Consumer >> Sector Roundtables >> April 6, 2009

Roundtable Forum: Gaming & Leisure

William Jason Lerner is a Managing Director and a Security Analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Prior to joining the firm in June 2006, he was a Senior Vice President and Security Analyst at Prudential Equity Group, LLC. Previously, He was a Security Analyst at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell for two years. He obtained an MBA degree from Boston University and a BA degree in Political Science from Syracuse University. He authored "The Irwin Directory of Emerging Market Brokers," which was published in 1996. He is also a member of Institutional Investor's "All American Research Team." Profile
Marla S. Backer is the Director of Research at Research Associates, LLC. She has 15 years of experience on the sell side, having begun her career as an Associate with the Special Situations research team at Morgan Stanley. Her background as a research generalist has given her the flexibility to cover several different sectors over the course of her career. She spent three years as a Senior Analyst at Bear Stearns, where she covered the global cement and construction industry. Following that, she was a Senior Analyst at Salomon Brothers, where she headed the emerging markets media and beverage sector teams. While at Salomon Brothers, she was ranked for her coverage of Latin American media in the prestigious Institutional Investor and Reuters polls. She has spent the last three years following the domestic media industry, with a particular focus on digital media. Starmine has ranked her as the leading analyst on several of the companies she covers. She is quoted often in the financial press and has been a frequent guest on CNBC and CNN. Profile
TWST: Let's start on the gaming side. Marla, what do you see going on?

Ms. Backer: Things are definitely difficult in the space. I think we're seeing

pressure in general on gaming across the