Stifled in their attempt to grow big enough to rival giants such as Time Warner and the Walt Disney Co., Kerkorian and Yemenidjian looked elsewhere. "We found ourselves with the ability to do an acquisition, but there was nothing to buy," Yemenidjian said.
MGM's high-cash bid for Universal, a sign of its solvency, was like bait for other companies. Time Warner, Sony Corp. and NBC all expressed interest in the studio and its 4,000-film library, the industry's largest, a perpetual treasure trove of DVD sales, which includes the James Bond and Pink Panther series. Kerkorian wasn't looking to sell, Yemenidjian and others said, but the time was propitious and he recognized it.
Kirk Kerkorian is listed by Forbes magazine as the 65th-richest person in the world.
(Mike Mergen -- Bloomberg News)
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Hollywood Romance Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian has bought and sold Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. three times since 1969.
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Hollywood's Lion Kings Sony is buying one of Hollywood's most famous studios, but it's Comcast and the future of content delivery that may make this merger more meaningful to consumers.
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So Kerkorian put MGM on the market, and Sony snatched it for $2.9 billion. Kerkorian's team paid $1.3 billion for the studio in 1996; his cut alone from the Sony sale is worth more than $1.7 billion.
He now turns his attention back to Vegas, which he discovered in 1947, ferrying California celebrities and gamblers back and forth to Los Angeles on his self-funded Los Angeles Air Service. Kerkorian is revered in aviation circles; he flew bombers from Canada to Europe during World War II and hunted salvage planes and resold them after the war. In 1965, he took his growing airline public; a few years later, he sold to TransAmerica Corp. for $100 million. He began building casinos, becoming a friend of Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and other Vegas headliners.
Kerkorian's scrappy business style -- honed from a variety of jobs as a poor Los Angeles youth, up through his career as a bouncer and boxer -- is described as simple and straightforward.
"He is utterly stand-up," said Barry Diller, chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp and a director of The Washington Post Co. "I would take a commitment from him without a piece of paper and truly count on it."
If he has a blind spot in his business acumen, however, it may be expecting the same from those he has employed.
"I think he does give discretion and leeway to senior management," said Christensen. "If you're not micromanaging those people, they do have the opportunity to take advantage of you. . . . These things happen in Hollywood."
Poor MGM performance during Kerkorian's second run, from 1986-90, spurred his decision to sell the studio for a second time and buy a big chunk of Chrysler.
Though Kerkorian lives in Beverly Hills, Vegas may be his spiritual home.
