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ERROR: type should be string, got "https://www.barrons.com/articles/mgm-stock-paul-salem-bets-millions-insider-51557776042\nMGM Stock Has Stalled, but Director Paul Salem Bets Millions It Will Come Back\nEd Lin\nMay 14, 2019 7:00 am ET\nPhotograph by Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images\nA comeback in MGM Resorts International stock this year has faded, but the casino operator’s newest director is betting millions of dollars that shares will recover, with his first open-market buy.\nMGM stock (ticker: MGM) tumbled 27.3% last year, weakened by investor concerns that gambling, in general, was losing momentum in Macau. The company had turned the page in 2019. MGM stock surged in January and set an intraday high on Feb. 11 of $30.21, which represented a year-to-date gain of 24.5%. Two days later, after the market closed, MGM reported a strong fourth quarter, but also said it would no longer provide formal guidance figures. The stock tumbled on what investors perceived to be less transparency from management. On Monday, MGM stock closed at $25.36, meaning the year-to-date gain has slipped to 4.5%.\nOn May 8, MGM’s newest director, Paul Salem, plunked down $20.3 million in cash to buy MGM stock a little above that price. The senior managing director emeritus of private-equity firm Providence Equity Partners bought 800,000 MGM shares at an average price of $25.40 each. To put the value of that purchase into perspective, consider that it represented two-thirds of MGM’s latest first-quarter earnings of $31 million. According to S&P Capital IQ, it is the largest open-market MGM stock purchase by a company insider since at least August 2004.\nAccording to a form Salem filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the per-share prices he paid for MGM stock that day ranged from $25.07 to $25.69. Apart from the 800,000 shares Salem purchased, he also owns a $112,500 grant of restricted stock units (RSUs) that vested on the day of the annual meeting of stockholders, May 1, 2019.\nMGM didn’t make Salem available for comment on his stock purchase, and the company declined to comment. Providence Equity didn’t respond to a request to make Salem available for comment on his MGM stock purchase.\nSalem’s stock purchase looks bullish for two reasons. It was a magnitude larger than what he was required to own as an MGM director, and he could have fulfilled the requirement without ever purchasing shares on the open market, never mind only 9 months after joining the board. Salem was named to the MGM board in August 2018, expanding it to 13 directors from 12, and he had five years to meet the stock-ownership guidelines. Each director is expected to eventually own stock or RSUs with a market value of five times the annual base cash retainer, which now stands at $90,000, according to MGM’s latest proxy. Instead of buying stock, Salem could have fulfilled the ownership requirement by taking his retainer in the form of RSUs.\nWrite to Ed Lin at edward.lin@barrons.com"