Thursday, June 24, 2010

Australians To Score Gigs At Marina Bay Sands, by Greg Tingle - 24th June 2010

Readers, punters, media analysts... the Asia Pacific region continues to breath new life back into American casino and hotel developers. The Las Vegas Sands company is one of the most recent to see Asia changing their fortunes for the better. Media Man and Gambling911 pick up the chop sticks and Samurai sword with this special report...

A bush tucker bag of hard working Aussies including project managers and engineers are expected to be attracted to Asia by casino and resort super developer, the Las Vegas Sands.

This comes off the back of the announcement some 24 hours ago that The Sands had opened its $US5.5 billion Marina Bay Sands project in downtown Singapore, snatching some of the attention away from Macau, a favorite of Crown's James Packer.

By The Numbers

Let's swing into some impressive statistics...

2561-room hotel, which has a cricket stumps look about it

3 55-storey towers complete with 1.2ha park area on its pinnacle

In addition, part of the 15.5ha Marina Bay Sands development is 800,000 square meters of retail (Chanel, Gucci, Hermes and Louis Vuitton), world class restaurants, a museum, theatres and a casino. We understand 1 or 2 varieties of casino babes and poker babes are not far away for those seeking such services... for the well informed and connected, but please don't ask us for further detail pertaining to those babes. They are not on our books ok mates.

Sands tipped that its upcoming major projects were likely to include Korea, Japan or both.

The Singapore complex enjoyed its opening yesterday, however the project still has about six months of construction left. Bring on the Aussies, and try to include some GenerationOne skilled up workers. We don't think Crown's (and City Of Dreams connection) James Packer will mind too much, if its for the greater good of getting more Aussies into sustainable employment opportunities.

Las Vegas Sands Corp Asia construction VP Mr Matthew Pryor, who ran the Marina Bay Sands development, advised the firm had staff putting the final finishing touches on the museum, theatres and a couple more retail therapy "zoos".

Media Man insiders understand the project is coming up to being 5 months late...almost sounds like a project from Australia's Labor party! Thank god there's no Painters and Dockers Union to contend with, nor is a Tim 'Earthquake' Bristow type "enforcer" required, as documented in 'Not For Publication', hard news stories by Australian journalist and writer, Chris Masters. Oriental and American friends, if you get too many more delays you could always try Aussie Mick Gatto, who is a world calibre "consultant" and arbitrator of sorts. Gatto is a can-do type of guy who is also known as a skilled motivator and negotiator. Mr Gatto is represented by Media Man friend and occasional associate, Max Markson aka 'Mr Fame'.

Spreading its wings (not legs)... LVS has also sized up Macau, revisiting to complete a $US3.8bn-plus construction that was put on ice, thanks to the financial mess the world got itself in, fingers pointing to the World Bank and U.S Bush administration, no thanks either to 'Mr Ponzi Scheme' Bernie Madoff and partners in crime, you mongrels.

We understand a new shot of life will be injected into Macau, which previously had seem multiply thousands of working loosing their jobs.

Mr Pryor advised "It is hard to get the right people. We started hiring during the boom, I built the team up since 2003 and scaled it up consistently in that time".

At Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, 30% of the 100 top brass and 75 out of 100 engineers are from Australia.

Australian Contractor Connection...

Australia's Alfasi company were contractors for the Marina Bay Sands Singapore project, and would you believe that their budget stretched from the initial $US3.5bn forecast to $US150m, thanks to 4 months of delays and a calamity of issues and challenges, including a 7000 ton life of steel which had to go up 200 metres into the sky.

These days many insiders say Sands Oriental connection will see the sky the limit for the casino hotel developer giant.

One of the difficulties was lifting 7000 tonnes of steel 200m in the air for the hotel complex.

Mr Pryor is a key part of the comeback by Sands.

Media Man and Gambling911 wish the developer well and are delighted to learn of the great employment opportunities by Sands.

Long live the Australian - Oriental - American connection. Viva Sans, Macau, Japan... the world. 'Sin City' Singapore? Stranger things have happened.

*Greg Tingle is a special contributor for Gambling911

*Media Man http://www.mediamanint.com is primarily a media, publicity and internet portal development company. Gaming is just one of a bakers dozen of sectors they cover.

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