Fortune Staff

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

Fortune 500

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Arlington, Va.-based AES is a diversified power utility that generates and distributes energy to more than a dozen countries around the globe.

The AES Corporation (AES) Company Profile, News, Rankings | Fortune

legacy

 A lovely cheese pizza just for me. [AMBIENT ITALIAN MUSIC] 

There Ain't No Party Like a Pizza Party

Entertainment

Mark since you became CEO of Susie entertainment you have been through a couple of tough years going through this all bankruptcy situation. What's the most important lesson that you've learnt from this experience ?>> Making sure you never quit. That you learnt to say everyday you stay positive with your team. No matter how the adversity is, no matter the negotiation or what Experiences prepare you. or maybe not, for going through bankruptcy proceedings. Well actually it prepared me pretty well. I mean, it hurts, we were highly leveraged, spun out from Ford with private equity and with that higher leverage, you have to run company extremely tight. And we were successful in doing that, it hurts. And then before that at Tenaco, also a company spun out From the mother, if you will, from Tanico, and we were the auto parts part of that company. And again, very highly levered, which means a lot of debt, so we didn't have much room, if you will, to make mistakes. I think that those lessons of working with the consumer, and working in highly leveraged companies prepared me well If you will for Caesars. What about the Casino and gambling business? Did you have any experience in that? What did you know about gambling? Yeah, well other than not being a gambler myself, not very much. [ LAUGH ] When I got the job, people actually said to me, you know that's a perfect job for you Mark, because I love entertainment, I love hospitality, I love eating So everything in Vegas and what Vegas represents I really like. So, for me it was like coming to a place that was fun to work, not a burden. When you took this job I'm sure a lot of your friends or business associates gave you some advice. What were some of the pointers that you heard? A gentleman named George Tamke, it was the lead director at Hertz and he was form CD and R Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, and George was a big proponent of being in front of the troops as often as possible. So, I lived in Las Vegas, and now I live there, but I lived a half a block away. So, I was constantly walking every single night, every single weekend, At the transaction level. This is meeting the dealers, observing. Meeting the people, always just enthusiastically embracing them telling them this is gonna get better. And asking them about their work. Tell me about your job, tell me what you do. So management is so important as your taking a company in a new direction. You've brought in a few key senior level people. You've got 70, 000 employees at Caesar's. So, Now that you're ready to get going on the growth side of the story, what do you have to do to get everybody pointed in the right direction, bringing them together to work and follow your lead. So as a leader it's important for you to focus and prioritize things for the organization. When I first did the strategy here at Caesar's we had about 70 or 80 Different initiatives that people wanted to do to fix the company. We boil it down to four. And that was tough, we had to make people make choices. And the team was involved in all of those. And we made great choices. So my job is now only chief cheerleader, but chief organizer. To prioritize and focus the organization on what's important. As you know if you chase 20 things and you don't get any of them done very well, you fail. If you focus on four or five and you focus hard and you really the organization around those initiatives then you will succeed and you would execute. Mark obviously you've learned a lot about leadership from all the various places that you've worked, looking back on your career. What's the best leadership advice that you ever received? And why did it shape you as a leader? My father, back when I was 12- years- old actually gave me a little poem. And the poem was entitled, Don't You Quit. And in it, it talks about how when the times get tough, and really, really you're down on your luck What you do, what you don't do is you never quit and I tell my team the same thing. I want a team that's relentless, a team that's always focused and never gives up and I think at the end of the day, that grit makes a really good company. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Back From Bankruptcy, Caesars CEO Shares Lessons Learned

Finance

Mark Frissora believes the turnaround was born from endless optimism.

[ MUSIC ] [ SOUND ] [ APPLAUSE ] Mark, what a milestone day for Caesars Entertainment. It's finally out of bankruptcy and you're celebrating here at the NASDAQ. So now what happens? Where does Caesars go from here? Well really excited because now we can grow, we have a balance sheet, a strong balance sheet and we're looking at MNA activity we think there is an awful lot of opportunity out there, we haven't participated in for roughly 7, 8 years. In addition to that there's development opportunities in the world. We think we've got a pretty good anchor with Japan. Brazil and there's a lot of other opportunities that we're excited about. You talk about growth, where is growth gonna come from. I mean, we've seen over the last couple of years on the Las Vegas strip, that the gambling revenues have been on a decline. For us anyways, right now on the strip we're actually growing our revenues on gaming and we're doing that with a lot of new games That we brought on the floor more social interaction type of games. We like to be first to market on that. Plus e- sports is something that we've really rallied our whole organization around. That last thing I'll just mention in terms of growth, we have 98 acres of underdeveloped, underutilized land center strip. And so the Strip itself as you know everyone kinda comes to the middle. So that's a really great traffic. And we've already announced that we're gonna build a convention center behind the Linq Wheel. It's the High Roller Wheel. And that the convention center will add a lot of jobs to Strip. And then there's a lot of land right in front of Caesar's Palace, right on Las Vegas Boulevard. We're gonna activate that land pretty quickly. So a lot of exciting plans. A lot of building to go on that will drive growth for us in Las Vegas. You mentioned about acquisitions, you said you're interested in that. You've got plenty of cash, $ 2 billion. What kind of acquisitions are you looking for. There's a lot of regional casino company that are in the market today. Some of them don't have great brand names. So when we go in and take over one of those, we automatically get a lift in revenue of maybe 10 to 15 % with the Cesar's name. How far are off are you from starting that acquisition process. We're active and we're- So you're looking now? Yes, uh- huh. Have you identified any properties that you are ready to move? No, we can't talk about any of our acquisitions, but we can tell you that we're active. And there's lots of properties in the market. Usually, this time of year and And in the beginning of the year you get a lot of properties that will come on, and since we're new and everyone knows we gave cash, a lot of properties just recently came onto market waiting for us. What about expanding an International Markets. A lot of your competitors have gone it [ UNKNOWN ] where business has been very good. But I don't know, is it too late for ceasers to play catch up there. Yeah, Macaw really is a special place. And the licenses are all locked up. However, we do have a development project in Incheon, Korea. And that'll break ground 2020. and that's a big, big integrated resort on the China Sea. So we're excited by that. We also will be branding an awful lot of our brands like Caesar's Palace in Asia. So once we put that brand out there with a hotel or an entertainment center, we end up getting total rewards membership, and that gives us an Asian presence that will be helpful. So this all sounds very exciting Mark, but how might the Las Vegas shooting incident impact your plans? Well it's a tragedy. And the impact of Vegas I think is de minimis. I think because it was a random shooter, wasn't an act of terror that's helpful in terms of the way people view it. I think in terms of the business side of it I believe that we will rebound nicely. We've already seen some rebound and we expect Probably by the end of year, I think this thing will just pretty much peter out. Well what has been the feedback from consumers, are they staying away for now? Well I think for the first couple weeks, there were some people who cancelled plans, and cancelled some of their meetings. However, the meetings going out the next couple months are There have been no cancellations and it's very strong so, meeting, planning looks very good right now .>> So what's been the key lesson you learned from this tragic event ?>> Well, we just need to make sure that we put in enough equipment that we could spot any kind of arms being brought in to our hotels. I think that's something that, Pretty much the whole strip everyone is looking at. And they're gonna be doing, putting in technology that allows us to spot that, and do it in a way that's full proof. Let's talk a little bit about technology and innovation. There's always new technology that is bringing a new generation of gamers. What is Caesars doing about all of that? Well, we're developing what we call a casino of the future. Just trying to change the entire dynamic on the game floor. Where everyone feels like they're part of everyone else, everyone's connected. And so you have this great energy and great vibe any time you'd walk into a Caesar's Palace. So a year or two from now, what are people gonna be saying about Caesar's entertainment? How are they gonna describe your company? I think they will describe us as a very innovation and fast growing company. We are going to be licensing our brands all over the world. We have never done that before. We are going to be changing the inside of our casinos so that they are more exciting as I said to you earlier Much better vibe inside, energy inside and I think everyone will be impressed with the energy, the innovation and growth. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

How Caesars is Channeling New Investor Confidence into Long-Term Growth

With stocks surging more than 40% this year, Caesars makes clear its plans for global expansion.

Joe we're hearing from more and more business leaders that they are more committed and wanna get more involved in solving a lot of the world's social problems. Now you have said that, if you're not in the business to improve society, you shouldn't be in business. So tell us how this thinking of yours is guiding what Seaman's is doing. We need to change our scope. Into more, what actually is the purpose of a company. Is the purpose of a company just making some short term money? Or is the purpose of a company to create social value? And that's why I actually said is you know if a company doesn't Provided the earlier to society should not exist cuz what is it for? That question needs to be answered. Certainly, you are moving ahead on your environmental efforts, you are moving ahead on training the next generation of students to be ready for manufacturing jobs, you are not waiting for a government policy to come out, or for someone to tell you that, It's time to act. But still, you've gotta get a commitment from your shareholders and from people working on the shop floor. How do you do that? That if you'll show people the way, and make them understand what matters in life, then you get those together very well. Because everyone wants to be successful. This must require a different kind of leadership, right? Your people want to know who you are. Your people want to know what you say about different things, what is your opinion about social, economic, and political matters. They wanna know, and I think they have a right to know. And we also want to make sure our people speak up, And that realism, and you get a lot of good information out of that. You make it sound very simple, and very easy to do, but it does seem to involve changing the culture of a company, changing its mindset. What are you telling Your employees on all levels of the company. I tell my people, no matter who they are and what they do, just act as if it was their own company. Always remember [ UNKNOWN ] money you want to spend for this, would you put your reputation on the line for that? And if it's [ UNKNOWN ] go ahead and do it. I understand that you spent several years very early on in your career working in Silicon Valley. And you were involved with entrepeneurs and start up companies. How did all of that experience rub off on you in terms of Your own way that you look at leadership. [ UNKNOWN ] see is people are fast. That they're go for 110 % like [ UNKNOWN ] in quality and stuff, they go for 80 %. And then find the rest. They never stop moving. They always are on the move. I never just listen and look, and what happens next. And a third one is that this is about a massively networked community. So at a network, actually, which exists, Is the winning formula. This is about a mentality This is about a way to do business, not just the geographics. And once you understand the silicon valley, what it is all about, go after the next big thing, try to make a difference in life, in purpose. Then I guess you need to understand what does that mean for me in Germany, what does that mean for me in Boston? What does it mean for [ INAUDIBLE ] in Minnesota or in India. So you need to understand you know what is it that happens there and then I think you'll be well off. Well it's self evident that those years in Silicon Valley had made an impression on you because since you became CEO of Siemens you've been really pushing it to act and think more entrepreneurially. So much so, That a German newspaper recently criticized you for acting more like a founder of a fast paced start up, this is his quote, than the head of one of Germany's most traditional companies. What was your reaction to that? Well, there's a lot of, you know, unasked advice in life and it is what it is. But the point is, I'm not going to be the one who turns out the last lights of the last conglomerate. So we need to reinvent ourselves all the time. We've been around for 170 years, and we have a reason. But it's great to have a great past and history, but it's even greater to have a good future. And the most important history is the history you make today. Respective of our past but we need to look forward. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

CEO Joe Kaeser discusses how the entrepreneurial mindset can benefit everyone in the company.

AES

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Key Financials (Last Fiscal Year)

Profit Ratios

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Total Return