Melco Resorts & Entertainment has prioritised addressing the loss of market shares the casino operator suffered last year, its executives have said.
In an earnings call with financial analysts on Thursday, Lawrence Ho, chairman and CEO of Melco, spoke of an adverse situation since the removal of Covid curbs.
“I think post-Covid, we did, David did a great job for us during Covid in terms of trying to survive,” said Ho.
“But post-Covid, I guess we continue to cut too deep to the bone in terms of our operating expenditure and how we conduct our business.”
Melco announced last month that David Sisk, the company’s former chief operating officer, would step down in a management reshuffle that would usher in three new appointments.
Ho told analysts that the company was heading in the “right direction even without the recent management changes”, citing a hike of 22 per cent in mass gross gaming revenue on the 2019 Chinese New Year season.
Ho attributed the loss of market shares to a reduction in offerings post-Covid.
“So City of Dreams invented the premium mass segment over 10 years ago. And so the goal for us is to really reclaim the crown in the premium mass sector,” he said.
“In order to do that, I think we need to work together as a team and with some of the new recent appointments to improve the quality of our offering.”
Starting this month, a raft of residency concerts will begin rolling out at Studio City.
Meanwhile, the House of Dancing Water, which was forced to be shut in June 2020, is making a comeback in the last quarter of the year.
“Going forward, we had highlighted that with the opening of the House of Dancing Water by the end of the year, that’s likely to increase our daily opex by about US$100,000 a day,” said Geoff Davis, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Melco.
