PRESIDENT AND COO
Genting Singapore
CHAIRMAN AND CEO
Resorts World Sentosa
POWER SCORE: 1,021
POSITION LAST YEAR: 27
CLAIMS TO FAME
- Won Genting’s make or break bid for a Singapore gaming license; aims to double up with Japan IR bid
- Oversees Resorts World Sentosa, Genting Group’s most profitable property
Resorts World Sentosa plays second fiddle in Singapore to Marina Bay Sands, but it’s number one in Genting’s global gaming orchestra. While Chairman Lim Kok Thay is Genting Singapore’s conductor, Tan Hee Teck is a key player.
Tan secured the license for RWS, the group’s financial flagship, with SG$2.5 billion (US$1.8 million) in revenue and SG$1.2 billion in EBITDA last year, the latter nearly three times greater than EBITDA at Malaysia’s Resorts World Genting. Tan was named RWS CEO at the start of 2007, three years before the resort opened on Singapore’s designated leisure island.
In addition to running RWS with 550 gaming tables, 2,400 gaming machines,1,600 guest rooms across six hotels, Southeast Asia’s only Universal Studios theme park, a water park and other attractions, Tan leads Genting’s efforts to win a Japan license, likely offering a similar integrated resort template. Japan has taken on great significance with group revenue squeezed from COVID-19. Tan’s bearing as a high level Singapore technocrat reportedly plays well in Japan.
Resorts World Sentosa should become a more compelling enticement for Japan with its SG$4.5 billion expansion, dubbed RWS 2.0, including new Universal Studios attractions, a dinner theater experience, aquarium expansion, up to 1,100 more hotel rooms, and a “waterfront lifestyle complex” touted as the “centerpiece” of Singapore’s Greater Southern Waterfront initiative. However, RWS 2.0 is being delayed for redesign “to adapt to the post COVID-19 environment,” GENS wrote in its first half Singapore stock exchange filing.
Shut down for the entire second quarter, RWS reported a first half 2020 loss of SG$117 million and reopened on a limited basis from July 1. A travel bubble with Malaysia would help, since RWS traditionally welcomes busloads of day-trippers crossing the causeway.
For the full list of 2020 Asian Gaming Power 50 winners, click here.
