Its good to see Galaxy finally getting alittle exposure in the US. This is a must-read.
THE Galaxy Entertainment Group had no business entering the casino business when it made its bid for a gambling license in Macao, a Chinese territory west of Hong Kong.
Competing in Macao, after all, meant going head to head with Stephen A. Wynn, who practically invented modern-day Las Vegas, and the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, parent company of the Venetian, which over the last several years has opened two properties in Macao, including the world’s largest casino resort. This month, the MGM Mirage opened its giant Macao property.
And then there was Stanley Ho, the Hong Kong billionaire who for four decades held the territory’s only gambling license.
Galaxy, by contrast, was created in 2001 by the Lui family, a clan based in Hong Kong that for 20 years had been building office towers and residential buildings in China (and Hong Kong and the United States) but had no experience in the gambling business.
Yet Galaxy has managed to hold its own in a crowded market, capturing a 20 percent share of gambling revenues in a locale that surpassed even the Las Vegas Strip last year in terms of the money gamblers cumulatively lost. Macao, a Portuguese colony that was returned to China in 1999, is the only place in China where casino gambling is legal.
Galaxy, which went public on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2005, operates the StarWorld Hotel and Casino in central Macao, along with smaller gambling halls around town. The company is building a giant casino resort that, when completed, will rank as one of the world’s largest.
Francis Lui, the company’s deputy chairman (the Hong Kong equivalent of chief executive), recently sat down for a breakfast meeting in New York, where he offered his views on Macao, the intensity of the Chinese gambler and why he thinks he will outsmart his more experienced rivals.
continue on with the interview
Cool blog! Hope I can go to Cotai!
Comment by Bill Taylor — January 28, 2008 @ 1:05 am |