MGM Planning for Las Vegas Slowdown in 2012?

Despite muted optimism that the American economy might be on the road to recovery, the outlook for Las Vegas appears gloomy. Nevada casino giant MGM Resorts MGM, which operates several properties on the Las Vegas strip such as the Bellagio, MGM Grand, The Mirage, Mandalay Bay, the Luxor, and New York-New York, remains cautious about the city's future. Last week, Benzinga spoke with MGM Public Affairs Manager Yvette Monet about the company's strategy looking ahead. While Monet said the company was hesitant to speak about its business model, she did tell us that the company's properties were still focused on "containing costs" as they did not see any good reason to expand in the near future. This may mean that the company is slow to hire. Although a recent hiring fair promised around 500 jobs for would-be workers, the positions are mostly replacements, as the company saw only a ".01% growth in hiring" over the past year, according to Monet. Those 500 jobs include temporary and permanent positions, and are a mix of food servers, cooks, bartenders, retail cashiers, cocktail servers, and other mostly customer service-oriented positions. The company is also looking to fill two positions at its corporate office, according to the company's website: one senior tax accountant and a staff internal auditor. The focus on cost-containment will scarcely please unemployed Nevadans, of whom there are many. The state's unemployment rate was at 12.6% in December 2011 after a slight increase from the 12.5% rate in November. In December 2011, unemployment in Las Vegas was 12.7% after a loss of 5,000 jobs from November's figures. The employment situation is so dismal in Nevada that the 500 jobs that MGM is seeking to fill accounts for 23.8% of the total 2,100 jobs that Nevada added for all of 2011. While Nevada workers lose out, Vegas casinos have increasingly looked elsewhere for growth opportunities. While the company's employment plans for Las Vegas remain humble, MGM is seeking to buy 150 acres of land in Massachusetts, about 65 mils away from Boston. MGM plans to spend $600 million on the site, which MGM CEO James Murren says will be a "beautiful resort" that is "sensitive to New England and its surroundings." Instead of a 6-hour flight to the mountains and sand of the Mohave desert, Bostonians can drive half an hour to the forests of Brimfield to play blackjack, poker, and slots. As more cash-strapped municipalitiesturn to gaming as a viable source of revenue, resort conglomerates such as MGM are poised to profit if they can get a piece of the expanding domestic market. Another giant of Las Vegas gaming has been looking afield for growth for years. Wynn Resorts WYNN has expanded into Macau, where it operates the Wynn Macau and Encore at Wynn Macau. Both properties are modeled after their Las Vegas namesakes with some alterations to fit Chinese tastes, and both have been profitable for the company as it struggled in Las Vegas. However, Wynn's foreign expansion has been challenging for the company, who has grown to rely on strategic partnerships to infiltrate foreign and unfamiliar markets. The weakness of this strategy was recently uncovered, when a feud between the company and its now former-vice chairman Kazuo Okada have made analysts cut their outlooks on the firm on fears that the spat will inhibit the company's ambitions to continue expanding in Asia. The company's stock plummeted on the news, but has since recovered--although those gains are quickly vanishing after shares opened 5% lower on Monday morning. MGM's strategy to expand domestically may be a better bet, as management can move with greater confidence and avoid the sorts of internal struggles Wynn is facing. However, the Las Vegas Sands LVS has had better luck expanding abroad, with profits beating analyst estimates in Q3 2011 thanks to a 16.1% jump in EBITDA from Macau operations. The company's Las Vegas presence has become a small fraction of the company's total revenue, with Macau being where the action is. Sands head Sheldon Adelson, who famously said Las Vegas should be called "America's Macau" in 2007, invested in the Chinese market early, capitalizing on the Chinese resort's eclipse of Las Vegas in terms of gaming revenue in 2006. While Adelson has recently hit the headlines thanks to his support of Newt Gingrich, the real story for investors and Las Vegas residents alike is his increasing focus on international markets, which has helped the resort grow even as Las Vegas struggles. The company is still dependent on Vegas, however, as its Venetian and Palazzo properties retain a high profile on the Las Vegas Strip and show strong signs of recovery. Both properties saw earnings jump by 61.7% in Q3 2011 compared to the previous year, with room occupancy increasing over 33.5% from the previous year. However, at just $94.3 million in EBITDA, the two properties represent a fraction of the company's earnings from abroad. The company's Macau operations yielded $388.3 million in EBITDA and the company's new Singapore property yielded $413.9 million. Venetian and Palazzo properties' earnings represented slightly over a tenth of the company's total $924.1 million EBITDA. With such figures, international expansion is an inevitability for any Las Vegas property that wants to expand, especially as MGM foresees continuing struggles for the desert town. Expansion elsewhere, both domestically and abroad, may help those gaming companies that can do it successfully, but it also spells big trouble for Las Vegas. To survive, that city will need more than a tired tagline, but the resorts aren't going to wait, as they continue to seek revenue from elsewhere.