Sheldon Adelson must have been a good boy this year. Santa left an extra present under his tree, in the form of probable approval by the Macau Land, Public Works & Transportation Bureau of apartment sales at 286-unit Four Seasons Cotai. This would add another $1/share to Las Vegas Sands’ share price, says casino analyst Joseph Greff of J.P. Morgan, who adds that it also signals that U.S. casino operators aren’t in bad odor with Peking, as feared.
Greff’s colleague Carlo Santarelli, of Wells Fargo, took the opportunity to gently nudge Adelson to use proceeds from condo sales toward deleveraging Sands’ top-heavy balance sheet. Santarelli also sees a chance here for Melco Crown Entertainment, “given it too has land available for an apartment development on Cotai.”
Another Christmas card for Adelson was the Wells Fargo estimate that, at current pace, December casino revenues in Macao were not only up 58% from a year ago, Sands had regained the market share it lost in November. What’s more, at 27%, Stanely Ho‘s share of play was at — if memory serves — its lowest ebb ever. For those who set store by the fable of tortoise and the hare, MGM Grand Paradise crept into the four spot with a stellar (for it) 12% market share, while Melco Crown and Galaxy Entertainment were in a dead heat for last place.
With Sands doubly chastened by the loss of Cotai Sites 7 & 8 and by a mortifying, large-scale prostitution sting, Sands China CEO Michael Leven is singing a humbler tune these days. “They’re trying to manage growth in a healthy way,” he warbled, apropos the government. He predicts the latter is moving toward a regime of staggered casino-construction projects, “orderly growth” that would require less imported labor, and create fewer peaks and valleys of employment. Since Venetian Oriental‘s completion keeps receding deeper into 2012, even if Sands were to get Sites 7 & 8 back, unlikely as that seems, they could have to lie fallow for years under the new go-slow mandate.
