Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | September 2009 34 46 (-) Tristan Sjöberg Managing Director Asia, TCS JOHNHUXLEY TCS JOHNHUXLEY, a supplier of gaming equipment worldwide, has reported strong sales in Asia in 2009. The company recently won significant orders for Singapore’s new integrated resorts—Las Vegas Sands Corp’s Marina Bay Sands and Genting’s Resorts World at Sentosa. Other large projects for TCS JOHNHUXLEY in the region include: Savan Vegas Hotel & Casino in Laos; NagaWorld in Cambodia; Kangwon Land Resort & Casino in South Korea and Genting Highlands Resort in Malaysia. The company has enjoyed a particularly strong business relationship with Genting over many years. Muchof the credit for TCS JOHNHUXLEY’s success in the region must be attributed to the work of Tristan Sjöberg, Managing Director Asia for the company, and his team. Mr Sjöberg has a PhD in oceanography, so a career in gaming was not the most obvious choice of direction. The fact, however, that oceanography deals with analysis of highly complex systems probably set Mr Sjöberg in good stead when he moved into the electronic gaming equipment market. Mr Sjöberg relocated to Singapore from London at the beginning of 2009. The move coincided with the group’s expansion programme in the region, enabling the long- term development in manufacturing, sales, service and support in this rapidly expanding and increasingly important market. The creation of the Singapore bureau means the company now has offices in 11 of the world’s main gaming jurisdictions. Under Mr Sjöberg’s regional leadership, the company has pursued a policy of investing, if possible, in the communities where it has clients. For example, where locally manufactured products meet the company’s brand standards in terms of quality, innovation and ready availability, TCS JOHNHUXLEY will try and use that local product. This policy has been put into practice in a number of orders for Macau casino venues in the past few years including at Sands Macao, Galaxy StarWorld Hotel & Casino, MGM GRAND Macau and, most recently, Melco Crown Entertainment’s City of Dreams Macau resort on Cotai. 47 (44) Alfonso R. Reyno Jr Chairman and CEO, Manila Jockey Club In particular, the Club got into the real estate business. In 2003 Mr Reyno adopted the sort of business model used by many European soccer clubs for their stadia. He moved the race stadium and track from a piece of prime land in the centre of Manila to a bigger, cheaper site in the suburbs at Cavite. The old 16-hectare site was then redeveloped as a mixed-use project with 3,400 high-end condominiums and townhouses in partnership with Ayala Land Inc. At the new racetrack site, MJCI and its partner Century Properties also developed a 77-hectare estate with an up-market residential village known as Canyon Ranch, overlooking the sporting complex. MJCI also operates more than 200 off-track betting stations (OTBs) in Metro Manila and in the neighbouring provinces, with the number of OTBs still growing. The Club also has its tele-betting facilities, which it reports have been adopted enthusiastically by race fans. Asian Gaming 50 – 2009 Gross sales from horse racing betting in the Philippines have fallen nationally 10.6% year-on-year in 2009, according to the Philippine Racing Commission. It’s too early to call this a downward trend, as takings from horse racing have shown some volatility nationally over the last five years. Despite the 2009 slowdown, the industry as a whole still managed to book 4.9 billion pesos (US$100 million) in sales in the eight months to the end of August. Manila Jockey Club Inc, (MJCI) founded in 1867 and the oldest such organisation in southeast Asia, has to a degree been protected from the economic effects of the national sales downturn thanks to product diversification under its Chairman and CEO Alfonso R. Reyno, Jr, who took up the post in 1997.