Consumer >> Analyst Interviews >> August 10, 2009

Roundtable Forum:gaming, Lodging & Leisure

Greff, Joe
Joe Greff is a Managing Director in the Equity Research Department at J.P. Morgan. He joined the firm through the June 2008 merger with Bear Stearns. He has been an Institutional Investor-ranked Analyst for the past eight years covering the gaming & lodging sector, ranking number one for the past seven years. Mr. Greff also ranked number one in the recent Greenwich Associates U.S. Equity Analysts Polls for hotels/resorts, gaming & leisure facilities. He has been recognized for his stock picking in The Wall Street Journal's Best on the Street 2007, 2006 and 2004 surveys. Prior to joining Bear Stearns, Mr. Greff worked at Fulcrum Global Partners, ABN AMRO and Prudential Securities. He received an MBA in finance from New York University and a B.A. in economics and mathematics from Muhlenberg College. Profile
ANDREW S. ZARNETT, Managing Director, currently serves as Deutsche Bank's Gaming, Lodging and Leisure High Yield Debt Analyst as well as Co-Head of High Yield Research. Previously, from 1996 - 1999, he was the Senior Gaming Equity Analyst, Gaming, Lodging and Leisure, at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co., Inc., where he also served as a member of the Board of Directors. Before joining Ladenburg Thalmann, he was the Assistant to the Chairman, Furman Selz, LLC. He is frequently quoted in both the trade and national press, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Las Vegas Sun and the Las Vegas Review Journal. In 1985, he received a BA degree in Economics from York University. In 1988, he received his MBA in Finance from Babson College. Further, for many years, he was named to the Institutional Investor All Star Team. And in 2005, he was awarded the #1 Institutional Investor All Star Team covering gaming and lo Profile
TWST: Joe let's start with you. With all the doom and gloom out there,

what I really want to know is, are there any bright spots in the gaming

industry?

Mr. Greff: One can look at gaming in