CEO plan: Open 30 more venues

Hakkasan Group is generating $500 million in revenue from its nightclub and restaurant venues as it sets up to boost its global party and dining presence by half over the next 36 months, CEO Neil Moffitt told a conference Monday.

Hakkasan, which currently has about 60 venues globally, including at least a dozen in Las Vegas, such as Wet Republic and Hakkasan, plans to open another 30 over the next three years, Moffitt told several hundred attendees at the Nightclub and Bar Show in the Las Vegas Convention Center. The group now employs 7,000 people worldwide, he said.

“The company has gone from nothing to half a billion dollars” in a short time, he said. The ability of nightclubs to generate such revenue means club owners and managers “have become the most important people in the hotels and resorts globally. Period. Fact.”

Wet Republic at MGM Resorts pulled in $44 million in 20 weeks last year, he told the crowd.

The group’s leap from restaurants into the night club and entertainment business began when it hired Moffitt to open the Hakkasan Las Vegas at MGM Grand Hotel in 2013. The five-story, 80,000 square foot venue generated $100 million in revenue in its first year, making it one of the highest grossing clubs worldwide. That drove Hakkasan Group to buy Moffitt’s management business and roll out more clubs and restaurants globally.

Moffitt, who has since expanded HAKKASAN,