Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING OCTOBER 2018 24 term profits and what’s right in front of them. I develop and better raise the employees for long-term. I envision projects three, four, five years ahead. Everything has to be built up from solid foundations. You can’t just gain instant success in a flash. If you gain something like that, there’s no grounds for it. Without a foundation, it’s always shaky. Fujimoto is not leadership material, he doesn’t have a long-term vision. Making money is not the only goal for a company, rather it should not be. Making something that interests the clients and customers is the number one goal. If you cannot maintain the interest of customers in the long run, they will leave you. MC: I understood Fujimoto was your protégé... KO: In the sense of pachinko, yes, he does have abilities in that and he can build up on the foundation that I have already built up until this point. In that sense yes, if you want to use that word protégé … more in the plans that if and when Okada Manila would be on track and successful, at that time whatever happens with Universal, he can deal with it. It was going to be one or two years into realizing I can concentrate on Okada Manila, he can do what he wants – but before that, he did this coup d’etat. MC: What do you think of the current leadership at Okada Manila? KO: I believe the current leadership in Okada Manila doesn’t have any know-how in operating a casino. If they maintain control, this is certainly going to lead to failure. The person that’s supposed to be the central figure in there probably doesn’t have the true vision of how to run, operate and move forward and implement that vision for Okada Manila. Fujimoto is basically in way over his head. A person like that and a person like [Universal President Hajime] Tokuda, who’s basically just a yes man … those guys have no know-how or vision of running a casino long term. He’s already a failure. One can see that from the settlement he took with Wynn. They took away [Universal’s] 20% of Wynn Resorts. If one looks at the value of the shares, it should be about US$4 billion. Basically, they took an innocent man who didn’t do anything wrong, made him look like a criminal and then made me go through all this. For the pain and suffering that they caused me, in tormenting an innocent man … I deemed those as grounds to ask for damages, which I estimated to be US$2 billion. So I should be asking for US$6 billion. Again, even with the shares’ present value at US$4 billion, these guys settled at US$2.6 [billion], which is unthinkable. In Part 2 of our interview, to appear in the November edition of IAG, Okada gives his side of his ouster from Wynn Resorts and his relationship with Steve Wynn. There was discussion of a possible resolution and settlement with Wynn, but at that time it wasn’t really set or understood when that would happen. COVER STORY Kazuo Okada’s daughter Hiromi sits with her father during IAG ’s extensive interview