Inside Asian Gaming

DECEMBER 2017 INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 45 ASIAN GAMING POWER 50 2 0 1 7 James Murren CHAIRPERSON AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MGM China POWER 1,165 LAST 12 SCORE YEAR CLAIMS TO FAME Chairman of the world’s second largest casino company Credited with keeping MGM Resorts afloat during the GFC 19 of MGM Cotai that Murren added another 4.95% of the pie last year, taking MGM Resorts’ stake to 56% – a healthy chunk should Cotai perform well as expected. No doubt all eyes will be on the early results from MGM Cotai’s VIP segment, with the company having announced that it would open with only in-house VIP, adding junkets at a later date. The exclusive Mansion product will also be delayed until mid-2018 although in the company’s recent 3Q17 earnings call Murren was quick to express his high expectations of the product. “We believe it will have a significant competitive advantage in the VIP business,” he said. “We’ve spent a long time developing, designing, creating, programming a property that would be unique to Macau and certainly unique to the hospitality market. “We’ve worked hard to deliver on a promise that we’ve made to the government to create an entertainment destination that’s unparalleled. And I think when you see [it] you’ll feel that we delivered on that promise of entertainment, of food and beverage, of retail, that’s uniquely Chinese, uniquely Macanese, and embodies the idea of MGM as an entertainment company.” Matt Bekier CHIEF EXECUTIVE AND MANAGING DIRECTOR Star Entertainment Group POWER 1,154 LAST 23 SCORE YEAR CLAIMS TO FAME Has turned around Australia’s second-largest casino company Has led significant investment into Star’s Sydney and Gold Coast properties plus the AU$3 billion Queen’s Wharf development in Brisbane 20 If the strong domestic results achieved by MGM China’s parent company, MGM Resorts, in 3Q17 provided a welcome distraction for Chairman and CEO Jim Murren from the seemingly never-ending delays in construction of MGM Cotai in Macau, the deadly Mandalay Bay shooting on 1 October provided an unpleasant reality check. The tragic event has cast a dark pall over Las Vegas as 2017 draws to a close and for MGM Resorts there remains uncertainty over potential litigation from families of the deceased. Yet, tragedy aside, there is much for Murren and MGM Resorts to look forward to in 2018 as the company continues its impressive resurgence following the difficulties it faced during the Global Financial Crisis. Murren himself played a major part in limiting the damage at the height of the crisis and was instrumental in negotiating the deal with Pansy Ho that would see MGM Resorts become majority stakeholder in MGM China in 2011. That piece of business proved to be a shrewd one with Macau essentially keeping MGM Resorts afloat during those more difficult times for the US market. It’s worth noting too ahead of the upcoming January 2018 launch It’s ironic that, having spent the best part of two years eating into rival Crown Resorts’ dominance of the Australian casino market, it was the indiscretions of Crown itself in mainland China last year – with 19 staff arrested for promoting its VIP gaming business – that finally slowed Star Entertainment Group’s considerable momentum. Inadvertently tangled in the same web, Star saw its normalized international VIP revenue fall 18.6% for the full year ended 30 June 2017 to AU$554.7 million, with normalized profit down 11.1% as a result to AU$214.5 million. Yet it’s hard to ignore the fact that Australia’s second biggest casino operator is still very much on the way up in the long term. The company’s big ticket item – its AU$3 billion Queen’s Wharf development being built in Brisbane with partners Far East Consortium and Chow Tai Fook Enterprises – broke ground this year and is expected to attract an extra 1.39 million visitors to the Queensland capital upon completion in 2022.