Inside Asian Gaming

september 2016 inside asian gaming 35 Asian Gaming POWER 50 2 0 1 6 increase in main floor gaming revenue and a creditable uptick on the non-gaming side of 1.5%. A “solid performance” in all is howMr Craigie described it, and it was. VIP volume dipped 8% on a tough 2015 comp. But Crown is working on that. More than AU$100 million in reinvestment is slated for Melbourne this year, AU$328 million at Perth, the latter including a total revamp of the rooms and the non-gaming offering, highlighted by the opening of a new hotel featuring 500 six-star rooms, more gourmet restaurants and MICE facilities and more VIP gaming space. A fourth luxury hotel with high-end residences is on the drawing board for Melbourne. Designed by the Crown Sydney architects it will rise 90 stories over the city if approved and carry a price tag of AU$1 billion. Mr Craigie’s tenure with Crown goes back to 1993 when he was recruited from the Victoria TAB to head Kerry Packer’s slot operations. He’s run the Packers’ Australian casinos since 2002 and has been CEO of Crown Resorts since its inception in 2007. Rowen Craigie CEO AND MANAGING DIRECTOR Crown Resorts Power 995 last 23 Score year Claims to fame 14 years at the helm of Australia’s historically No 1 casino company A master at leveraging large-scale investment to deliver consistent operating results 28 Australia’s largest casino operator found itself in rough seas over the last year. Macau’s troubles weighed heavily on earnings, the federal government is demanding millions in back taxes, labor strife threatens to disrupt operations at the company’s flagship Crown Melbourne, and there’s a rejuvenated, re- energized competitor in Star Entertainment assailing its historical dominance of the VIP trade. Through it all there was the seasoned management of Rowen Craigie, a key player in the Packer family’s fortunes for more than 20 years – coaxing steady returns out of Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth, directing an aggressive capex program, pushing forward with a corporate restructuring aimed at liberating the Australian assets from Melco Crown and ensuring that work on the AU$3 billion Crown Sydney continues to progress. The 2016 financial year saw normalized EBITDA at Melbourne and Perth increase 1.8% to AU$933.2 million, driven by a robust 5.8% decrees that some cannibalization of the company’s peninsula casino is inevitable. For Ms Chen the trick will be to steer that in ways that deliver a result in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. She brings a wealth of experience to the task. An alumnus of Cornell University’s prestigious School of Hotel Administration, she was involved in the opening of three resorts – The Mirage in 1989, MGM Grand in 1993 and Bellagio in 1998 – that helped define the Las Vegas Strip as we know it. She served as Executive Vice President of International Marketing for Bellagio and went on to fill the same role for all of MGM Mirage (now MGM Resorts International). She rejoined Mr Wynn in 2002 and came to Macau when Wynn Resorts won its casino concession that year. She has been in charge of operations ever since. very top end, the customers the Palace was built to impress, has fallen off a cliff? That’s the challenge for Ms Chen, operationally, Steve Wynn’s right arm in China. For 10 years now she has run the marketing and strategic development for Wynn Macau, and it’s been a gold mine, consistently accounting for more than 60% of parent Wynn Resorts’ total net revenues and EBITDA. As president of Wynn International Marketing she also has been responsible for driving global play for the entire corporation. A Taiwan native, she’s known to have a great rapport with Chinese players, and she’s had creditable success in the midst of Macau’s protracted revenue slump in building Wynn’s mass- market business without sacrificing anything of the prestige the Wynn name enjoys at the high end. The opening of Wynn Palace