahron, changed the family name from Kerkorian to Kerkorian (some records show Kerkor) and worked as a fruit peddler. The family moved to Los Angeles in the 1920s, where Kirk attended school but dropped out in the eighth grade. He took up boxing briefly, then worked as a mechanic and a flight instructor.

In 1940, Kerkorian joined the Royal Air Force Ferry Command, ferrying bombers across the Atlantic from Canada to Britain. The pay was $1,000 per trip, and the risk was high. He later said the experience taught him to calculate odds. After the war, he bought a surplus Cessna and started a charter service, Los Angeles Air Service, in 1947. The company later became Trans International Airlines (TIA).

Kerkorian sold TIA to Studebaker in 1965 for $26 million in stock, but he bought it back at a discount when Studebaker’s shares fell. He then sold it again to Transamerica in 1968 for $110 million. That pattern—buy low, sell high, and repeat—became his signature.

The TIA transactions are worth examining closely, because they establish the template he would apply for the next four decades. The first sale was not a clean exit: taking Studebaker stock meant he was exposed to the automaker’s fortunes, and when those shares declined he moved to repurchase the airline at a lower price. The second sale, to Transamerica, converted the recovered asset into $110 million in cash. Read together, the two deals show a man comfortable holding an asset through a downturn, buying it back when others were selling, and then waiting for a buyer willing to pay for the operating business rather than the stock. The airline itself was the vehicle; the profit came from timing the ownership, not from running the planes.

The First MGM Purchase

In 1969, Kerkorian bought a controlling interest in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) for about $80 million. At the time, MGM was a struggling studio, burdened by debt and outdated facilities. Kerkorian’s plan was not to make movies but to monetize the studio’s real estate and film library. He sold off the studio’s backlots and props, including Dorothy’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, which he later donated to the Smithsonian.

He also took MGM public and used its cash flow to fund his Las Vegas ambitions. In 1973, he opened the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, a $100 million project that was then the largest hotel in the world. The hotel was a success, but a fire in 1980 killed 85 people, the worst hotel fire in U.S. history. Kerkorian rebuilt and expanded.

The logic of the first MGM purchase is easy to misread. Kerkorian paid roughly $80 million for a studio whose filmmaking operation was in decline, and the obvious question is why. The answer lies in what he did next: he treated the studio as a balance sheet rather than a production house. Backlots, props, and the film library were assets that could be sold or borrowed against, and the public listing gave him a currency—MGM stock—that could be used to raise money for projects far from Culver City. The MGM Grand Hotel, a $100 million project and the largest hotel in the world when it opened in 1973, was financed in part by that cash flow. In other words, the studio was not the destination; it was the engine.

The 1980 fire, which killed 85 people and remains the worst hotel fire in U.S. history, tested the model. Kerkorian rebuilt and expanded rather than retreating, which is consistent with his pattern of holding through adversity when he believed the underlying asset retained value. The fire did not end his Las Vegas ambitions; it preceded the expansion that would eventually produce the MGM Grand of 1990.

The Second MGM Purchase

In 1981, Kerkorian sold MGM to Ted Turner for $1.5 billion, but Turner could not finance the deal. Kerkorian bought back the studio a year later for $750 million, effectively selling the film library to Turner for $750 million and keeping the studio. He then sold the studio again in 1986 to a group led by Kirk Kerkorian himself—a complex transaction that left him in control.

In 1990, he sold MGM to Giancarlo Parretti, an Italian financier, for $1.3 billion. Parretti’s financing fell apart, and Kerkorian foreclosed, taking back the studio in 1992. He then merged MGM with his own production company and took it public again.

The Turner episode is the clearest illustration of how Kerkorian separated an asset into its parts and priced each one. Turner agreed to pay $1.5 billion but could not complete the financing; Kerkorian bought the studio back for $750 million, which meant the film library effectively went to Turner for $750 million while Kerkorian retained the studio itself. The net effect was that he was paid for the library and still owned the operating company. Whether that outcome was planned from the start or emerged from Turner’s financing difficulties, it fit the pattern: when a buyer stumbles, the seller can end up holding the more valuable piece.

The Parretti transaction followed a similar arc. Kerkorian sold MGM for $1.3 billion in 1990 to an Italian financier whose financing collapsed, and by 1992 he had foreclosed and taken the studio back. Two failed buyers in a decade did not damage him; they returned the asset to him at moments when he could reposition it. He merged MGM with his own production company and took it public again, setting up the next sale.

The Third MGM Purchase

In 1996, Kerkorian bought MGM again, this time for $1.3 billion, and merged it with his other holdings. He sold it to a consortium including Sony and Comcast in 2004 for $4.8 billion. The sale included the MGM film library, which by then contained over 4,000 titles.

Kerkorian’s MGM dealings were not just about movies. He used the studio’s cash flow to fund his casino empire. In 1990, he opened the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, a $1 billion resort with 5,000 rooms. He later built the MGM Grand Detroit and other properties. In 2000, he sold MGM Grand Inc. to Mirage Resorts for $4.4 billion, but the combined company, MGM Mirage, kept the MGM name.

The 2004 sale to the Sony-Comcast consortium, at $4.8 billion for a studio he had bought for $1.3 billion eight years earlier, is the number that anchors any assessment of his MGM strategy. The library alone had grown to more than 4,000 titles, and the price reflected the value of that catalog as much as any current production slate. The same period saw the casino side reach scale: the 1990 MGM Grand, a $1 billion resort with 5,000 rooms, and later the MGM Grand Detroit. The 2000 sale of MGM Grand Inc. to Mirage Resorts for $4.4 billion produced a combined company, MGM Mirage, that kept the MGM name—a reminder that Kerkorian’s exits often left his brand on the assets he had sold.

The Aviation and Auto Bets

Kerkorian’s aviation career was as important as his Hollywood one. After selling TIA, he invested in Western Airlines and later tried to take over TWA. In 1990, he bought a 10% stake in Chrysler, then increased it to 13.6%. He sued Chrysler in 1995 when the company tried to reduce its cash reserves, settling for $300 million. He sold his Chrysler stake in 1998 when Daimler-Benz acquired the company.

In 2005, he bought a 9.9% stake in General Motors, then increased it to 10%. He pressured GM to form an alliance with Renault-Nissan, but the talks failed. He sold his GM shares in 2006, taking a loss.

The automotive record is the necessary counterweight to the MGM story, because it shows the same method producing a different result. The Chrysler position, built from a 10% stake to 13.6%, ended with a $300 million settlement in 1995 after he sued the company over its cash reserves, and he exited in 1998 when Daimler-Benz acquired Chrysler. The GM position, bought at 9.9% and raised to 10% in 2005, was meant to force an alliance with Renault-Nissan; when the talks failed, he sold in 2006 at a loss. The difference is instructive: with Chrysler he had a concrete grievance—cash reserves—that could be litigated and settled; with GM he had a strategic argument that depended on other boards agreeing with him, and they did not. The activist playbook works best when the demand is specific and enforceable.

The Legacy

Kirk Kerkorian died in 2015 at the age of 98. He was worth $4.2 billion at the time of his death. He had been married three times and had two daughters. He was known for his frugality—he flew commercial airlines and lived in a modest house in Beverly Hills.

His philanthropy was extensive but quiet. He donated $200 million to the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and $40 million to the Motion Picture and Television Fund. He also funded the construction of the Kirk Kerkorian Hall at the University of Southern California.

Kerkorian’s business career was marked by a willingness to buy and sell the same assets repeatedly, often at a profit. He was not a builder of companies in the traditional sense; he was a trader of assets. As he once said, “I’m not a builder. I’m a buyer and seller.” That philosophy made him one of the most successful dealmakers of the 20th century.

What the Record Shows

The repetition is the point. Across roughly four decades, Kerkorian bought MGM in 1969, 1982, and 1996, and sold it in 1981, 1986, 1990, and 2004. He bought TIA back from Studebaker at a discount and resold it to Transamerica. He moved in and out of Western Airlines, TWA, Chrysler, and GM. The same asset changed hands multiple times with him on both sides of the table, and the cumulative result was a fortune of $4.2 billion at his death in 2015 at age 98.

What made the method work was not a single insight but a set of habits: buying assets others had undervalued or could not finance, holding them through disruptions such as the 1980 fire or Turner’s failed financing, and selling when a buyer with strategic motives—Transamerica, Sony, Mirage Resorts, Daimler-Benz—was willing to pay for scale or synergy. The GM episode shows the limit: when the thesis required other people’s agreement rather than a contractual or financial lever, the trade could fail.

For the reader, the practical lesson is about distinguishing between owning an operating business and owning a position. Kerkorian rarely tried to run the companies he controlled; he tried to price them. The MGM library, the Las Vegas rooms, the airline routes, and the automaker stakes were all treated as positions that could be entered and exited. That is a different skill from management, and it is why his career reads less like a corporate history than a trading record—one conducted, notably, by a high-school dropout who flew bombers across the Atlantic for $1,000 a trip and learned to calculate odds before he learned to calculate valuations.

Frequently asked questions

Q: How many times did Kirk Kerkorian buy MGM? A: He bought MGM three times: in 1969, 1982, and 1996. He sold it in 1981, 1986, 1990, and 2004.

Q: What was Kerkorian’s first business? A: His first business was Los Angeles Air Service, a charter airline he started in 1947, which later became Trans International Airlines.

Q: How much did Kerkorian donate to UNLV? A: He donated $200 million to the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV in 2014.