Inside Asian Gaming

The Asian Gaming 50 – 2013 David Chow took a chunk of Macau Legend Development public in July, raising US$238 million to remake the company’s moribund Fisherman’s Wharf theme park on the city’s Outer Harbour and renovate and expand its Landmark Macau hotel. It was a lot less than the $600 million he’d hoped for. But Mr Chow has never lacked for connections or chutzpah. The 62-year- old entrepreneur, investor, husbandman, high-stakes gambler, junketeer, honorary consul and all-around mover and shaker, a former member of the Macau Legislative 34 David Chow Co-Chairman Macau Legend Development Ltd Assembly and a longtime partner of Stanley Ho’s, believes he still has a thing or two to teach the “new entries,” as he derides his Vegas-style competition on Cotai. For years, Mr Chow has been floating plans for Fisherman’s Wharf, the sprawling 109,000-square-meter promenade he and Mr Ho opened in 2005 in a location that seemingly couldn’t miss, next door to the Macau Ferry Terminal, and done up with a bit of everything—restaurants, cafes, shops, meeting and exhibition space, a family arcade, a hotel, a marina, a scale-model volcano, a Roman amphitheater, a Tang Dynasty castle, a fancifully grotesque casino called Babylon—all, that is, except visitors. But things now look to be taking shape. Last year, the company restructured with the aid of $62 million from casino giant Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, the successor to the gambling monopoly Mr Ho controlled for four decades and licensor of Macau Legend’s two casinos. Mr Chow brought on a co-chairman, the older brother of the head of Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission. He won a bid for 30,000 square meters on Hengqin Island, where he plans to develop a commercial complex with a shopping mall, and plans were announced for Fisherman’s Wharf that include three new hotels—1,300 rooms and 350 table games in total—a yacht club, a machine gaming venue run by Japanese pachinko giant Dynam Holdings, which bought $35 million of the IPO, and a dinosaur museum replete with fossils culled from collections in China. It’s going to take a lot more than $238 million to get all that on, but the Landmark runs at 92% occupancy, and its Pharaoh’s Palace Casino is a cash cow, contributing almost all of Macau Legend’s gaming revenue, which was up 19% in the first half to HK$623 million ($80 million), and most of its total revenues, which grew a robust 25% year on year to HK$843.8 million. Renovation of the Landmark is well under way—all remodeled rooms, more shops and a 3,160-square-meter spa and sauna— and slated for completion the end of this year. The Dynam venue, which opens next summer, around the same time as the first of the new Fisherman’s Wharf hotels, includes a joint marketing agreement aimed at bringing in more players from Japan and Korea. one of the country’s most beautiful stretches of beach. That’s where COO Michael Santangelo comes in. He’s responsible for managing the operation and providing the strategic direction, a job that takes in everything from gaming and marketing to finance and IT—or as he describes it, rather more succinctly, providing The Grand’s guests with the “ultimate integrated resort experience”. So far, it’s been so good. Hotel bookings have been pleasantly higher than expected. Weekends are sold out heading into this month. Mr Santangelo has to keep the momentum going. As a relative newcomer to the industry it will take all the experience and savvy he’s been able to muster. Fortunately, he’s no stranger to Asia. His background in accounting and finance brought him to semiconductor giant Amkor Technology back in the 1990s. He served for 14 years as CFO out of the company’s Philippines office. He came to Las Vegas in 2007 to handle the books for no less than The Venetian as vice president of finance and controller. He moved down the Strip two years later to take on the same responsibilities at The Cosmopolitan, which had just opened. That’s where he came to the notice of MGM, which snapped him up last March and brought him to the South China Sea coast. 45 September 2013 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING