MGM National Harbor is driving up its parent company’s revenues, already ranking among its top properties, but the Prince George’s County resort is likely to change hands sooner rather than later.
That’s not to say MGM National Harbor will leave the MGM brand. It won’t. But MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) Chairman and CEO Jim Murren indicated Thursday that a sale to the company’s subsidiary real estate investment trust, MGM Growth Properties LP (NYSE: MGP), is in the cards in the short-term.
When MGM Resorts took MGP public a couple of Aprils ago, Murren said on the MGM second-quarter earnings call, National Harbor was on the list of facilities that would likely be sold into the new REIT. MGP has a right of first offer whenever the decision to sell is made.
“We also said we’d like to have a few quarters under National Harbor’s belt before we entered into those negotiations,” Murren said. “Well, we have a few quarters under our belt right now, so I would think that it would be logical to assume that a transaction would be more in the near term than the long term between MGM and MGP.