Regency Casinos' Ian Gosling explains to Hugh Sorrill how the unending aftershocks of the Greek financial crisis are driving a longed-for potential move from the ageing Mont Parnes location but also creating new and unequal competition.
A mantra beloved of the wrong kind of management consultant still holds true: there are no such things as problems, only opportunities.
Greece does have a problem - the continuing financial crisis fuelled by vast public indebtedness - but there is certainly opportunity, not least for Regency Casinos, the operator of Casino Mont Parnes, which wants to move the venue off the mountain north of Athens to a more accessible location much closer to the city.
Ian Gosling, the CEO of Regency Casinos, believes the case is now well understood in government and a candidate venue has emerged in the shape of the former international terminal at Ellinikon Airport, which served the Greek capital for 60 years until its closure in 2001. Lamda Investments, part of Eurobank, is progressing in its bid to develop the whole site.
“The old airport is in the hands of the HRADF, the privatisation agency, which is tasked with finding willing investors,” said Gosling. “To stimulate interest in the bidding process, the government decided to give the airport zoning permissions for residential, leisure, hospitality and retail and - as it turns out - gaming.
“Then the privatisation agency initiated some very preliminary talks with us. What made it interesting and potentially quite cost-efficient for us was the use of a ready-made building that would need to go through conversion, rather than a wholesale building project with infrastructure development and so on."
Read the full article in the April issue of InterGaming
