SkyCity boss swaps the office for great Kiwi outdoors
For SkyCity Entertainment Group chief executive Graeme Stephens, a staycation is the ideal Christmas/New Year break, preferably spending time with his family and paddling the Waitemata or cycling forest tracks surrounding Auckland.
“I like being outside. I've been working since I arrived,” said the Zimbabwe-born boss of moving from Johannesburg this year to take over the SkyCity Australasian business. “I'll be on the mountain bike in the Woodhill forest or on my surf ski narrow canoe, at Narrow Neck or Takapuna.”
On the business calendar, Stephens sees 2018 as being one of milestones.
“The year ahead holds a lot for SkyCity, with the NZ International Convention Centre coming out of the ground as well as work starting on the A$330 million ($363.8m) Adelaide expansion,” he said, “and 2018 will be the year in which we get contractors on that site and start building.”
What SkyCity does with its Darwin property is a decision yet to be taken. It wrote down Darwin's goodwill by A$95m in July, due to increased competition pressures in the gaming machine business after the Northern Territory government removed the cap on gaming machines in the territory. That resulted in a 75 per cent rise in the number of Darwin gaming machines outside of the casino, SkyCity said.
Asked about new ventures for SkyCity in the year ahead, Stephens named two areas: “We'll be keeping a close eye on what's happening in the online space because online gambling is growing substantially glob- ally. One of our new marketing initiatives is to dovetail more with cruise ships, making sure we engage with them when they're in port.”
Asked about the biggest issue for the new Government to champion in 2018, Stephens was adamant that one issue was paramount: “Long term, it's the infrastructure deficit. Infrastructure remains Auckland's biggest issue. Local government can't do it on their own.”