hello viewers and welcome to the latest episode of the GI huddle I'm with Hubert Wang president and COO of MGM China Hubert thanks very much for joining us thank you Tim thank you for affording me this opportunity really looking forward to to speaking to you about uh MDM China all things Macau uh but a great place to start I think is is if you could walk us through uh and sort of a typical day in the role of president and CEO of MGM China well that's a uh a big question uh but generally speaking I think that uh if in three words it will be list listen think and decide so I uh in terms of listening I keep my ears on the ground uh listening to internal parties and also external people uh from my staff other ex Executives and the board members that's internal uh sources for me to get an idea what's going on you know uh what is the bus and then externally I listen to Regulators uh voices from the communities and also our competitors our industry peers so I want to understand what other people are providing to our customers what our customers are caring about uh how is our products how how are our products stacking up against competitors how people feel at our property from customer experience standpoint and what Regulators are talking about and what's on their agenda so by by uh having all that information collected and I think through all that try to identify the problems and then analyze and evaluate options so that that's the thinking process probably is going to take you know most of the time and and then uh decide that is to say to decide on action plan uh with very clear objectives uh resources allocation and prioritization so and also I think when you have an action plan you have to have assignment of responsibilities and followup mechanisms so that's I think uh in three words concisely uh in three words to describe my day-to-day roles uh in the organization brilliant out of those three words is there one that's more important than the other or are they equally important I think that uh you know I think most important I already eluded that is the is you need to keep some time to yourself to do proper thinking you know uh to nowadays you know with all these meetings people we need to talk to uh there are a lot of distractions you know so you need to filter through all that information and give you some uh piece of uh some some some peaceful time and to think through all the information to distinguish what is valuable information versus what's noise and then from there to uh arrive at your decisions absolutely I'm aware that obviously uh right now you don't have that uh that time to make decisions because uh we're doing this interview but uh you know um the the the viewers will certainly certainly benefit from that kind of insight um thank you you're uh so obviously at the moment maau um a big big part of your career is in Asia but of course previously you you were in the US and I wondered if you could walk us through your time in America and you know you you gained significant experience at kind of different companies there before you you moved to gaming in Asia yeah that's right I actually started in uh the gaming industry in the mid90s uh in the US so altogether I spent about 16 years in the Us in in the gaming industry so I worked for several large companies such as Caesars uh formerly known as Harris entertainment and the Las Vegas SS and also uh Pan national gaming who is uh more focused on the regional markets so the uh uh 16 years of experience in the US give me a lot of exposure to various gaming jurisdictions and and uh also exposure to different types of Casino operations across the country uh you have landbased casinos uh such as Atlantic City uh Las Vegas and also some Indian casinos and you have Rivero casinos rinos and also you know large scale integrate Resorts so I think that variety of operational environment uh was very rewarding to me from experience standpoint and also I think my uh experience in uh Las Vegas s afforded me the opportunity to get involved in uh uh projects in maau and Singapore and eventually prepare me to move permanently to maau as well so I I think that in a nutshell it was a very rewarding uh diverse experience now this might like a like a broad question but what are the main differences between working in the US and obviously different parts of the US and in different parts of Asia well I think the there are many uh differences I think when you talk about markets in us and in Asia particularly in maau number one is the scale is very different you know maau gaming Market is five to six times bigger uh than uh than Vegas so you look at the actions of the players and you appreciate the scale uh difference in scale the other difference is uh I think uh level of maturity is different now let me explain that from a couple of uh perspectives uh I think that maau uh in the past you know 20 years uh I think it's still a uh a uh growing Market okay and uh Revenue growth has always been the focus whereas in the US depending on which markets you are at but most of time you end up in a mature Market quite saturated uh highly penetrated market so in that kind of operating environment uh margin management cost control uh takes more important role in terms of uh uh hitting earnings Target so that's just from revenue perspective cost control perspective but other uh reflection of Market maturity is on the regulatory side you know I think that over the uh past two decades in maau we can see that market keeps on growing and the the regulatory framework and the rules also played a very significant uh role in catching up these development uh and the most recent example is the uh is the uh all the uh strengthening of regulatory uh rules on the junket operations so that's a prime example you know as Market grows and matures some of these uh uh uh regulations need to step up to rule out illegal activities and then to make the market even healthier and more sustainable so there are other differences in uh in Asia and in the US you know I think that as we all know China has been developing very fast so in terms of access to the market the infrastructure Improvement uh the speed of evolution is very fast very fast in this part of the world and uh and then from customer preference standpoint you know uh I think that in Asia uh at least for now although diversification is always uh a top priority but definitely in maal for example I think that you can see gaming is still playing a dominant role here in terms of Revenue generation and in uh within the gaming uh activities I think that table games is more Centric and that's very different particularly different from the riverbow markets in us where slot plays a dominant uh Revenue uh contributed role mhm yeah um really interesting observations um as you say with table games at the moment in the US table games are sort of slightly down year on year so as you say very very very different in terms of the markets and and we'll definitely talk more about the maau market as a whole later run uh but for for now I wanted to sort of go back to your career timeline and and we've discussed your experience in the US obviously MGM China now um I believe uh correct me for wrong over 12 years at the company can you talk us through through that Journey with with the company uh with MGM China at the moment yeah uh I joined the company in 2011 so when I uh join the company I played the role of CFO uh and and I did that for about uh eight years eight to nine years and then I became president and CEO until now so now I'm taking care of gaming operations strategic marketing Hospitality uh it functions Business Development security Etc so all these operational units I would say that you know instead of in addition to the road changes uh throughout the uh uh Dozen Years at the company I think that my career with with MGM chel is also characterized by two business Cycles up and down two cycles complete cycles and know one is uh I think from the 2010 you know around that time to all the way to 2014 was hyper growth and then from mid 20104 to Mid 2016 you had the first correction with the revenue down uh about uh oneir you know to 40% you within these two years compared to before the correction and then it gradually recovered all the way through 2019 and then coid hit so there's a pandemic related you know correction uh so these two business Cycles along with these two business Cycles there were also many significant events uh that happened and I was fortunate or unfortunate to be part of it you know such as the IPO you know in 2011 uh the opening of MGM kotai in 2018 so fortunately I was part of these sign significant events and then coid hit you know Co disruption threee very tough period but and then but then at the end of last year we were successful in rendering and get another 10year license so these are all very significant Milestones that I was uh part of it uh regardless you know I think tough or a great experience I think it's fortunate to be part of these experiences you learn lot through these uh cycles and now I think that also more importantly I think that uh in the past few years we were able to gain more market share in maau so MGM China right now with two operations here we're now having 14% of the market now that's a significant growth of five to six% from the uh from the base we uh we had before 2019 impressive gross numbers you say yeah yeah definitely it it's definitely sounds like an achievement uh worth being proud of and it links links nicely to my next question you mentioned you were previously CFO and uh you know currently president and coo with your maybe as well as your president hat your CFO hat how do you look look back on MGM China's Q2 results well you know I again I'm very proud of our Q2 results and uh everybody as asked the question how is your recovery I would say that for MJM Channel we have we have moved beyond the recovery phase we're back into the growth phase take two Q2 for example our Revenue was already even with 2019 preco level and our epida actually exceeded Q2 2019 so uh we our depa was at 120% of Q2 2019 versus industry of about 177% 70% so I think we were able to achieve these results because we did not stop investing during coid we had hope and that paid off the faith uh of having hope uh believing that we'll come out of coid uh paid off and our Focus again business focus in Mass segment uh again paid off that's always our strength and we were able to leverage non-gaming investment programs effectively to drive visitation and Sh wallet as soon as uh uh P pandemic control was over so uh that's how we arrived at at these uh amazing results what are your most press the most pressing areas on your agenda right now um you mentioned the the the mass Market I imagine that that's a big Focus um and may maybe we can talk about this later but obviously I guess maau has a little less focus on the VIP Market now especially you mentioned kind of junk it's not not operating as much now but maybe that's a separate topic yeah I mean in terms of my uh pricing areas you know I think I mentioned that we have grown uh quite significantly in terms of market share from 8 to 9% in 2019 to to all the way to 14% now these days I think the pressing issue for me is how do we keep uh our competitiveness how to defend our share in a Cutthroat Market you know so this comes back to uh continue to uh Elevate our core competence through product and service Innovation and enhancement and also Talent retention and de development so that's what keeps me keeps me awake uh in the night what kind of new ideas we have what kind of new product improvements we can have you know what kind of service we can provide to the customers in order to keep them here uh instead of walking across the street so it's just you know uh these type of uh uh issues that we have to face on daily basis yeah that makes a lot of sense um to my next question which is probably probably more to do with um the mass market and VIP and that kind of thing so you mentioned obviously MGM China is now now in the growth phase and uh the quite an interesting stat about having a better ebit Dar than Q2 2019 obviously maau as a whole since coid um as as you said it was about 70% probably for for The Wider industry um how do you view the postco recovery and I guess maau as a whole Market do you see you know reaching pre-pandemic levels I suppose it you don't want to put a figure on it but you know in the next couple of years what are your views on on The Wider Market as a whole yeah I think that uh frankly the recovery speed has exceeded uh expectation not just uh our internal expectation but also the industry expectation uh Wall Street expectation and the government expectation you know so uh because speaking of expectation we uh really worked on that very diligently last year during the uh rendering process because we had to make investment commitment and that has to be based on our expectation of the market recovery so now you know looking back I do I we do see that uh the reality really exceeded the expectation in uh in Q2 industrywide I think uh in terms of Gaming revenue already recovered to 2third of 2019 level in a very short period of time in the six months you know period of time and particularly led by a a mass segment which was 90% recovered and of course mg MGM was above the market recovery we were as I said before even in ggr and uh and 120% uh uh in in Mass so but other than that I think the industry structure nowadays without the heavy Reliance on junip business is also healthier and more sustainable okay right now I think we're looking at a mass segment dominant Mass segment dominant Market uh there's a lot of non-gaming activities and uh programs to drive visitation and everybody is also working on trying to re more overseas business to ma particularly for from Southeast Asian countries so I think the uh in insignificance of VIP Revenue uh you know will continue uh in the in 10 years ago 12 years ago when I just joined the industry here in maau VIP was 70% of the total ggr nowadays I think it's uh around 15% only you know so so what does that mean it means that we don't have to reach the same ggr level as be preco uh preo period in order to arrive at the same profit because Mass segment has a much higher profit margin so uh that's very important I I don't know exactly you know when uh the total ggr will be even or above 2019 level but I'm pretty sure that uh on the mass side I think everybody will be closing the Gap towards 2019 pretty soon you know and uh once you do that I think that you'll see that your profit level will also uh pretty close to 2019 level as well so uh MGM has already been there you know we closed the Gap and already moved Beyond 2019 level I think that we are the leading company in achieving that uh but I feel that other companies will follow suit pretty soon it's a matter of one quarter or two quarters yeah okay um I I do think that profitability point is is a key point and I take your take your focus on on the mass Market as well obviously the um you know the the government is is looking to kind of diversify maau a little bit more as well so that that's an interesting play as you said um in terms of non-gaming revenues um but yeah very interesting overall uh I just have one one final question uh for you for yourself and and that's uh that's very much a company question and quite a broad one so you can you can take it in any which direction you feel is is is best but uh in terms of we we're approach we're we're approaching sort of the end of Q3 and the end of 2023 um looking into the end of the year and next year what are the main targets for MGM China all main targets is really uh pretty uh you know clear one we need to execute and fulfill our retaining commitment to the government uh the government asks us to do focus on uh non-gaming diversification uh ass us to drive overseas market so these are the things that uh we must deliver and we I think this is best for maau and what's best for maau will be best for MGM as well and then uh as I said and mentioned before you know how to keep our competitiveness and maintain our Market year so these are the few things that I think uh uh will be my Target and uh it's this year's Target as well as next year's uh top agenda absolutely well well you said these things keep you up at night so hopefully they don't keep you up too much you you you can sleep knowing that the growth is coming in and um you know best of luck with with everything that you that you're looking to achieve thank you Tim appreciate the interview thank you very much for your time and for your answers really enjoy being with you thanks