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#1 MosJan

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Posted 16 June 2015 - 11:45 AM

Kirk Kerkorian Dies at 98

 

Updated June 16, 2015 1:38 p.m. ET
15 COMMENTS

Billionaire financier Kirk Kerkorian, who built Las Vegas hotels, bought and sold MGM three times and made two bids for Chrysler, died Monday night at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., said his investment company Tracinda Corp.

Born June 6, 1917 in Fresno, Calif., the high-school dropout and onetime welterweight boxer rose from working as a civilian transport pilot in World War II to building a financial empire that included investments in the casinos, hotels, as well as Chrysler, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors.

“In his 98 years, Kirk Kerkorian probably did more, while receiving less attention than anyone else in Las Vegas history. He worked for the betterment of our city, our industry, and our company,” James Murren, chief executive of Tracinda affiliate MGM Resorts International, said in a note to employees on Tuesday. Mr. Murren was groomed by Mr. Kerkorian, who was still working two weeks ago. “I count myself fortunate to know him and work closely under his adroit leadership,” he said.

At times, Mr. Kerkorian acted on seemingly arbitrary information. After seeing that the grounds of the Bellagio casino were as well maintained where customers couldn’t see them as in front—a detail he believed suggested how well-run the company was—he successfully forced rival casino mogul Steve Wynn to sell him Mirage Resorts, which had developed Bellagio. Though he fought the bid, Mr. Wynn later insisted that he wanted to sell.

Though he shunned executive titles and avoided public appearances throughout his career, Mr. Kerkorian remained an active investor into his 90s. But he never managed his enterprises, preferring to leave operational details up to a cadre of loyal lieutenants. “He doesn’t manage businesses—he hires management teams,” Mr. Murren has said.

 

 


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#2 MosJan

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Posted 16 June 2015 - 11:48 AM

98 տարեկանում մահացել է հայազգի միլիարդատեր Քըրք Քըրքորյանը
98 տարեկանում մահացել է հայազգի միլիարդատեր Քըրք Քըրքորյանը
16 հունիսի 2015 - 19:23 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Հունիսի 15-ին՝ Լոս Անջելեսում, 98 տարեկանում մահացել է հայազգի միլիարդատեր Քըրք Քըրքորյանը, հայտարարել է MGM Resorts International ընկերության խոսնակ Քլարկ Դյումոնթը, գրում է Bloomberg-ը: Մահվան մասին այլ մանրամասներ չեն հաղորդվում:

Քըրքորյանն ամերիկահայ միլիարդատեր էր, գործարար, բարերար. «Տրասինդա Քորփորեյշնի» գործադիր տնօրենը։ Սերում է 1890-ին Խարբերդից Ֆրեզնո գաղթած Ահարոն Գրիգորյանի ընտանիքից։ Ամերիկյան հեղինակավոր Forbes-ի համաձայն, 2007 թվականին նրա կարողությունը հասնում էր $15 միլլիարդի, բացի այդ նա համարվում էր Լաս Վեգասի հայրը։ 2004-ին հայրենիքին մատուցած բացառիկ ծառայությունների համար միլիարդատիրոջը Հայասատանի Հանրապետության բարձրագույն կոչում է շնորհվել՝ Հայաստանի ազգային հերոս։

Մինչև 1935-ը պրոֆեսիոնալ բռնցքամարտիկ էր, այնուհետև սովորել է օդաչուական դպրոցում, դարձել օդաչու-հրահանգիչ։ Որպես ռազմաօդային ուժերի օդաչու մասնակցել է Երկրորդ համաշխարհային պատերազմին, որի ավարտից հետո զբաղվել է օդանավերի բաժնեթղթերի առևտրով (1947-ին գնել է Los Angeles Air Service փոքրիկ չարտերային ավիաընկերությունը), ինչպես նաև հյուրանոցային բիզնեսով։ Կառուցել է Լաս Վեգասի «Ֆլամենգո», «Էմ Ջի Գրանդ» և այլ խոշոր հյուրանոցներ։ 1968-ից զբաղվել է կինոգործունեությամբ, «Մետրո Գոլդվին Մայեր» (մասնաճյուղերով) և «Յունայթեդ Արտիստս» կինոստուդիաների, «Էմ Ջի Էմ Միրաժ» կորպորացիայի հիմնադիր բաժնետերն է։ Եղել է «Քրայսլեր Քորփորեյշնի» բաժնետերը։

Սպիտակի երկրաշարժից հետո և շրջափակման տարիներին օգնել է Հայաստանին ու Արցախին։ Քըրքորյանի հիմնադրած «Լինսի» հիմնադրամը 2001-ից ի վեր $151 միլիոն է տրամադրել Հայաստանին՝ ճանապարհների վերակառուցման, մշակութային հաստատությունների վերանորոգման, աղետի գոտու բնակարանաշինարարության, իսկ $21 միլիոն՝ Հայաստանում փոքր և միջին ձեռներեցության զարգացման համար։



#3 MosJan

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Posted 16 June 2015 - 11:49 AM

Very sad day today for me as an Armenian. We lost a great man as a nation.

 

Astvats  Hogin  Lusavori - Arjani HAyordi  Pativ Huys 

Togh nra Kyanq@ Orinak  mnatsats  Hayerin



#4 Yervant1

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Posted 16 June 2015 - 02:51 PM

May he rest in Peace, he did help Armenians a lot! :(

I hope his last wish   http://hyeforum.com/...topic=71466&hl=    doesn't stop!



#5 onjig

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Posted 16 June 2015 - 10:43 PM

Good man he walks with our God now. He paid for the paving, I understand, of Baghramian Avenue, Yerevan and much more I would think.

 

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#6 Yervant1

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Posted 17 June 2015 - 06:15 AM

BILLIONAIRE FINANCIER KIRK KERKORIAN DIES

20:30 â~@¢ 16.06.15

By HOWARD STUTZ
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Billionaire financier Kirk Kerkorian, one of the founders of modern
Las Vegas whose name is synonymous with some of the Strip's best known
hotel-casinos, died Monday night Los Angeles after a brief illness.

Kerkorian, who turned 98 on June 6, was the largest shareholder in MGM
Resorts International, which he founded in the early 1990s.

Three times in his career, he built and opened what were considered
the world's largest hotel-casinos -- the International (now the
Westgate Las Vegas) in 1969, the original MGM Grand (now Bally's Las
Vegas) in 1973 and the current MGM Grand Las Vegas in 1993.

Kerkorian invested in and operated numerous industries, including
airlines, carmakers and film studios. In the 1940s, he operated a
small airline that shuttled gamblers into then-remote Las Vegas from a
Los Angeles-area airport.

No business held his interest as much as gaming. Kerkorian owned,
operated and sold a handful of historic Strip resorts, playing a
paramount role in shaping the landscape of the Strip and Las Vegas.

Publications and historians cited Kerkorian as one of the central
figures in helping Las Vegas grow into one of the world's premier
tourist destinations.

Much of what Kerkorian accomplished was without fanfare.

When the $8.5 billion CityCenter development opened in 2009,
Kerkorian, who had an influential role in getting the development off
the ground, celebrated the event quietly and away from the spotlight.

"Of all the wonderful Las Vegas properties with which I've been
associated, CityCenter is simply the most amazing," Kerkorian said in
prepared remarks. "I'm extremely excited to see the public's reaction
and look forward to seeing how it changes Las Vegas."

MGM Resort Chairman Jim Murren said Tuesday the company was "honoring
the memory of a great man, a great business leader, a great community
leader, an innovator, and one of our country's greatest generation."

"Mr. Kerkorian combined brilliant business insight with steadfast
integrity to become one of the most reputable and influential
financiers of our time," Murren said. "Personally, he was a friend and
coach, who taught me the importance in looking forward, and to look
back only to understand how things could be done better."

Kerkorian is survived by two daughters, Tracy Kerkorian and Linda Ross
Hilton Kemper, and three grandchildren. Funeral services are pending.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Kerkorian was born in Fresno, Calif., in 1917 to Armenian-born
parents. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1922 and at age 9,
Kerkorian sold newspapers on street corners. He dropped out of school
in the eighth grade and became an amateur boxer.

>From his humble beginnings, Kerkorian became one of the world's
richest men. At the time of his death, Forbes Magazine ranked
Kerkorian No. 393 among the world's billionaires and No. 130 in the
U.S. with a net worth of $4 billion.

Tracinda Corp., Kerkorian's privately held investment company named
for his daughters, Tracy and Linda, is MGM's largest shareholder with
an 18.6 percent stake.

Over the years, he reduced his once majority stake in the company and
retired from the board in 2011. He became a senior advisor to the
company and an emeritus member of the board.

"I just didn't care to keep going back to meetings," Kerkorian told
Bloomberg News at the time. "(The board meetings) got to be very
lengthy. I do stay busy. I like new challenges."

But Kerkorian's presence was still felt in the MGM Resorts board room.

Tracinda has two representatives on the panel and in April he threw
his support behind the company's management, which helped end a
contentious proxy fight.

Up until his illness, he spoke weekly with Murren.

Kerkorian held a similar close relationship with the late Terry Lanni,
Murren's predecessor who was the company's chairman and CEO for 14
years.

"It's great to be the CEO of his company because he is always looking
toward the future," Lanni told the Review-Journal in 2007. "Kirk is a
very humble person. I've seen a lot of people who own 2 percent of
something who call it their company. Never once in my 12 years with
Kirk have I heard him refer to MGM Mirage as 'my company.'

"Whenever we propose something, he wants to know how it will affect
the other shareholders. He has majority control, but he's very
cognizant of all the other shareholders."

BUILDING AN EMPIRE

Kerkorian bought and sold a Las Vegas portfolio over his career that
reads like a Strip historical document.

Beginning in the 1960s, Kerkorian bought and sold several of the
Strip's best-known resorts.

He also sold the land on which Caesars Palace now stands. With his
proceeds from that sale, Kerkorian purchased 82 acres on Paradise Road
in 1967. The site would eventually be home of the International,
dubbed the world's largest hotel-casino at the time with 1,512 rooms.

Before that resort opened, Kerkorian bought the Flamingo as a way to
train the International's staff. By the end of 1971, he had sold both
properties to Hilton Hotels Corp.

Less than a year after the sale, Kerkorian, who had taken majority
ownership of MGM Studios, decided to put the studio's name on a new
hotel-casino, the MGM Grand, which opened in 1973 at a cost of $107
million. With 2,084 rooms, the MGM Grand surpassed the International
as the world's largest hotel-casino.

In 1986, he sold the MGM Grand and a sister resort in Reno to Bally
Manufacturing of Chicago for $594 million. At the time, gaming
analysts said it was the largest single hotel sale ever.

Kerkorian didn't stay sidelined for long. In 1987, he bought both the
Desert Inn and the Sands for $167 million from the Summa Corp., which
was the legacy of the Howard Hughes casino empire. Summa was exiting
the gaming industry.

A year later, Kerkorian sold the Sands to then trade-show magnate
Sheldon Adelson for $110 million. (The Sands was eventually demolished
and became the site of The Venetian).

In 1989, while remodeling the Desert Inn, Kerkorian announced he was
acquiring the troubled Marina and the adjacent Tropicana Country Club.

He said the 115 acres at the corner of Tropicana Boulevard and the
Strip would be the site of the $700 million MGM Grand hotel and theme
park, which opened in 1993 with 5,000 rooms and became -- at the time --
the world's largest and most expensive hotel-casino.

THE ART OF HIS DEAL

Kerkorian was traditionally media-shy.

He was profiled by the Los Angeles Times in 2005 and he sat for a
lengthy discussion with the late K.J. Evans in 1999 for the Las Vegas
Review-Journal's "The First 100," which chronicled 100 people who had
major impacts on Las Vegas over the city's first century.

In February 2005, Kerkorian attended gaming regulatory hearings for
then-MGM Mirage's $7.9 buyout of the Mandalay Resort Group. He told
the Review-Journal in a brief post-meeting interview that concerns
about Las Vegas being overbuilt have been aired since the 1960s, but
the city had always prospered.

"I always felt, going way back, that the future of Vegas was
unlimited," Kerkorian said. "In the last four years, Nevada has grown
rapidly and there has been more interest worldwide. I have to believe
the same thing will happen again."

When he turned 90 in 2007, Kerkorian was still refining the art of the
deal. The word retirement remained absent from his vocabulary.

Friends at the time said Kerkorian had an agile mind and a keen
business acumen. He never wavered in the way he negotiated
transactions and struck financial agreements. Friends and rivals said
Kerkorian was like a seer, gazing 10 years to 20 years into the future
when viewing how a potential investment opportunity could affect the
gaming industry.

In 2007, the late Burton Cohen who knew Kerkorian for more than half a
century and spent a good part of his career operating some of the
businessman's Las Vegas hotel-casinos, said his friend "absolutely
loves making the deal. That's what drives him."

Kerkorian engineered two buyouts that grew MGM Grand into one the
gaming industry's largest companies.

In 2000, he negotiated the $6.4 billion purchase of Steve Wynn's
Mirage Resorts, and in 2005, helped seal the Mandalay Resort Group
acquisition.

"He loves the game, pure and simple, and he knows how to make money
for himself and his stockholders," South Point owner Michael Gaughan
said in 2007.

UNLV history professor Michael Green once humorously likened Kerkorian
to Zelig and Forrest Gump, fictional literary and cinematic characters
who miraculously pop up in world-changing events. Kerkorian appears to
have played a role in many of Las Vegas' historical moments.

"It seems like he's been involved in everything that has gone on
here," Green said.

MORE THAN GAMING

As a businessman, Kerkorian touched industries besides gaming.

He dabbled in airlines, once owning about 17 percent of now defunct
Western Airlines in the 1970s. In 1991, he made a failed bid for Trans
World Airlines.

Hollywood also held his interest. Three times, Kerkorian bought and
sold the film studio MGM/United Artists. Three times, he made a
profit.

The U.S. auto industry also captivated Kerkorian.

In the 1990s, he bought a large chunk of the Chrysler Corp., but sold
the stock after launching a failed hostile tender offer.

In 2005 and 2006, Kerkorian made moves on General Motors Corp.,
becoming the automaker's largest shareholder before cashing out
altogether. In April 2007, Kerkorian made one last stab at Chrysler
Corp., offering $4.5 billion. The bid failed.

Gaming, however, remained his passion.

http://www.reviewjou...ies-los-angeles

http://www.tert.am/e...ed-away/1708876



#7 Yervant1

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Posted 17 June 2015 - 06:20 AM

KIRK KERKORIAN: BIG LOSS FOR ARMENIA

Hakob Badalyan, Political Commentator
Society - 16 June 2015, 22:22

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The U.S. press informs that the American billionaire, financier Kirk
Kerkorian of Armenian origin died at the age of 98. According to the
American media, Kerkorian died in Los Angeles.

The Armenian billionaire was one of the embodiments and symbols of
the American Dream. He climbed up the stairs of life thanks to his
hard work and business acumen and reached big heights.

Kerkorian has had a big role in the history of independent Armenia.

Beginning with the first years of independence he has provided huge
financial assistance to Armenia. His biggest project was the donation
of over 200 million dollars for the reconstruction of hundreds
of kilometers of roads, dozens of schools, cultural institutions,
construction of apartments in Gyumri.

The latest initiative, according to the press, was going to be the
production of a film on the Armenian genocide which would involve
famous directors, writers and actors of Hollywood. It is hard to tell
whether this initiative will stop or will continue.

Kerkorian's death is a big loss for Armenia. However, not only
because he provided financial assistance to Armenia and it may stop
altogether. This is not the only issue.

Kerkorian was the symbol of a world-level Armenian who succeeded
in the global competition, achieved a lot. In addition, he did not
get everything out of air or by mismanagement of state and public
resources, as most of unlike Armenian billionaires. He came into a
fortune with hard work of long years, starting at a young age.

Thanks to his mind, hard work, consistency and willpower, he went
higher step after step, having big achievements in business. At
the same time he bore in mind the sense of statehood, an adequate
vision of the Armenian state, evidence to which is the targets of
his financial assistance.

In this sense, Kerkorian was first of all a model of broad thinking,
laboriousness, will, consistency.

First of all, Armenia needed Kerkorian as a model, only then as a
billionaire. It is a precious and important resource for Armenia,
a landmark and guideline to values and civilization. Hence, the task
of Armenia should be to manage during their lifetime to set up such
communication with them as to use this resource for the modernization
and competitiveness of Armenia at best.

One should confess that in the case of Kirk Kerkorian this resource
was not used efficiently. It was impossible to provide a sufficient
level and depth and scope of communication which would produce a more
comprehensive result and get from Kerkorian not only the money it
gave to Armenia but also the value that he could give but Armenia did
not demonstrate such demand. Moreover, the money was spent with such
efficiency that the large-scale projects did not have a continuation.

In this regard, Kerkorian's death is a big loss indeed, and even
a signal of alarm to some extent, a bell that rings to warn that
this resource should be used for Armenia with more depth and
comprehensiveness.

- See more at:
http://www.lragir.am...h.P1rUulJ3.dpuf
 



#8 Yervant1

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Posted 17 June 2015 - 09:01 AM

PARLIAMENT OF ARMENIA HONORS MEMORY OF KIRK KERKORIAN WITH A MINUTE OF SILENCE

12:22, 17 June, 2015

YEREVAN, JUNE 17, ARMENPRESS. The parliament paid tribute to the
national hero of Armenia Kirk Kerkorian with a minute of silence. At
the launch of the session of the National Assembly of Armenia Galust
Sahakyan - President of the National Assembly - reminded that Kirk
Kerkorian died at the age of 98. As Armenpress reports, Sahakyan
mentioned. "Mr. Kerkorian's contribution is invaluable. The loss is
immense for all of us. On behalf of the National Assembly of the
Republic of Armenia, I am sending condolences to the relatives of
the great benefactor and the Armenians of the world. "

Kirk Kerkorian, an eighth-grade dropout who traded his way to a
$15-billion fortune and for a time was the richest person in Los
Angeles, died yesterday. As Armenpress informs citing LAtimes,
Kerkorian's death was confirmed Tuesday by Anthony Mandekic, the CEO
of Kerkorian's company, Tracinda Corp. He said Kerkorian died Monday
evening at his home in Beverly Hills of age-related causes.

"He was the most brilliant person I've ever run across, and so
respectful of everyone," Mandekic told The Times. "He gave everything
he could, right to the end. We have lost such a great icon. He was
truly something special."

Kerkorian took an unlikely path to tremendous wealth. He didn't
invent a ubiquitous product, like software entrepreneur Bill Gates, or
specialize in one industry, like entertainment czar Sumner Redstone,
or patiently nurture the same holdings for decades, like investment
master Warren Buffett. Instead, Kerkorian bought and built and sold
and bought again. He bought MGM Studios three times, always to his
benefit, if not the studio's.

He accumulated large chunks of Chrysler Corp. when the automaker
was considered all but defunct in the early 1980s, selling as it
recovered. He did the same with a beleaguered General Motors in 2005,
less successfully but still profitably. Kerkorian instinctively sensed
the promise of Las Vegas on his first visits immediately after World
War II, when it was an isolated desert town with only one luxury hotel,
mobster Bugsy Siegel's Flamingo. He eventually acquired many of its
most famous properties, including the Bellagio, the Mirage and the
MGM Grand.

"I've had more people tell me, did you envision this or that?"

Kerkorian told The Times in a rare interview in 2005. "I just lucked
into things. I used to think that if I made $50,000, I'd be the
happiest guy in the world."

He opened the first MGM Grand in Las Vegas in the 1970s, the world's
largest resort hotel at the time, and years later, he built another
MGM Grand, then also the world's largest.

Jim Murren, chief executive of MGM Resorts International, said in
a statement Tuesday that the company was "honoring the memory of
a great man, a great business leader, a great community leader and
an innovator."

Kerkorian always tried to act with a minimum of flamboyance. He never
would have named a hotel after himself, the way his Las Vegas rival
Steve Wynn did. When he wasn't making deals, his great joys were
playing tennis with friends, and going with the masses to the movies
at local theaters in Century City and Westwood.

Kerkorian rose from hard-scrabble poverty to comfort to extreme
wealth, powered by little more than energy and guts. He might have
called himself lucky, but like most successful entrepreneurs, he
made his own way. Kerkor Kerkorian, later Americanized to "Kirk,"
was born in Fresno on June 6, 1917. He was the fourth and last child
of immigrants from Armenia. The boy's formal education ended in the
eighth grade at a school for delinquent kids at 6th and Main streets
in downtown Los Angeles. Despite all his achievements and wealth,
this bothered him until the end of his life.

http://armenpress.am...of-silence.html
 



#9 Yervant1

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Posted 17 June 2015 - 09:04 AM

KIRK KERKORIAN HAD BECOME A LEGEND DURING HIS LIFETIME, ARMENIAN PRESIDENT SAYS

June 17, 2015 13:43

Photo: http://www.artsakh-karabakh.am/

Yerevan /Mediamax/. Today President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan sent
a letter of condolence on the death of famous Armenian-American
businessman and philanthropist, National Hero of Armenia Kirk
Kerkorian.

"I learnt with deep pain about the death of great Armenian
philanthropist, National Hero of Armenia Kirk Kerkorian. I am sure
everyone in Armenia, Artsakh and Diaspora shares this pain.

As an entrepreneur and a businessman he had become a legend during
his lifetime and used to enjoy international fame. He had become an
example of a surviving Armenian and a model of an assiduous, wise,
kind and modest person.

The Lincy Foundation established by Kirk Kerkorian supported Armenian
people during the hard times they were going through helping them
overcome the difficulties and step on the way leading to development.

The programs carried out by the Foundation gave a new and powerful
impetus to the Armenian economy gravely changing the description of
our country.

I am convinced that the blessed memory of this great Armenian and
National Hero of Armenia will live forever and our people will recall
him with pride and gratitude.

I extend my condolences to each of us for this great loss," the
President's letter of condolence reads.

- See more at:
http://www.mediamax....h.1tdp7XAn.dpuf
 



#10 Yervant1

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Posted 17 June 2015 - 09:09 AM

ROBERT KOCHARYAN EXTENDS CONDOLENCES ON KIRK KERKORIAN'S DEATH

June 17, 2015 16:08

Robert Kocharyan

Photo: nato.int

Yerevan /Mediamax/. Second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan has
sent a letter of condolence on the passing away of Kirk Kerkorian.

The second President's 2rd.am non-official website informed about it.

"I learnt with deep pain about the death of National Hero of Armenia,
famous businessman Kirk Kerkorian. I express my sincere condolences
to his family members, relatives and friends. I wish them strength
and endurance.

Kirk Kerkorian's input in the economic development of the Republic
of Armenia cannot be forgotten. Each of the projects carried out
by the Lincy Foundation is rightly regarded as the outcome of his
patriotic work.

I warmly recall my meetings with Kirk. He was a person of high human
qualities and inborn wisdom, a broad-minded and an interesting
interlocutor. The memory of Kirk Kirkorian, a true patriot, will
live forever in the hearts of all Armenians," reads the letter of
condolence of Robert Kocharyan.

- See more at:
http://www.mediamax....h.7SJz9SnM.dpuf



#11 Yervant1

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Posted 18 June 2015 - 10:15 AM

NAGORNO-KARABAKH PRESIDENT OFFERS CONDOLENCES TO KIRK KERKORIAN'S FAMILY

19:30 â~@¢ 17.06.15

On 17 June Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan sent a condolence
letter to the family of Armenian National Hero Kirk Kerkorian.

The letter runs as follows:

"Artsakh and the whole Armenian people experienced severe pain having
heard the grave news about the death of Kirk Kerkorian.

Kirk Kerkorian.was an outstanding person. His life was full of
hardship and difficulties, which he overcame due to his painstaking
work, unshakeable will and optimism. He became world-famous of whom
the Armenian nation is so proud.

Kirk Kerkorian had a substantial input in developing and strengthening
our independent statehood, solving issues of pan-Armenian
significance. Numerous strategically important programs were
implemented in Armenia and Artsakh with his immediate assistance,
programs that have had a tangible impact on improving socioeconomic
situation in the Motherland.

Kirk Kerkorian's patriotic activity was highly estimated by the
Armenian people and he occupied his worthy place among the national
philanthropists.

On behalf of the Artsakh people, authorities and myself personally I
express my condolences and support to the family of Kirk Kerkorian,
his relatives and friends in connection with this irretrievable loss.

The memory of the nation's deserved son will always remain bright in
our hearts".

http://www.tert.am/e...ahakian/1709930
 



#12 ED

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Posted 18 June 2015 - 10:28 AM

I wonder where is he going to be berried, he should be taken to Yerevan and put to rest at Phantion



#13 Yervant1

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Posted 18 June 2015 - 10:41 AM

ACCORDING TO KIRK KERKORIAN'S TESTAMENT, HE WILL BE GIVEN LAST FAREWELL IN LOS ANGELES

12:52, 18 June, 2015

YEREVAN, JUNE 18, ARMENPRESS: According to the last will and testament
of the billionaire of Armenian origin Kirk Kerkorian, the funeral
will take place in Los Angeles, in the narrow environment of his
family and close relatives. The Publisher and Editor of California
Courier Harut Sassounian told Armenpress about it. "The funeral will
be close, not public, attended by the family members and the close
relatives. Kirk Kerkorian did not like to be in public places. You will
not see buildings and institutions named after him. He did everything
separately. His wish was that his funeral will not be crowded", -
said Sassounian.

At the age of 98 Armenian American businessman, billionaire and
benefactor Kirk Kerkorian died. Kerkorian's death was confirmed Tuesday
by Anthony Mandekic, the CEO of Kerkorian's company, Tracinda Corp. He
said Kerkorian died Monday evening at his home in Beverly Hills of
age-related causes.

Kerkor Kerkorian -- he Americanized his name to Kirk as a boy --
was born in Fresno, Calif., on June 6, 1917, one of four children of
Armenian immigrants. His mother, Lily, was a homemaker; his father,
Ahron, was a fruit merchant whose get-rich-quick schemes often left
his family struggling to stay afloat.

"We moved at least 20 times when I was a kid," Mr. Kerkorian told
Fortune magazine in 1969. "We often could not pay our rent and would
get booted out."

Young Kirk got no further than the eighth grade, leaving school to
take odd jobs. He became a promising lightweight boxer, winning 29 of
33 amateur bouts, but quit the ring in 1939 to take flying lessons. He
soon became a private pilot and later an instructor.

In World War II, Mr. Kerkorian ferried bomber planes across the
Atlantic and as far as India for the British Royal Air Force. After
the war he bought surplus military transport planes, refurbished them
and sold them around the world, using the profits to buy a small air
charter operation, based in Los Angeles, in 1947.

Mr. Kerkorian often flew Hollywood entertainers to Las Vegas, which was
becoming a gambling capital, and joined them at the blackjack and dice
tables, where he became renowned as a high roller. It was in Las Vegas
where he met Jean Maree Hardy, a dancer and choreographer. They married
in 1954 and had two daughters. That marriage ended in divorce after
almost 30 years. (His first marriage, to Hilda Schmidt, had also ended
in divorce, in 1951.) His daughters, Tracy Kerkorian and Linda Kemper,
as well as three grandchildren survive him, a family spokesman said.

Mr. Kerkorian bought property in Las Vegas, just off the Strip, in
1962. That year he merged his charter company, Trans International
Airlines, with the Studebaker Corporation, retaining operating control.

Using Studebaker revenue, he expanded the airline's fleet and
destinations. He then repurchased the airline in 1964 and left
Studebaker. Over the next three years he sold the airline in two
separate transactions, making more than $100 million in overall
profits and funneling the proceeds into the three business arenas --
airlines, gambling resorts and film studios -- that would sustain
him as an investor for the rest of his life. By the end of 1969, Mr.

Kerkorian had beaten out the Bronfman family, the Canadian liquor
magnates, for control of MGM and amassed almost 40 percent of its
shares. Meanwhile, he began to develop his Las Vegas acreage, breaking
ground in 1968 for what he promised would be the largest hotel and
casino in the world.

The project infuriated Hughes, the reclusive airline and movie magnate,
who had recently moved to Las Vegas intending to dominate the casino
and resort business. Hughes announced a huge expansion of his own Sands
Hotel, aimed at convincing creditors that Mr. Kerkorian's project,
the International Hotel, would not be viable in what looked like an
overbuilt market. In the end, Mr. Kerkorian found other creditors
and completed his hotel on schedule in 1969.

Soon Mr. Kerkorian was facing bigger threats. The 1969-70 recessions
caught him badly overextended. The Securities and Exchange Commission
prevented his holding company, the International Leisure Corporation,
from making a secondary offering of stock, which would have helped
him repay his loans, because the Flamingo Hotel, an International
Leisure property, had once been owned by racketeers. Mr. Kerkorian
was sinking fast. His International Leisure stock was worth $180
million at the beginning of 1970, but a year later he was forced to
sell half his holdings in the company for $16.5 million.

"Sometimes you lose, but that's the nature of the game," he said in
a Time magazine article in 1970. "There's always another game and
another chance to win."

He found one when he sought help in shoring up his finances from MGM,
in which he had accumulated a controlling share. At his prodding, the
MGM board announced that it would build the MGM Grand in Las Vegas,
surpassing the International Hotel as the world's largest gambling
and resort hotel.

The original MGM Grand opened in 1973 with more than 2,000 rooms. A
year later, Mr. Kerkorian increased his holdings in MGM to just over
50 percent.

With a strong flow of revenue from his Las Vegas operations, Mr.

Kerkorian sought to expand his Hollywood investments. In 1978 he
bought 25.5 percent of Columbia Pictures, which he later sold. In
1981, he lost a bid to buy 20th Century Fox but succeeded in acquiring
United Artists. He then split MGM into two publicly owned entities:
MGM/UA Entertainment, which included film and television production
and a large library of films, and MGM Grand Hotels, which owned and
managed hotels, casinos and luxury cruise ships.

By 1986, Mr. Kerkorian had agreed to sell MGM/UA, which was
struggling, to Mr. Turner, the cable television magnate, for $1.5
billion. Hollywood rivals and Wall Street analysts considered it a
good deal for Mr. Kerkorian. It became a terrific one a year later,
when Mr. Turner, crushed by debt, sold all but MGM's film library back
to Mr. Kerkorian for only $300 million. In effect, Mr. Kerkorian had
sold the MGM library for $1.2 billion.

Mr. Kerkorian did not hold on to MGM/UA for long. In 1990 he sold it
to the Italian financier Giancarlo Parretti and his holding company,
Pathe Communications, for $1.3 billion. A year later Mr. Parretti
was ousted by his main creditor, the French bank Crédit Lyonnais,
which then sued Mr. Kerkorian, accusing him of committing fraud by
knowingly selling worthless assets. The case was settled out of court
in 1995 when Mr. Kerkorian agreed to pay an undisclosed amount.

By then Mr. Kerkorian was focused on the biggest gamble of his career:
an effort to take over the Chrysler Corporation. In 1995, with the
support of its former chairman, Lee A. Iacocca, he proposed to buy
Chrysler for $22.8 billion and take it private. Chrysler's board
rejected the offer.

But he and the board struck a deal in 1996 when he agreed to limit his
Chrysler holdings to no more than 13.8 percent and the company agreed
to rid itself of its nonautomotive businesses. In 1998, Daimler-Benz,
the maker of Mercedes-Benz automobiles, acquired Chrysler in a $36
billion merger. The deal was a windfall for Mr. Kerkorian, raising
the value of his Chrysler holdings to nearly $5 billion, more than
triple the original investment he made in 1990.

Even as he battled Chrysler, Mr. Kerkorian was moving back into the
film business. In 1996, after settling his legal disputes with Crédit
Lyonnais, he bought back MGM/UA for $1.3 billion. It was Mr.

Kerkorian's third takeover of MGM, and he seemed determined to restore
the company's vitality. But he sold it in 2004 to a consortium led
by Sony.

He held on to his interest in Las Vegas gambling resorts, however.

After the MGM Grand was badly damaged in a fire in 1980, leaving more
than 80 people dead, he rebuilt it and, in 1986, sold it to the Bally
Manufacturing Corporation, which renamed it the Bally's Grand.

Then, in 1993, he unveiled a new MGM Grand, built at a cost of more
than $1 billion. Again claiming to be the largest hotel and casino
in the world, it had 5,005 rooms, 170,000 square feet of casinos,
a 15,000-seat arena, a 33-acre theme park and a giant gold lion
serving as its entrance.

"He doesn't do it for the money," Mr. Iacocca, then an MGM Grand
board member, said about Mr. Kerkorian in The Los Angeles Times in
1993. "He does it because he gets bug-eyed like a little kid when he
goes through the place."

In 1999, Mr. Kerkorian married Lisa Bonder, a former tennis pro. The
marriage lasted only one month, and in 2002 she asked a Los Angeles
Superior Court for the largest child-support award in California
history, $320,000 a month. A court later awarded her a much smaller
amount after it emerged that the child was not Mr. Kerkorian's.

By the time the marriage ended, Mr. Kerkorian was worth about
$7 billion, according to Forbes magazine. But his appetite for
acquisitions was as great as ever.

In 2000, his MGM Grand made an unsolicited offer to acquire Mirage
Resorts, the company created by Mr. Wynn to help turn Las Vegas into a
major family destination. Within two weeks, Mirage Resorts agreed to
a $4.4 billion cash deal. The purchase left Mr. Kerkorian in control
of five of the most glittering casino resorts on the Las Vegas Strip,
as well as casinos in Australia and elsewhere in the United States.

As he neared 88 in 2005, Mr. Kerkorian made yet another splash on
Wall Street by buying a 9.9 percent stake in General Motors. Though
financially troubled, G.M. remained the world's largest automaker,
and Mr. Kerkorian was betting that he could force it to pursue a more
successful strategy. But his gamble failed when G.M.'s management
refused to accept his proposal to sell off money-losing car brands
and form an alliance with the rival automakers Nissan and Renault. Mr.

Kerkorian sold his G.M. investment in 2006.

He was not entirely finished with the automobile business. In 2008 he
acquired a 6.5 percent stake in the Ford Motor Company, only to sell
it within a few months after Ford's stock plummeted. By that time his
casino business had sustained heavy losses as well. But Mr. Kerkorian
remained undeterred.

"Kirk has seen this before," his friend Alex Yemenidjian, a former
MGM chief executive, told The Times in 2009. "To him, this is just
a bump on the road."

Through the highs and lows, Mr. Kerkorian, whose net worth was
estimated by Forbes at $4.2 billion, gave away more than $1 billion
through a foundation he named for his daughters, including $200
million to U.C.L.A. in 2011. Patricia Glaser, a lawyer for Mr.

Kerkorian, said he "gave almost his entire estate to charity."

Mr. Kerkorian offered his own assessment of the fires that motivated
him. "When you're a self-made man, you start very early in life,"
he told The Las Vegas Review-Journal in 1999. "In my case it was at
9 years old when I started bringing income into the family. You get
a drive that's a little different, maybe a little stronger, than
somebody who inherited."



#14 MosJan

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Posted 18 June 2015 - 01:57 PM

The American billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, who has died aged 98, made his money in the risky, impetuous business style that John Maynard Keynes called the “casino” economy. In Kerkorian’s case this was done literally - by building three vast hotel-casinos in Las Vegas. His interests also extended to airlines, film studios and motor manufacturers. Earlier in his career, wartime Britain had benefited from his fascination with aeroplanes and readiness to take a gamble.
Kirk Kerkorian, multibillionaire casino tycoon and movie mogul, dies aged 98
Read more

He never made speeches, rarely attended board meetings and was often not even a board member of companies he bought and sold. Critics accused him of ruining the MGM film studio, and in his early days he had more than a nodding acquaintance with Las Vegas underworld figures.

Yet he might have been remembered for his daring as a flier alone. At the start of 1942, he heard that RAF Air Transport Command was paying pilots $1,000 a trip to fly Canadian-built Mosquito bombers from Labrador to Scotland. As Kerkorian told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 1999, “They were paying money I couldn’t believe.” The fee was so big because only one in four flights made it. The Mosquito’s fuel tanks lasted for 1,400 miles, but it was 2,200 miles to Scotland.

There were two possible routes, each perilous. The roundabout way was via Greenland and Iceland, but ice could have a devastating effect on the plane’s wings. The alternative went straight across the Atlantic on an airflow called the Iceland Wave that blew Mosquitos along at jet speeds, but was not constant. If it flagged in midflight, plane and pilot were doomed.

This happened on one flight in June 1944, with the reserve tank showing empty. Kerkorian prepared to ditch, but on dropping low through the clouds saw the lights of Prestwick ahead, and executed a perfect landing.
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He delivered 33 planes for the RAF and logged thousands of hours flying to four continents. The resulting pay-off enabled him to pay $5,000 on his first visit to Las Vegas in 1945 for a single-engine Cessna aircraft. He used it to train pilots and for charter work, regularly transporting a Los Angeles scrap metal dealer to Las Vegas. In 1947 he bought a small charter business in Los Angeles, and from there his business empire began to flourish.

Kerkor Kerkorian was the youngest of four children of Lily and Ahron, impoverished Armenian immigrants, in Fresno, in California’s central valley. His father’s small farm collapsed in the 1921-22 recession and the family moved to Los Angeles. Kirk, still speaking little English, started earning money at the age of nine.

Constantly in trouble, he was sent to a reform school and frequently had to defend himself in fights. His first career was as a boxer: he won most of his bouts, but then started working for a building contractor who flew aeroplanes as a hobby. In exchange for lessons, he did manual work for free.

His charter plane business grew into Trans International Airlines which, in 1968, he sold to the Transamerica Corporation conglomerate for around $100m. By this time he was gambling spectacularly at the Vegas tables. He was also dealing in property there, and in 1967 bought the old Flamingo hotel, formerly owned by the gangster Bugsy Siegel. Kerkorian celebrated the Transamerica deal by building the International hotel-casino, then the world’s biggest and the first designed for conventions, making Kerkorian the father of the Vegas mega-resort business. He used the Flamingo to train the staff needed for it.

However, in 1970 he was caught in an organised crime investigation. In a taped 1961 telephone call he had promised to mail a $21,300 cheque to Charlie “the Blade” Tourine, an enforcer with the Genovese crime family. Kerkorian disclaimed any knowledge of crime connections, but Forbes magazine printed further allegations. Kerkorian abandoned his personal gambling, but by this time his fascination for deal-making had turned his attention to Hollywood.

In his 36-year relationship with MGM from 1969 onwards, he bought and sold it three times. He added United Artists in 1981, but gained a reputaton as an asset stripper by selling off a third of the back lot, even auctioning Judy Garland’s shoes from the Wizard of Oz for $7,500 each. Eventually he sold MGM/UA to a consortium led by Sony in 2005.

Another Hollywood venture proved to be a rare missed opportunity. In 1978 he bought 5.5% of Columbia, but because of antitrust rules had to agree not to increase his share above a quarter. When Columbia bought him out in 1981, he made a profit of around $70m, though would have made more when Coca-Cola acquired Columbia the following year.



#15 MosJan

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Posted 18 June 2015 - 01:58 PM

Back in Las Vegas, he built the MGM Grand hotel, another record in size when it opened in 1973, but it burned seven years later in a fire that killed 85 people. Kerkorian reopened it and sold it in 1985, since when it has been known as Bally’s. He then built another monster, again the world’s largest at the time of its opening in 1993, and again called the MGM Grand, in an emerald-green Wizard of Oz style.

Kerkorian began investing in the American car maker Chrysler in 1990 and become its third largest shareholder, but was vilified for attempted asset-stripping when he made an unsuccessful takeover bid in 1995. When, in 1998, it was acquired by Daimler-Benz, Kerkorian emerged with $5bn, triple his original investment. An attempt to get General Motors to change its strategy by taking a 9.9% stake in 2005 came to nothing, and among various setbacks in the financial crisis of 2008, Kerkorian lost around $600m on disposing of a stake in the Ford Motor Co.

In 2000, Kerkorian took over the Mirage Resorts gambling empire in Las Vegas run by the city’s foremost owner, Steve Wynn. Four years later he once more demonstrated his thirst for making acquisitions, when his MGM Mirage company absorbed the Mandalay Resort Group, giving the new corporate combine almost half the gambling business on the Las Vegas Strip. MGM Mirage now owned 36,000 rooms, 22,000 slot machines, and 1,000 tables.

In 2009 he reduced his shareholding in what had become MGM Resorts International from 54% to a single largest stake of 37%, and in 2011 stepped down from its board. Forbes magazine estimated his personal wealth to be around $4bn.

Kerkorian married Hilda Schmidt in 1942, and they divorced in 1951. With his second wife, Jean Maree Hardy, a dancer and choreographer, whom he married in 1954, he had two daughters, Tracy and Linda. That marriage ended in divorce in 1984, and his third marriage, to a former tennis professional, Lisa Bonder, lasted for 28 days in 1998. Earlier that year she had given birth to a daughter, for whom she claimed $320,000 a month of child support. A paternity test showed that Kerkorian was not the father, and a settlement was reached in 2010.

He is survived by his two daughters and three grandchildren.



#16 MosJan

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Posted 18 June 2015 - 02:03 PM

Arrangements for the funeral of Kirk Kerkorian will be known after the opening of his last will and testament:

Harut Sassounian
21:11, 16 June, 2015

YEREVAN, 16 JUNE, ARMENPRESS: Nothing has been announced about the funeral of Armenian billionaire Kirk Kerkorian. Harut Sassounian, publisher and editor-in-chief of the California Courier newspaper, told Armenpres: “It is possible that it will be a private funeral, not public. Nothing has been announced at the moment. In the coming days the details will be planned and announced. I do not know what is written in Kerkorian’s last will and testament. But, knowing him, I can say that he was a man who did not like publicity. He was a private man. It is possible that he had wished a private funeral. I think so, based on my knowledge of his personality. It is possible that his funeral will not be public, but private. This is my assumption", Sassounian emphasized.

Sassounian, who was the Vice President of Kerkorian’s Lincy Foundation, stated that he was hopeful that the movie about the Armenian Genocide being produced by Kerkorian would be completed. Sassounian added: "Kerkorian’s wealth is estimated approximately 4 billion dollars, but what it would be allocated to is not clear yet. But I know that there is a film being made, and most probably it will continue to be made and a certain amount of money has been allocated for it."

At the age of 98 Armenian American businessman, billionaire, benefactor Kirk Kerkorian died. Kerkorian's death was confirmed Tuesday by Anthony Mandekic, the CEO of Kerkorian's company, Tracinda Corp. He said Kerkorian died Monday evening at his home in Beverly Hills of age-related causes.

© 2009 ARMENPRESS.am



#17 MosJan

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Posted 18 June 2015 - 02:07 PM

Kirk Kerkorian Obituary
6/6/1917 - 6/15/2015| Visit Guest Book

 
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, an eighth-grade dropout who built Las Vegas' biggest hotels, tried to take over Chrysler and bought and sold MGM at a profit three times, has died. He was 98.

He died Monday night in Beverly Hills.

The reserved, unpretentious Kerkorian spent much of his life trying to stay out of the spotlight and rarely gave interviews. He called himself a "small-town boy who got lucky."

He shunned glitzy Hollywood parties and movie premieres in favor of making deals. Rather than arrive at an event by limousine, he often drove himself in a Mercury station wagon.

"He was a very private guy who shunned the limelight, both in a business way and from a charitable standpoint," said Patty Glaser, his attorney of four decades.

After making his first fortune ferrying gamblers to Las Vegas with Trans International Airlines, he built the 30-story, 1,568-room International Hotel, the world's largest hotel when it opened in the late 1960s. He brought Elvis Presley to perform there in 1969 as the rock legend relaunched his live performance career.

Although medium-size by today's Sin City standards, the hotel, now the Westgate Las Vegas, represented a major risk when most properties averaged 250 rooms.

"I had total confidence or I wouldn't have gone into the project," Kerkorian later said. "I've always been bullish on Las Vegas."

When Kerkorian opened the first MGM Grand in Las Vegas in the 1970s, it was again the world's largest hotel, containing more than 2,000 rooms and a 1,200-seat showroom. Years later, he would build another MGM Grand, this one with more than 5,000 rooms — again, the world's largest.

"He built the rooms and attractions to bring an incredibly broad base of affluent people to Las Vegas," Hal Rothman, a history professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, once said.

Elsewhere, Kerkorian bought and sold the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio three times, each time realizing a profit on his investment. He also invested heavily in the auto industry and made unsuccessful attempts to take over Chrysler.

"Regardless of what people think, there was no great master plan," Kerkorian once said. "Every year was a big year for me. First I was simply trying to earn enough to get something to eat, then enough to buy a car."

Sen. Harry Reid said on the Senate floor Tuesday that "when history books are written, they'll say a lot about this good man."

He was born Kerkor Kerkorian in Fresno, California, in 1917, one of four children of a poor Armenian fruit grower.

During his brief boxing career, he became Pacific amateur welterweight champion. But he lacked the size to turn pro, so he went into business. During World War II, he worked for the RAF Air Transport Command in Canada, flying Mosquito bombers on dangerous delivery runs from Canada to Scotland.

After the war, he refurbished a small twin-engine plane and flew passengers between Southern California and the growing desert gambling mecca of Las Vegas. In 1947, Kerkorian bought a tiny charter line and renamed it Trans International Airlines.

Nearly two decades later, he took TIA public and the stock soared. With cash from his stock and shrewd land deals along the Strip, he built the International Hotel. Kerkorian also bought stock in financially ailing MGM.

By 1970, he had working control of the company and began a more than 30-year run of deals involving the historic studio. In 2004, he agreed to sell the studio and its lucrative library of post-1986 films to Sony Corp., Comcast and other investors for about $3 billion.

In 1985, he sold the first MGM Grand to Bally Corp. for $594 million, while retaining rights to the name.

Around that time, he also unloaded the MGM studio to cable TV mogul Ted Turner for a reported $1.5 billion. Turner sold it back just three months later for $300 million amid financial trouble but kept the library of pre-1986 MGM films, including "Gone With the Wind."

Kerkorian later sold the studio for $1.3 billion, then bought it back in 1996 for the same amount.

In Las Vegas, he opened the 5,005-room MGM Grand Hotel and Casino and went on to orchestrate the $6.4 billion merger between MGM Grand and Steve Wynn's Mirage Resorts Inc.

In 2005, the renamed MGM Mirage Inc. completed its $4.8 billion acquisition of Mandalay Resort Group. The combined company's holdings included the Bellagio, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay Resort, Excalibur and seven nearby hotels.

Kerkorian set his sights on the auto industry in 1995, trying to seize control of Chrysler Corp. in a failed $23 billion hostile bid. It failed, but Kerkorian's Beverly Hills-based Tracinda Corp. became Chrysler's largest shareholder.

Kerkorian made another bid for Chrysler in 2007 when DaimlerChrysler put the struggling division on the market, offering $4.5 billion. But Chrysler sold to private equity firm for $7.4 billion.

He also gave back, forming The Lincy Foundation at UNLV in 1989 to support Armenian causes. After shutting down in 2011, his assets went to The Dream Fund at the University of California, Los Angeles, that supports research and charitable projects.

Kerkorian married three times. He and his second wife had two daughters, Tracy and Linda.

SALLY HO, Associated Press

STEVE ROTHWELL, Associated Press

 

Copyright © 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
- See more at: http://www.legacy.co...h.ZyNXkYy5.dpuf


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#18 Yervant1

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Posted 19 June 2015 - 08:37 AM

KIRK KERKORIAN: A HUMANITARIAN WHO NEVER PRAISED HIS PHILANTHROPY

21:57 â~@¢ 18.06.15
http://www.tert.am/e...nlilith/1709894

Kirk Kerkorian's loss has caused us pain.

One of the remarkable individuals, a source of inspiration and hopes
for opportunities, has left us, Lilit Galstyan, Chairperson of the
Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society, told Tert.am.

"We can never underestimate the activities of the Lincy Foundation
established by him, especially in the context of the 1990s, the
hardest period of our statehood - its road construction, cultural and
education projects in Armenia. How can we forget that he sponsored
the renovation of a dozen cultural centers in Armenia's capital
during those years of hardship? How can we be ungrateful? He was a
humanitarian who never praised his philanthropy," Ms Galstyan said.

Mr Kerkorian's projects could have been implemented on a larger scale
in Armenia if more efficient methods of cooperation had been employed.

"In any case, we will remember him as a great Armenian, with a bright
smile, who did not speak Armenian, but lived as Armenian," she said.

Asked if Kirk Kerkorian's death could affect the Armenian community's
role in the United States, Ms Galstyan said:

"His death is, of course, a great loss in all respects. Such an
individual's role remains great and irreplaceable. But the Armenian
community has different opportunities and its efficiency is more
dependent on well-organized work. I am sure that Kirk will prove an
infectious example to many. Such individuals will be born again. We
are a talented sort."
 


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#19 Yervant1

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Posted 19 June 2015 - 08:41 AM

REMEMBERING THE LEGENDARY KIRK KERKORIAN: 'HE PAVED THE WAY FOR THE MODERN ACTIVIST'

Postmedia Breaking News
June 16, 2015 Tuesday

The current generation of activist investors owes a major debt of
gratitude for the pioneering work done half a century ago in the U.S.

by Kirk Kerkorian.

Walied Soliman, a partner and co-chair of the special situations team
at Norton Rose Fulbright and generally regarded as to the go-to lawyer
for proxy battles in Canada, said Kerkorian was "one of the originals
who inspired many to create this asset class. We tip our hats to him."

Soliman added that Kerkorian "was a great philanthropist and will
probably be remembered more for his philanthropy." His major charitable
project was giving US$1 billion to Armenia, his country of birth,
to help it recover from an earthquake.

"Clearly he was a guy who was not afraid to challenge boards and
management," said Wes Hall, chief executive of Kingsdale Shareholder
Services, the firm that dominates the Canadian proxy business.

"He paved the way for the modern activist. The methods may be a little
tweaked today but he was a master," added Hall, who noted Kerkorian's
most recent campaign was fought against General Motors in late 2006
when, after a three-month campaign to get the company to form an
alliance with Nissan and Renault, he sold his 9.9 per cent stake.

One major change since Kerkorian's heyday is that many of today's
activist investors use capital raised and supported by institutional
investors. Kerkorian, whose net worth of US$4 billion (prior to the
2008 financial crisis it was estimated at US$16 billion) was built
largely on owning casinos in Las Vegas and movie studios, used his
own money. Carl Ichan, another legendary activist, also uses his own
hard-earned capital.

One U.S.-based hedge fund manager, which has made a number of forays
into Canada, describes Kerkorian as a "legend. He is not forgotten.

What's interesting is how he got frustrated with GM and effectively
became an activist so late in life and had generated so much wealth
for himself," he added.

He paved the way for the modern activist. The methods may be a little
tweaked today but he was a master

While the goals of activism - improve shareholder value by getting
companies to do things that they may not do otherwise - remain the
same, activism is also much broader. "[Kerkorian] wasn't engaged in
a lot of the activities that a modern day activist is engaged in. It
was very select," added the U.S.-based hedge fund manager.

Norton Rose's Soliman said the activist environment in 2015 is
different from when Kerkorian was starting out in a couple of areas:
it is now a recognized asset class; and it operates "within widely
recognized rules of engagement."

And it's a much bigger business.

According to a recent report in "The Economist," activists are "a
small sliver of the hedge-fund world" accounting for a mere 1 per cent
of the overall number of funds. But with US$120 billion of assets,
they account for 4 per cent of the funds under management. Five years
earlier, assets under management were US$24 billion. In 2015, US$14
billion was raised for activist hedge funds.
 



#20 Yervant1

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Posted 19 June 2015 - 08:44 AM

KIRK KERKORIAN

Groong note: The following are links from international media reporting
the passing away of billionaire Kirk Kerkorian

Financial Advisor Magazine

Kirk Kerkorian, Billionaire From Hotels, Cars, Films, Dies At 98
http://www.fa-mag.co...t-98-22145.html
_____

Daily Mail, UK

Self-made casino billionaire, Hollywood
mogul and WWII fighter pilot Kirk Kerkorian dies at 98
http://www.dailymail...or-dies-98.html
_____

Reuters

Kirk Kerkorian, casino tycoon, movie mogul, auto investor dies at 98
http://in.reuters.co...N0Z214M20150616
_____

USA Today

Las Vegas mogul Kirk Kerkorian dies
http://www.usatoday....06/16/28816779/

Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian dead at age 98
http://www.usatoday....ysler/28804065/
_____

Financial Times, UK

Kirk Kerkorian, billionaire investor, 1917-2015
http://www.ft.com/in...l#axzz3dG3FmdqB
_____

Times Colonist

Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian,
who made fortune in Las Vegas hotels, dies at 98
http://www.timescolo...at-98-1.1969728
_____

Los Angeles Times

>From the Archives: Interview with
Kirk Kerkorian: A Born Gambler Rolls the Dice at 88
http://www.latimes.c...ory.html#page=1
_____

Macau Daily Times

GAMING | Kerkorian's will orders sale of USD1.75b MGM stake
http://macaudailytim...-mgm-stake.html
_____

L.A. Biz

Billionaire MGM mogul Kirk Kerkorian dies at 98
http://www.bizjourna...dies-at-98.html
_____

Breitbart News

Kirk Kerkorian Dies at 98
http://www.breitbart...ian-dies-at-98/
_____

Bluefield Daily Telegraph

Kirk Kerkorian, billionaire and Las Vegas casino mogul, dies
http://www.bdtonline...babfc76425.html
_____

Headlines & Global News

Kirk Kerkorian: Billionaire Casino
Owner And Film Mogul Kirk Kerkorian Dies At 98
http://www.hngn.com/...-dies-at-98.htm
_____

India Today, India

Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian dies at
98: Some facts about the casino tycoon's life
http://indiatoday.in...8/1/445453.html
_____

The Advertiser, Australia

Kirk Kerkorian, billionaire
investor in film studios and casinos, dies at 98
http://www.dailyadve...ies-at-98/?cs=9
_____

The Jakarta Globe, Indonesia

Kirk Kerkorian, Casino Tycoon, Movie Mogul, Auto Investor Dies at 98
http://thejakartaglo...vestor-dies-98/
_____

Japan Times, Japan

Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, who
helped turn Vegas into gambling mecca, dead at 98
http://www.japantime...-mecca-dead-98/
_____

Law360

Kerkorian's Will Calls For Sale Of $1.7B MGM Resorts Stake
http://www.law360.co...articles/668792 _____

The Spokesman Review

Pioneer Las Vegas casino mogul
Kerkorian dies at 98 - Wed, 17 Jun 2015 PST
http://www.spokesman...korian-dies-at/
_____

BBC News

Las Vegas mogul Kirk Kerkorian dies
http://www.bbc.com/n...canada-33154082 _____

Bloomberg

Kirk Kerkorian, Billionaire Investor, Dies at 98
http://www.bloomberg...ilms-dies-at-98
_____

CNBC

Kirk Kerkorian, casino tycoon, movie mogul, auto investor dies at 98
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102763467 _____

The Daily Beast

Strip Legend 06.16.15 10:56 PM ET Kirk Kerkorian, the Modest Mogul
Who Quietly B...

http://www.thedailyb...dies-at-98.html
_____

Digital Journal

Billionaire financier Kirk Kerkorian dead: MGM Resorts
http://www.digitaljo.../article/435956
_____

Fox News Network

Billionaire who shaped Las Vegas led life behind scenes
http://www.foxbusine...-behind-scenes/
_____

Reuters Canada

Kirk Kerkorian, casino tycoon, movie mogul, auto investor dies at 98
http://ca.reuters.co...0150616?sp=true
_____

South African Broadcast Corp

Kirk Kerkorian, casino tycoon, movie mogul, auto investor dies at 98
http://www.sabc.co.z...-at-98-20150616
_____
 






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