Inside Asian Gaming

October 2013 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 17 FEATURES Entertainment. A career hotelier, he’s best known for his role in setting Marina Bay Sands on a course to become arguably the most profitable resort casino in the world before abruptly announcing his resignation in January 2011, less than a year after the massive property opened. In walking away from around $1.5 million in salary and bonuses, not counting stock options, he said, “I have decided to pause, take a breather and spend more time with my daughter and other family.” It was a time when Las Vegas Sands’ lucrative Asian operations seemed wracked by “management shuffles and hitches,” as The Wall Street Journal put it, headlined by the July 2010 firing of the chief executive of the company’s Macau casinos, Steven Jacobs, who is suing for wrongful termination, claiming that LVS and Sheldon Adelson personally engaged in a host of improper or potentially illegal activities in China, allegations currently under investigation by the US Justice Department and the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Reports at the time were that Mr Arasi likewise had fallen out with the big boss. “Mr Adelson is known in the industry to be a strong character,” said an industry source who spoke with The Straits Times just after Mr Arasi quit. “A lot of the business is decided by him in the US.” The samemaywell be true of Bloomberry majority shareholder, Chairman and CEO Enrique Razon Jr, the ports tycoon ranked by Forbes as the third-wealthiest person in the Philippines. Bloomberry and GGAM concluded a five-year agreement on the management of Solaire in 2011 (with a five-year option to renew), and the breakup comes less than a year after GGAM exercised an option on 921.8 million Bloomberry shares, good for an 8.7% stake in the company, for PHP15 million and 10% of Solaire’s development costs. The firm’s departure was preceded in June by the resignation of Bloomberry’s Chief Financial Officer Xingyu Chen and was followed by the resignation of one of the company’s directors. Solaire, meanwhile, has appeared Advertise with Inside Asian Gaming For advertising enquiries, please email: ads@asgam.com or call +853 8294 6755 At Marina Bay Sands Arasi oversaw an operation that delivered pre-tax profit of S$315 million on $631 million in gross revenue in its first three months of operation, a maiden quarter that Sheldon Adelson himself called the best for any LVS resort ever.