Inside Asian Gaming

The Asian Gaming 50 – 2013 Nicholas Niglio’s presence as the only non-Chinese member of the board of directors of Neptune Group speaks volumes to the esteem in which he is held in Macau and Hong Kong by players, operators and investors. Hong Kong-listed Neptune, one of the five junkets that control an estimated 55- 60% of VIP revenues in the world’s largest casino market, has been in the vanguard of this year’s resurgence in the city’s massive trade in high-end gamblers after a mostly tepid 2012, when growth flagged sector- wide, comparatively speaking, on what appeared to be a combination of economic and political jitters in China. Not that you would have known that from Neptune’s performance, which belied the slowdown and outpaced the market over its latest six- month reporting period with profits that rose more than 33% year on year on a 29% increase in turnover. The rebound in the market, which has seen VIP up 10.5% in the first half of 2013 over the same period last year, could total the US dollar equivalent of $29 billion by the end of the year. Neptune figures to be grabbing a significant chunk of that through a strategy of “continued controlled growth” 17 Nicholas Niglio Executive Director and CEO Neptune Group charge at Neptune have seen the company grow not only in size but in scale. In addition to a comprehensive range of travel and hospitality services it provides its VIP clients, Neptune has begun to exert a sizable impact on the bigger picture, notably launching two of the flashiest high-stakes poker tournaments in the world—the HK$2 million buy-in“Macau High Stakes Challenge,”which attracted the likes of Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Sam Trickett and Eric Seidel to StarWorld Hotel last August to compete for the largest prize pool ever offered outside the World Series of Poker—and June’s“Guangdong Ltd Asia Millions,” co-sponsored with PokerStars, a HK$1 million buy-in shark fest that drew to City of Dreams about 100 big-time players from every corner of the globe. Amidst all this, Mr Niglio oversaw a corporate restructuring that resulted in a spin-off of Neptune’s operating division. The way it’s set up now, the public company controls the investment end, and the new entity, Guangdong Group, named for the company’s popular Guangdong VIP clubs, directly promotes the rooms. Guangdong directly controls 221 tables, about 11% of the city’s current VIP inventory. It’s the second-largest network in town. With its distinct but complementary businesses and the management structure now clearly delineated, Neptune believes it is better positioned than ever to take maximum advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead. that earlier this year saw the company add to its VIP room investments with a stake in 11 tables at the Grand Lisboa. The company currently shares in the win at 62 tables at four properties and expects that to increase tomore than 110 tables over the next couple of years. With three decades of experience on two continents to his credit, Mr Niglio is more than equipped to make it happen. He was schooled in the hyper-competitive world of Atlantic City gambling in its heyday, joining Resorts International in administration in 1978 and moving into casino marketing. He served as vice president of casino operations at Caesars, the city’s pre-eminent high- roller venue of the time, and was senior vice president of Eastern Operations before moving to the Trump casinos in the early ’90s, where at various times over an eight- year career he headed up every facet of domestic and international marketing. The six years in which he’s been in “We’ve been lucky to have him” is how Sheldon Adelson summed up the performance of his second in command earlier this year. The occasion was Michael Leven’s receipt of the American Lodging Investment Summit’s “Lifetime Achievement Award,” the latest of many the veteran hotelier has received over the course of a distinguished 50-year career. It’s one in which he takes special pride, he says, since normally it’s given to CEOs in recognition of financial performance while in his case it was bestowed in recognition of his achievements as an operator. It was the critical ingredient Mr Leven brought to Las Vegas Sands when 18 Michael Leven President and COO Las Vegas Sands Corp. he joined the company in 2009 in the depths of the global financial crisis, and it continues to provide the terra firma beneath the indefatigable expansionism that defines Mr Adelson and LVS. Time and again, Mr Leven has proven his worth behind the scenes at turning vision into reality. Along the way he’s been instrumental in solidifying the company’s standing in the financial community. He’s helped steer it through the Sands China IPO and the openings of Marina Bay Sands, Sands Bethlehem in the US and Sands Cotai Central in Macau. He’s secured major partnerships and cross-marketing deals with an A-list of global hospitality, retail, restaurant and entertainment brands. Did he bank on the costly court battles, the federal investigations, the unwanted publicity, the volatility at the executive level that seems at times to be part and parcel of a career at LVS? Probably not. But he’s handled it all with equanimity. And he’s kept the trains running on time, ensuring stability for the thousands in the rank and file around the world, and he’s done it with an admirable mix of worldliness, good humor 30 INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | September 2013