Opportunities in the Philippines, Macau business model changing: Ken Jolly

Ken Jolly, VP and Managing Director – Asia for Light & Wonder says that there’s massive opportunity in the Philippine market, as seen by the growth through COVID. But for Macau, operators will struggle to get liquidity on the books after such an intense cash burn. And the SAR’s attempt to focus on non-gaming means a completely different business model from before.

Here are some of the highlights:

How are trade shows getting the industry back together?

“Now that we’re out of COVID, having a show is a good opportunity to network, a good opportunity to show your products”.

Philippine market, Macau and cash burn during COVID

“Even before COVID, what was happening was the Philippine market was moving up – sort of level with what the Macau market was. There’s so much more opportunity in this market in the next five to 10 years”.

“For Macau, since the changes and the re-issuing of the concession licenses, it’s probably not going to be get back to the 2019 numbers, but we believe it’s probably a 75-80 percent of those numbers, when it comes back to that.”

“[Macau operators’] cash burn over the past three years has been quite enormous. So there’s gonna be some cash flow restraints for a while until they can get some more liquidity onto their books.”

Large changes in Macau, including non-gaming, what’s the impact?

“Under the new concessions, there’s quite a lot of extra costs that they didn’t have previously – even the leasing back of the gaming area, the leasing back of the gaming equipment.”

“With all those extra costs, all those extra restraints, and then having to go out and support more non-gaming, it makes the business a different model to where they were before. It certainly changes their risk profile.”