MGM Mirage – Busy Labor Day Weekend
I went to Vegas this past weekend and stayed at the MGM Grand Hotel. I have to say, it was PACKED! I had thought that the casino business was slow this year but looking at the MGM Grand, I couldn’t tell. The traffic volume of cars and people in and around the hotel was surprisingly busy. I’m not saying this is a reason to buy the stock, but it sure makes you wonder what’s driving people to stay at MGM.
In any case, I saw some news about the MGM Mirage Macau operations doing much better. There were some stats that showed top-line revenue growth at the MGM Casinos in China, which is a very encouraging sign for their overall business. But we should all keep in mind that MGM still has a mountain of debt — a lot of that debt can be attributed to the building of their City-Center project which is slated to open in December of this year.
It’ll be interesting to see if they can actually open CityCenter on time or not. If they are able to open it and catch some of that Christmas and New Years business, I think CityCenter will be a pretty big hit. I picked up some of the MGM Mirage (NYSE: MGM) stock a few months ago and am still long with a small paper profit. But I guess the simple observation I saw from my Vegas trip this past weekend was that business at the MGM looked pretty good and the hotel looked very, very crowded that entire weekend.
(MGM closed today at $9.41)
