Content area
Full Text
MGM Mirage Inc.'s successful $7.8 billion bid to acquire Mandalay Resort Group is also a big win for several banks that heretofore have run bond and loan deals for MGM, as the gaming company wound up giving almost all its regular capital markets pros a piece of the merger action.
Since 1998, MGM has used only a handful of banks for its M&A activity, primarily Merrill Lynch & Co. and Citigroup, according to Thomson. Yet for this deal, which would solidify MGM's dominance of the Las Vegas Strip gaming market, the company named Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase and Societe Generale Group as financial advisers, along with Citigroup. Merrill's absence is quite explainable-the bank switched sides and was sole adviser for Mandalay.
Winning a piece of the deal, which is the largest gaming-sector merger since MGM's $6.4 billion purchase of Mirage in...