… Columbia Sussex came to town. Considering that CEO William J. Yung III purchased a dead, disreputable hotel-casino and put $90 million into reworking it into an attractive property (people whose judgment I trust swear by the comfiness of its beds), he got off on the right foot here. Later, he would venture out of his niche and try to be a Strip operator, and … let's just say it didn't go so well. Turn the page in your textbooks to Chapter 11.
Speaking of ColSux, comes shocking news today that Las Vegas Sands is in danger of bankruptcy. The company's debt-to-earnings ratios are out of kilter (or, in proper financial parlance, gone all skeewumpus). That's an event which, like ColSux's loss of the Atlantic City Tropicana, will set in event a cascade of other defaults, should it come to pass.
In the short term, this means Sheldon Adelson needs to find some loose change in his sock drawer, pronto, and will have to apply the brakes to several developments. According to Liz Benston, both the Marina Bay megaresort in Singapore and what's left of Sands Bethlehem will be finished. Everything else … not so much.
Adelson: Little about which to smile.
This is bad news for the Cotai Strip™, unless you're of the persuasion that Sands expanded in Macao far past what the market would bear. So a forced slowdown is a blessing in disguise. I should add that the Motley Fool warned of this very scenario last June, when it pegged Sands as a "deathbed stock.
Elsewhere in Adelsonia, the candidate for whom Freedom's Watch stumped the hardest, Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) waved the surrender flag.
All in all, this is one shitty day to Sheldon Adelson.
