by Nigel Huxtable

MGM Mirage executives attributed a slower than usual Lunar New Year period in Las Vegas to new casinos in Macau and North East Asians deciding to stay closer to home during the holiday.
The company opened its Macau casino, a joint venture with Pansy Ho, on December 18 last year.
Company Chairman and CEO, Terry Lanni said during the fourth quarter earnings' call yesterday that his venues had seen a larger than usual number of North Asians during the Western New Year but less during the Lunar year change.
“After 31 years in this business, and having been involved with Caesar's and here at MGM Mirage ... something very strange happened this year,” said Mr Lanni.
“A significant amount of our North Asian customers from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and People's Republic of China came in over that Western New Year’s period, which is normally not the period of time in which they tend to visit.
“This is anecdotal but, looking at our numbers and hearing other numbers in Macau, I think a number of people in that part of the world, North East Asia, if you will, ... tended to stay in the Macau area over the Chinese New Year’s period.”
MGM Mirage reported a fourth quarter net income of US$872.2 million, more than three times the earnings of the same quarter of 2006. The increase was largely attributable to a more than US$1 billion gain from its joint venture development with Dubai World to build hotels, casinos and condominiums on the Las Vegas Strip. Revenue from its 17 US properties and investments was only up 4.5 percent.
The company did not release any financial information from MGM Grand Macau's first two weeks of operations last year.
However during the press conference executives said that the volume of high end play at the casino was more than anticipated, while mass market gaming was down.

It's all about gaming
Contradicting a speech Pansy Ho gave visiting mainland and Hong Kong media on Thursday where she painted the resort as a place of fashion, fine dining and entertainment, rather than just a gaming hall, Mr Lanni said it was all about the casino floor.
“As far as the operation, as you know, there are four components in Macau that are significant,” he said.
“Rooms, food and beverage is not one of those four, or any of those four.”
He went on to describe his observations of the in-house VIP,  room-operating VIP, mass market slot and table games play since the venue opened.
Volume from the room or junket operators had exceeded expectations by up to 75 percent, he said, while in-house was down 40 percent on expectations. Mass market table games were down 15 percent and slot machine play down 35 percent on what executives had hoped.
However no actual figures were given on volume.

Cotai
MGM and Ms Ho are still working on securing land for a Cotai project and have submitted the necessary paperwork to the Chief Executive Edmund Ho Hau Wah, the MGM Grand Macau president Bob Moon told reporters on Thursday.
MGM Mirage chief financial officer, Daniel D'Arrigo said it may take as long as the rest of this year to finally secure the land, during which time the company will work on a plan for the site.
“The site is a great site in a good location, it’s not as big as say the Venetian site or some of the other sites in Cotai,” he said.
“But it’s about double the size of the site we have on the Peninsula, and it’ll probably be another high-end boutique type hotel.”
However MGM will be focusing on expanding its peninsula site first, said Mr Lanni, and is currently working on the design of a second phase.

New Jersey suitability finding
The New Jersey Gaming Control Commission's investigation into MGM's partnership with Pansy Ho is still continuing, said Mr Lanni.
“We can’t speak to where New Jersey is at in their process, but ... (we) continue to co-operate with them and hopefully we’ll get to a resolution soon,” he said.