Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming September 2014 76 Caesars To List Its Largest Operating Company Caesars Entertainment Corp. named top officers to lead its largest unit in anticipation of a US stock listing and debt restructuring of the division. Long-time Caesars executive John Payne was named CEO of Caesars Entertainment Operating Co., Mary Elizabeth Higgins was named chief financial officer and Tim Lambert was appointed general counsel, according to a statement cited by Bloomberg . Caesars also appointed two independent directors to the seven- member CEOC board. The appointments suggest the Las Vegas-based parent plans to offer stock to the creditors of its most-indebted division as part of a financial restructuring. The operating company owes about 80% of the $23 billion in debt taken on by Caesars Entertainment in a 2008 private-equity buyout. The effort is part of an overall restructuring announced in May that eliminated more than US$1 billion in debt that was due next year while providing a different ownership structure to pieces of the company. The company recently raised $1.75 billion in new debt associated with 2015 debt retirement and paid down $800 million of debt due in 2016. The planned spinoff would involve 44 casinos in 13 states—the largest portion of the company’s operating divisions. CEOC owns Caesars Palace, Caesars Atlantic City, Harrah’s Reno and most of the company’s regional casinos. In May, the company sold 5% of the equity in CEOC to institutional investors. Parent company Caesars Entertainment retains 95% ownership in CEOC. Caesars’ other major operating division is Caesars Growth Partners, which is publicly traded on Nasdaq as Caesars Acquisition Co. The business, which is 57% owned by Caesars Entertainment, includes four Las Vegas properties—The Cromwell, The Quad, Bally’s Las Vegas and Planet Hollywood—plus Harrah’s New Orleans, a 41% interest in Horseshoe Baltimore and Caesars Interactive Entertainment. The company also operates eight resorts and the Octavius Tower at Caesars Palace under Caesars Entertainment Resort Properties. The division includes Las Vegas’ Rio, Flamingo and Paris Las Vegas, the Harrah’s resorts in Las Vegas, Laughlin and Atlantic City, and the Linq development on the Las Vegas Strip. A financial source close to Caesars told the Las Vegas Review- Journal the company will take its time to determine when it will list shares in CEOC. Caesars could also offer creditors stock in the division as part of the restructuring. Wynn, Adelson To Star at G2E They are probably the best-known bosses in the industry, and they will bookend the festivities at its largest trade show in Las Vegas at the end of this month. Steve Wynn will deliver the Global Gaming Expo’s opening keynote on 30th September, and Sheldon Adelson will close out the show with a speech on 2nd October, its final day at the Sands Expo and Convention Center, which Mr Adelson founded and his Las Vegas Sands Corp. owns. Amid dramatic changes sweeping the industry in the US and worldwide, the show’s popular “State of the Industry” roundtable has been expanded this year—there will be one dealing with operations and featuring MGM Resorts International Chairman Jim Murren—the other will cover the manufacturing sector with International Game Technology CEO Patti Hart among the speakers. Ms Hart recently presided over the sale of the world’s largest slot-maker to lottery giant GTECH for US$6.4 billion. Jim Allen, CEO of Seminole Gaming and chairman of Hard Rock International, also will speak at the session on operations on 30th September. While joining Ms Hart at the manufacturing roundtable will be Aristocrat Leisure CEO Jamie Odell, Novomatic CTO Thomas Graf, Amaya CEO David Baazov and Multimedia Games CEO Patrick Ramsey. The session will take place 1st October, and it’s expected the merger mania that is remaking the machine gaming sector will dominate the conversation. Producers Reed Exhibitions and the American Gaming Association say G2E 2014 will be the largest in five years. More than 450 exhibitors have signed up, and there will be special pavilions dedicated to iGaming, security and food and beverage. The packed conference schedule will include discussions on topics ranging from skill-based gaming trends and consumer behavior to data-base marketing and analysis to cyber-security. This year’s show also will host its first-ever hotel conference. Merger Mania Continues: JCM Buying FutureLogic JCM, a leader in currency handling for the casino industry, is expanding into slot machine printing and couponing with the acquisition of FutureLogic. The latest in a wave of mergers that is dramatically changing the landscape of the gaming equipment sector in North America and worldwide brings an array of the industry’s most popular machine gaming peripherals under JCM’s roof—JCM’s own iVIZION, Universal Bill Acceptor and Vega-RC bill validators, Intelligent Cash Box and PayCheck 4 thermal printer and FutureLogic’s Ticket2Go, TableXchange and PromoNet systems. No details were immediately available on the price or terms of the deal, which follows on the heels of the announcement that Scientific Games was buying Bally Technologies for US$3.3 billion in cash and the assumption of $1.8 billion of Bally debt. SciGames, INTERNATIONAL BRIEFS Jim Allen