Inside Asian Gaming

September 2013 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 41 The Asian Gaming 50 – 2013 Genting Malaysia, listed on Bursa Malaysia with approximately RM23 billion (US$7 billion) in market capitalization, is one of the leading leisure and hospitality corporations in the world. Its portfolio includes Resorts World Genting in Malaysia, Resorts World Casino New York City and casinos in the United Kingdom. The Malaysia operations consist of the Resorts World Genting flagship in Genting Highlands, about an hour from the capital city, Kuala Lumpur, together with a pair of resort hotels in Langkawi on the Andaman Sea in the northwest and in Kijal on the South China Sea coast. Together, these account for more than 60% of the company’s global revenues and 90% of EBITDA, and most of that comes from RWG, a complex of 8,000 rooms and suites in five hotels, theme parks and other family-oriented attractions, more than 100 food outlets, shops, an 18-hole golf course and MICE space. The resort, opened in 1970, holds the national casinomonopoly, with a collection of 3,000 slot machines and electronic table games and 500 live tables across 200,000 square feet of gaming space. The legalization of casinos in Singapore was viewed as a serious competitive threat to the aging RWG, but the venerable mountaintop property continued registering revenue growth even after the 2010 arrival of glitzy integrated resorts in the neighboring 28 Lee Choong Yan President and COO Genting Malaysia Bhd city-state. Genting Malaysia’s revenue from home-country operations was up 4% year on year in the first half to 2.8 billion ringgit (US$857 million), though adjusted EBITDA declined 7% to RM950.7 million as a result of higher promotional expenses and contributions in support of the group’s social responsibility efforts. Resorts World Genting is striving to market itself as more than the low-rollers paradise it is perceived to be and to spend more aggressively to attract high-limit players from the wider region. In line with that the property is being revamped at a cost of RM3 billion (US$917 million) and expanded by 1,300 hotel rooms. The plan, slated for completion in 2016, includes a RM400 million joint venture with 21st Century Fox to develop a 25-acre movie- themed amusement park that will feature more than 25 rides and attractions based on Fox film brands. In the US, Genting Malaysia operates Resorts World Casino New York City, a video lottery facility at the famed Aqueduct Racetrack in the borough of Queens. It contains a mammoth 5,000 gaming machines and has been growing steadily since its opening two years ago, driving a 4% year-on-year increase in the company’s revenue from US operations to RM454.6 million (US$138.6 million). Genting Malaysia also is one of the largest casino operators in the UK, with 41 venues in the country, including six in London. The business has been less than stellar of late, with revenue down 5% year on year in the first half to RM773.1 million and adjusted EBITDA down 41% to RM97 million. To address the declines the company is focusing on growing its premium-player business in London and is expanding physically, with a major leisure and entertainment complex under development at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, to be known as Resorts World Birmingham, slated for a mid-2015 opening. Lee Choong Yan is responsible not only for Genting Malaysia’s corporate development but also for overall operations at its flagship Resorts World Genting. His steady hand is credited with having kept the home market solid in the face of mounting regional competition as the company pursues expansion opportunities abroad. Mr Lee trained as a chartered accountant in London and worked as an investment banker in Hong Kong prior to joining Genting Group in January 1997. He also holds various directorships in other companies within the group. 29 John Redmond Chief Executive Officer Echo Entertainment Group It’s said that on John Redmond’s arrival at Echo Entertainment last fall he was given “Who Wants to be a Billionaire,” an unauthorized biography of James Packer. He’s professed to have read it, carefully, for some insight into what he might expect from his powerful rival down in Melbourne. He didn’t have to wait long. New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell was sold on a Crown casino on Darling Harbour to compete with Echo’s The Star months before he got there, and Crown’s no-bid proposal already was under review by a panel the premier had set up with a well-connected banker friend of Mr Packer’s in charge. Whether or not Mr Redmond knew that Echo’s longstanding monopoly in Australia’s largest city was doomed, he responded with a toughness honed by a career in “the most competitive market in the world,” as he has characterized his 27 years in Las Vegas, where he served as a regulator, held executive positions at Caesars Palace in its heyday and later ran the MGM Grand as president. Correctly sizing up the hopelessness of the political situation he took Echo’s case to the public, defying a gag order imposed by Mr O’Farrell to pitch what he called “a win-win scenario for the people of Sydney”—two luxury hotels in partnership with a “prestige global operator” that may well have been resort giant Genting, which