Vol. 3, No. 11, November 2006
RSS Feeds
Interview: James Perry
President & CEO, Trump Entertainment Resorts
Jim Perry knows Atlantic City. As president of the Tropicana in the late 1980s and early ‘90s (then known as TropWorld), Perry was deeply embroiled in the city’s heated competition and drive to develop non-gaming amenities in Atlantic City that has now fully developed. Perry’s reputation in the gaming industry was cemented when he became president of Argosy Gaming, a struggling riverboat company that Perry transformed into a gaming powerhouse sold for more than $1 billion to Penn National Gaming a couple of years ago. Now, as president of Trump Entertainment Resorts, he has given Trump much-needed credibility on Wall Street. Since taking over, the company has sold its Indiana property and began renovations at all three of its Atlantic City properties, including breaking ground on a new tower at the flagship hotel, Trump Taj Mahal. Perry sat down with Global Gaming Business Editor Roger Gros at his Atlantic City office in late August. A podcast of the full interview is available at the Global Gaming Business website (www.ggbmagazine.com), which includes his views on the overall development of Atlantic City and the gaming industry.
Casino Connection: When we met with you a year ago, you mentioned that the Trump organization reminded you of Argosy when you came on board there— specific challenges, underperforming properties, etc. After a year, do you still see the parallels or are the challenges at Trump more severe?
Perry: Well, everything is never quite the same. Argosy was a much younger company, more amenable to change. In Atlantic City, the employees of the Trump organization—some of them have been here for close to 25 years—are used to the Atlantic City environment so I thought they’d be a little bit more reluctant to change and new ideas. But I have been pleasantly surprised by how accepting the employees have been of some of the new things that we are bringing to the company. Certainly, we would have liked to have started some of the renovation and construction projects sooner, but there is a process that takes time to get these plans done right. Once they started to see the physical changes I think the enthusiasm of the employees has been wonderful.
The employees have always been key to the Trump organization. They have always been very loyal and stuck with different managers through good times and bad. How did you convince them that things were going to change for the better this time?
I think the convincing was done primarily by the general managers who lead each of the three properties. Each of them has done a great job of being in front of the employees, and the physical changes, backed up by the management, being out there has done a lot to change the attitudes of the employees.
Let’s run through the properties one by one, starting with Trump Taj Mahal, the flagship of the organization. What did you see when you came here and how are you planning to fix the problems that you saw?
I remember making the remark to Mr. Trump when I first had visited the Taj Mahal that I’m not sure that we ever got finished building it, particularly on some of the outer edges of the property. While it was magnificent on the casino floor and some of the other areas, there were other parts of the property that just never looked like they got quite finished. So whether it’s the new entryway or the new things we are going to do to the front desk, the relocation of the coffee shop, the new bar on the casino floor, those physical changes at the Taj Mahal are starting to have an effect on how people perceive it. I am still fascinated every day when I watch people taking pictures in front of the fountains as to what an icon the Taj Mahal is in Atlantic City. As we complete the physical plant it is going to become even more exciting. The new hotel tower will help us balance better the size of the casino with the number of hotel rooms we have, and create a little bit more energy during the week at the property. So I am excited about the next year.
The Taj has always had some great meeting space, probably the most meeting space of any casino in the city. Was there some point where it was just de-emphasized and you are going to re-emphasize that ?
I think it was partly because they was some de-emphasis and partly because some of the ballrooms needed a little bit of refurbishment, and the customers weren’t willing to pay for that. Bally’s had always done a great job in the convention business as well. I think as Harrah’s is starting to de-emphasize some of its convention business, we are re-emphasizing.
How about the Marina? There are some changes going on there but we haven’t really heard a lot of details. Can you fill us in on that?
Essentially what we are trying to do at the Marina is to establish the right number of hotel rooms for that size of a casino floor.
We are trying to re-establish and reconfigure how we bring customers into the hotel. Currently the drive-through valet parking is pretty jammed up on weekends, so we have come up with a new way to enter valet parking and the hotel.
How do we change the entry from the self-park garage? We’ve now designed a way that we can actually come in through the casino level from the self-park garage, which we think creates a whole new energy in that facility. You will be able to walk in through a combination of restaurant and retail right onto the casino floor from the parking garage.
We are also trying to redesign the casino floor and the restaurants to take more advantage of the marina view. We think we’ve come up with a way to really bring the marina into the facility and create much better views.
Finally, you may remember the casino roof was built to support a convention center on top of there, which creates an 80,000-square-foot opportunity for us to create a combination retail, spa, restaurant and entertainment facility up there. So all those are coming together and we are working on that plan now, and we will be announcing something probably toward the end of this year.
And there was space for another tower there as well, if I am not mistaken.
Yes, we will definitely be looking to add more hotel rooms there. How many? We are trying to balance the size of the casino floor and the size of the restaurant and entertainment capacity we have at the property.
Trump Plaza has always been one of the city’s most profitable casinos. What have you done there and what else needs to be accomplished?
Certainly we have cleaned up the casino and the public areas, the first two levels of the facility. We’ve added a new coffee shop, a new lounge, the Evo restaurant. Next in line are the showroom, the convention floor and the spa.
We also have the ability to do something in the East Tower Casino. We are still working on that plan. We are talking to third-party restaurateurs who might want to come in and create more of an entertainment/restaurant right above the Rain Forest Café. Now that the Pier is open, it has brought a new type of customer to the center of the Boardwalk.
So we are really working on the next set of plans. We have acquired the Sabatini Restaurant, we have acquired the gold store next to it, but we still have not acquired Miss Coking’s property.
So we do have the ability to now expand the facility at the Plaza to create more hotel rooms at the center of the Boardwalk and we hope to do that once we get a better understanding of what is going to happen at Caesars/Bally’s and at the Sands.
Some observers were surprised you did not sell at least one of the Trump Atlantic City properties. Are any of them on the market? Would you consider a sale at the right price?
I don’t see that happening any time in the near future. I think there is plenty of potential in these three properties. Generally speaking, people don’t understand the economics of a sale because of the tax consequences of a sale, both to the company and to Mr. Trump personally. That would make it very difficult to sell the property and be able to reinvest a significant amount of the residual capital in a new casino or an expansion. The sale of any one of the three properties anytime in the foreseeable future is highly unlikely.
