MGM Resorts International plans to create a real estate investment trust to help cut debt and boost shareholder value, according to Bloomberg Business. The Las Vegas casino operator’s shares rose 9 percent in premarket trading Thursday. MGM Resorts will contribute the real estate associated with 10 of its properties (including more than 24,000 hotel rooms) and the REIT (MGM Growth Properties) will assume approximately $4 billion of debt. An activist investor has been putting pressure on MGM since March to convert its real estate assets into a REIT and spin off its lodging and entertainment business. MGM Resorts expects to complete the transaction in the first quarter of 2016.
