Merger bid highlights strong wills of Kerkorian, Wynn

Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2000 | 11:25 a.m.

Steve Wynn and Kirk Kerkorian, two of the titans of the gaming industry, are alike in their drive for success, but polar opposites in style.

Wynn, the flamboyant chairman of Mirage Resorts Inc., is credited with jump-starting Las Vegas in the 1980s with the development of the Mirage and its groundbreaking, attention-grabbing volcano that erupts in a showy display every 15 minutes.

The low-profile Kerkorian, a billionaire investor with a controlling interest in MGM Grand Inc., also has big financial interests in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. studio in Hollywood and is well known for earning billions of dollars from his investments in Chrysler Corp. stock.

At one point Kerkorian, long a thorn in the side of Chrysler management, threatened a hostile takeover of the automaker. Kerkorian eventually made peace with Chrysler and signed off on its acquisition by Daimler-Benz AG.

Kerkorian operates Tracinda Corp., an investment company, and the Lincy Foundation, a charitable organization that has benefited a number of Las Vegas causes, including University Medical Center. "Tracinda" and "Lincy" are blendings of the names of daughters Tracy and Linda.

The billionaire is a fixture on Forbes magazine's annual lists of the nation's wealthiest Americans.

After the MGM Grand hotel-casino was built in the early '90s, Kerkorian eventually accumulated about 70 percent of the stock in parent company MGM Grand Inc.

Last year, it was announced that Kerkorian had moved to Southern California and wanted to get back into the motion-picture industry. Tracinda pumped life into the MGM studio and now owns about 90 percent of the studio's shares.

The MGM Grand hotel-casino, which has taken on the theme of the "City of Entertainment," has an unmistakable Hollywood feel, from movie memorabilia throughout the property to a lion habitat inside the casino, paying tribute to the studio's trademark Leo the lion.

Wynn, meanwhile, owns about 12.5 percent of the stock of Mirage.

Wynn's story has been a classic rags-to-riches saga. A former medical student at the University of Pennsylvania, Wynn ran a bingo hall in Maryland when his father died in 1967.

Parlaying family contacts and knack for smart investments, Wynn acquired a 5 percent stake in the Frontier hotel-casino in the 1960s and turned a profit when it was bought by Howard Hughes. In 1971, Wynn bought a 1.1-acre strip of property next to Caesars Palace for $1.1 million and a year later turned around and sold it to Caesars for $2.25 million.

He used those profits to buy shares in the Golden Nugget hotel-casino in downtown Las Vegas, eventually taking a controlling interest. He eventually branched into Atlantic City, N.J., opening a Golden Nugget resort there. He sold that property in 1986 for $440 million, giving him the stake he needed to start The Mirage.

The company's empire expanded with the opening of Treasure Island, a few months before the MGM Grand, then Monte Carlo, a joint venture with Circus Circus Enterprises, now Mandalay Resort Group.

Treasure Island brought Strip entertainment to a new level with a free 10-minute show featuring a battle between the British navy and a group of pirates highlighted with the British ship sinking into a Strip lagoon.

Wynn, who credited Walt Disney with inspiring his visionary prowess, also built Shadow Creek, one of the most exclusive golf courses in the world, in North Las Vegas. He and his family live in seclusion in a guarded mansion on the property.

Wynn's greatest triumph was the opening of Bellagio in 1998. The property, the most expensive hotel ever built, is home to a $300 million art collection that is one of Wynn's passions.

The collection, which includes historic works by the grand masters of art, is something he appreciates despite suffering from retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that limits his sight.

The Wynn empire expanded last year to Mississippi, where Beau Rivage is now one of the company's biggest challenges because it hasn't met investors' expectations.