From left, JOHN T. REDMOND President & CEO, MGM Grand Resorts, LLC; J. TERRENCE LANNI Chairman & CEO, MGM MIRAGE; ROBERT H. BALDWIN President & CEO, Mirage Resorts, Incorporated & President, Project CityCenter; GARY N. JACOBS Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, MGM MIRAGE; JAMES J. MURREN President, CFO & Treasurer, MGM MIRAGE.

Las Vegas, the wedding capital of the world, celebrated the biggest marriage in the gaming industry on April 25, 2005, when MGM MIRAGE and Mandalay Resort Group joined hands to form the world’s largest gaming, entertainment, and leisure company. Like any newlyweds, the corporate partners have big plans for their future together, which include not only improving the resorts they own, but also building the equivalent of a new city in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip.

The combined company has total assets of over $11 billion, including some of the largest resorts in Las Vegas, as well as interests in nearly 30 additional properties in Nevada, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, and overseas. Mandalay Resort Group’s dowry included Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, Circus-Circus, and Monte Carlo, which were added to MGM MIRAGE’s already impressive list of holdings: Bellagio, MGM Grand, The Mirage, TI, and New York-New York.

The matchmaker for this $7.9 billion deal was Jim Murren, president, CFO, and Treasurer of MGM MIRAGE. Experienced in the “art of the deal,” he also brokered the merger five years ago between MGM Grand, Inc. and Steve Wynn's Mirage Resorts. Mr. Murren sat with us to answer some questions about how the deal came together. Here is what he had to say:

Q: What first gave you the idea of approaching Mandalay Resort Group about a merger?

A: When MGM Grand bought Mirage Resorts in 2000, we gained control of 55 acres of land between Bellagio and Monte Carlo. We knew it would be the best site in the gaming industry for a new resort, but we couldn't find a plan for the property that really wowed us. In January 2004, I decided to take a different approach to developing the land because of a new trend starting to impact the Las Vegas economy: urbanization, and the development of luxury residential and mixed-use projects. We came up with an urban concept that would include condominiums, hotel/ condos—maybe even an office tower—in a park-like setting. Since I lived in New York for 14 years, the project had a lot of New York themes. I presented the idea informally to the Board of Directors in March 2004. Once we got excited about building our own city next to Bellagio, I started thinking about Mandalay Resort Group, because adding the Mandalay property would give us 100 acres of contiguous land instead of 55. And by putting all our land holdings together, we'd have 831 acres to develop over time. So, even though the urban village plan wasn't announced until after the merger process began, the idea for it actually came first.