Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | September 2012 22 Asian Gaming 50 – 2012 northern China, and from that conclude they like spicy food. But then what’s the difference between this guy and somebody from Thailand?” As Mr Chan discussed in an interview with Inside Asian Gaming earlier this year, he has been focused on boosting mass- market revenues at City of Dreams to bring the property more in line with the strong mass-market performance of its Cotai neighbor Venetian Macao. His efforts appear to be paying dividends, with CoD’s 22% year-on-year increase in adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter driven in large part by improved main-floor table games and gaming machine volumes. (Rolling chip volumes were actually down year on year in the quarter, though this was offset by a higher rolling chip win rate.) A key part of Melco Crown’s mission to boost mass revenues is learning more about its customers’ preferences. “For any strategy setup or marketing initiative the No. 1 goal is to know your customer,” says Mr Chan. “So we spend quite a lot of time understanding customer behavior.” It helps, too, to have a 600,000-strong data base. “We do a lot of data-mining exercises to find out who are the best customers, the middle customers and smaller customers, who we put into different tiers, so we’ll be able to align the right service to the right type of customer,” he explains. “That enables us to increase the loyalty level of the customer. We’d like to do this with slots and tables, but with slots it’s easier because slot players are used to member cards, and you can track the record of every wager they do. But with table players it’s difficult. There’s no system that offers 100% accurate tracking of table players.” Mr Chan is a longstanding and trusted associate of Lawrence Ho. He worked with him first at Mocha Clubs, the slot arcade chain started by Melco and now part of the listed Melco Crown joint venture. He left to take a role as CEO of an outside firm, albeit one that worked in close cooperation with Melco Crown—Amax Holdings, a Hong Kong-listed junket aggregator that played a key role in sustaining Crown Macau (now Altira), the joint venture’s first casino, when it opened. By November 2008, Mr Chan was back in the fold as president of Altira prior to assuming the co-COO position at City of Dreams in the summer of 2010. As VIP baccarat growth in Macau takes a breather after a long and heady run, some of the major junkets have taken the opportunity to embark on an acquisition spree, with the industry appearing to be in a consolidation phase. Neptune Group, one of the biggest junkets, is clearly in expansion mode. On 6th August, Hong Kong-listed Neptune released a statement to the stock exchange providing more information about its expansion plans. Neptune has entered into multiple MOUs to secure interests in the businesses of promoters of the Guangdong 31 Sky Club (consisting of at least 11 tables at the Grand Lisboa generating rolling turnover of at least US$619 million per month over the past six months); the Guangdong VIP Club (24 tables at MGM Macau generating $1.95 billion); and the Wynn Guangdong VIP Club (29 tables at Wynn Macau generating $1.2 billion). Each club takes a 0.4% cut of turnover. Neptune’s growth has taken place largely over the past four years, in line with Macau’s breakneck development. The group now coordinates the marketing and accounting effort for nearly 200 VIP tables across 10 venues at the best properties in town. NickNigliohasplayedamajor role in that rapid growth, joining the group as executive and friendly dealing. That counts for a huge amount in the VIP sector and ultimately pays off in terms of the bottom line. The company’s approach reflects Mr Niglio’s own personality and approach and that of his operational management team. “It’s truly a relationships business,” says Mr Niglio. He has extensive experience in relationship management from the US gaming sector, including some 20 years as executive vice president for Caesars World Marketing and executive vice president of Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City. In Macau and Hong Kong, Mr Niglio served as a gaming consultant for several large international concerns seeking to position themselves in Asian gaming markets. director and COO in 2007 before being promoted to CEO last year. He has been instrumental in negotiating arrangements for superbly appointed rooms at several major properties, including MGM Macau, The Venetian and Four Seasons Macao and Grand Lisboa. Before the rapid growth of the city’s VIP room business, Neptune Group was probably best known as the operator of a casino cruise. That ship was sold last year to other Macau VIP operators. A big factor in Neptune’s rise in land- based gaming appears to be the company’s success at making friends. Neptune isn’t necessarily the most aggressive at making commission deals with casinos, but it does seem to have considerable goodwill in the local industry and among players for fair 17 Nicholas Niglio CEO and Executive Director Neptune Group