LOS ANGELES — Rick Sands, the chief operating officer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for a little over two years, has resigned to pursue other opportunities, the movie studio said on Wednesday. The announcement was not unexpected.
Mr. Sands had been the No. 2 executive to Harry E. Sloan, the studio’s chairman and chief executive, since joining MGM in January 2006. But his future at the company was called into question with the hiring of Mary Parent as the top film production and distribution executive, reporting directly to Mr. Sloan.
Ms. Parent, a former vice chairwoman for production at Universal Pictures, was named chairwoman of MGM’s worldwide motion picture group on March 13.
While at MGM, Mr. Sands conceived and negotiated a pivotal home entertainment deal in which 20th Century Fox agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars a year to distribute the MGM library of film and television titles around the world. He also arranged for much of the former movie distribution staff of Paramount Pictures to take on that role at MGM and developed the studio’s television sales and digital media divisions.
In a statement, Mr. Sloan said Mr. Sands had “securely positioned the studio with a strong foundation for future growth and renewal.”