May 25 (Bloomberg) -- MGM Mirage, the world's second-largest casino company, hired UBS AG to advise on a possible breakup by majority owner and billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP will give MGM legal advice, the Las Vegas-based company said yesterday. Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. hired Morgan Stanley as an adviser.

The 89-year-old Kerkorian said this week he may buy two MGM properties, the Bellagio Hotel & Casino and Project CityCenter. He is also exploring options for his 56 percent MGM stake, and may split up or sell the company, analysts and investors said.

``By being sufficiently vague in his announcement, Kerkorian is creating a confluence of demand for MGM's assets,'' Bill Lerner, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, wrote today in a note to investors. ``We suspect a long list of other parties now have varying magnitudes of interest in the portfolio.''

Potential buyers of individual casinos may include Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Wynn Resorts Ltd., which own neighboring properties, and companies without a presence in Las Vegas such as Penn National Gaming Inc., Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. and Ameristar Casinos Inc., wrote Lerner, who is based in Las Vegas.

Shares of MGM, which has a stock market value of $21.8 billion, were unchanged at $76.76 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have risen 22 percent since Kerkorian disclosed his intentions.

Independent Directors

MGM's board formed a committee of independent directors this week to consider Kerkorian's proposal. The panel is made up of Roland Hernandez, chief executive officer of Hernandez Media Ventures; Rose McKinney-James, principal of Energy Works Consulting LLC; and Kenny Guinn, the former governor of Nevada, who was named to the board May 22.

Buyout firms may be attracted to MGM's real estate and cash flow, analysts said. Casino companies such as Aztar Corp., Station Casinos Inc. and Kerzner International Ltd. have been taken private in the last year. In December, Apollo Management and TPG Inc. agreed to purchase Harrah's Entertainment Inc., the world's largest casino company, for $17.1 billion.

Las Vegas casino real estate prices are soaring, with one property, the New Frontier & Hotel, selling for almost $35 million an acre last week. MGM Mirage owns 10 casinos and 760 acres on the Strip, including the 66-acre, $7.4 billion CityCenter, a complex of hotels, casinos and condominiums under construction.

MGM acquired the Bellagio in 2000 when took over billionaire Steve Wynn's Mirage Resorts Inc. for $6.5 billion. The Italian themed casino was built for $1.6 billion, then a record for Las Vegas, and opened in 1998. The property is the city's most lucrative, with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $478 million in 2006, according Jefferies & Co. analyst Larry Klatzkin.

The Bellagio and CityCenter may be worth $10 billion to $12 billion, about the value of Trichina's MGM shares, so Kerkorian may swap his stock for the properties, Lerner said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Oliver Staley in New York at ostaley@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 25, 2007 16:25 EDT