Angela Leong:SJM not considering austerity as GGR dips

Angela Leong On Kei, executive director of Macau casino operator SJM Holdings Ltd., says the company has not considered more cost-cutting measures despite the city’s 14-month decline in gross gaming revenues.
“For other gaming companies, I still cannot see it [more cost-cutting measures] being introduced,” Ms. Leong remarked yesterday on the sidelines of the signing ceremony of SJM and Macau Association of Composers, Authors and Publishers (MACA) regarding a public music performance licence agreement.
“If SJM was cutting costs, I believe we wouldn’t be having this signing ceremony as we did today,” she told reporters.
But the SJM boss briefly added that the company would keep a close eye on visitor traffic that the casino operator has apropos considering whether any aspects of the costs of the company’s operations have to be sized down.
“We’re continuously developing our business. And when you say whether there are any aspects that require cost-cutting it depends on the visitor traffic,” Ms. Leong remarked. “For instance, if we’re not getting that many visitors we want to have on our tourist coach, we’ll just reduce the frequencies of the ride.”
The SJM’s executive director also noted that the company’s Cotai project, Lisboa Palace, is progressing as planned.
Co-chairman and chief executive of SJM’s competitor Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd., Lawrence Ho Yau Lung, said last month that the city’s casino operators might have to consider austerity measures as gross gaming revenue keeps shrinking, although at the time Mr. Ho did not specify what those cost-cutting measures could be.
“If the government is looking at austerity measures maybe a lot of other businesses, including casino operators, will have to look at them as well,” Mr. Ho remarked last month.
SJM is due to announce its first-half 2015 earnings on Wednesday. The company’s chief executive, Ambrose So Shu Fai, said last week that it would be a slower performance compared to the same period last year given the industry-wide slowdown.
Macau raked in MOP18.62 billion (US$2.33 billion) in gross gaming revenue in July, marking a 34.5 per cent year-on-year decrease and fourteen consecutive months of casino revenue slump.
The July revenue numbers also meant that the accumulated gross gaming revenue for the first seven months this year stood at MOP146.26 billion, a fall of 36.7 per cent compared to the prior-year period.