{"id":10924,"date":"2013-06-03T11:47:20","date_gmt":"2013-06-03T19:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=10924"},"modified":"2013-06-04T13:47:10","modified_gmt":"2013-06-04T21:47:10","slug":"wall-street-visits-vegas-wynn-sands-mgm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wall-street-visits-vegas-wynn-sands-mgm\/","title":{"rendered":"Wall Street visits Vegas: Wynn, Sands & MGM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like the pig in a ham-and-egg breakfast, Deutsche Bank<\/strong> is committed to Las Vegas<\/strong>, while many of its brethren (like the chicken) merely hold an interest. However, DB’s $4 billion grubstake fortunately does not preclude analyst Carlo Santarelli<\/strong> from dropping in periodically and meeting with some of the other powers on the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong>, as he did last week. Here are some of the observations he gleaned while in town.<\/p>\n

Wynn Resorts<\/strong>: Let’s face it — this was the meeting you would most have wanted to attend. Steve Wynn<\/strong>‘s people told Santarelli that their Cotai \"\"Strip<\/strong> project\u00a0 remains on schedule to open in early 2016 (a covert dig at Sheldon Adelson<\/strong>‘s perpetual tardiness?) and Santarelli describes the project as “meaningfully under-appreciated.” Interestingly, Wynn is the only operator in Macao<\/strong> not to offer rebates on losses to high rollers. Wynn Macau<\/strong> is adding two more VIP rooms and Santarelli implies that tables will be shifted there, away from mass-market play. (Remember, there’s a government-imposed cap on the number of table games you can have.)<\/p>\n

Ongoing dividend issues are foreseen, music toshareholders’ ears. In Vegas, premium players are willing to pay higher room rates and spend more on amenities, so Wynn has been pushing prices in those segments. Second- and third-tier customers, however, are resistant to higher rates. Prospects of development in Japan<\/strong> are seen as far off and, should either a Boston<\/strong>-area and\/or the Philadelphia<\/strong> casino license be won, most of the spending won’t happen in the latter months of 2015, leaving Wynn awash in capital in the meantime.<\/p>\n

\"\"Las Vegas Sands<\/strong>. Adelson’s peeps left Santarelli feeling “incrementally more bullish” on this stock, although Sands Cotai<\/strong> (left<\/em>) is having “a challenge” filling rooms at its new Sheraton Tower<\/strong>. Look for a third, $100 million, mass-market casino to be added to Sands Cotai in the fall of 2014, with 80 tables. A battalion of\u00a0 marketing executives has also been fanning out through Southeast Asia<\/strong>, beating the brush “in an effort to re-stimulate some dormant portions of the database.”<\/p>\n

Adelson also wants to add a VIP casino atop Marina Bay Sands<\/strong> and is already thinking of redoing its shopping mall by 2015. However, Santarelli \"\"is skeptical that Sands’ demands for additional hotel space will be granted. As for EuroVegas<\/strong>, the analyst puts no value in last week’s dog-and-pony show in Madrid<\/strong>, describing the low-yield, 12-hotel metaresort as “potentially on its last legs.” Concessions that Sands is trying to wrest from Spain<\/strong> fly in the face of European Union<\/strong> law and Iberian regulations, although Adelson is expected to persevere until all hope is exhausted, and one would expect no less from him.<\/p>\n

MGM Resorts International<\/strong>: “Relatively bland.” That’s Santarelli’s description of this year’s convention calendar. Next year’s, though, is “shaping up nicely” — a Strip-wide sentiment. Renovation of the Las Vegas Convention Center<\/strong> is driving business to MGM in a big way. Also, CONEXPO-CON\/AGG<\/strong> returns, with 140,000 attendees in tow. While hotel spending is recovering faster than gambling splurges are, the Strip remains so waterlogged with room (over)capacity<\/a> that it’s acting as a drag anchor on what ought to be a stronger recovery.<\/p>\n

\"\"Already the Hakkasan<\/strong> mega-nightclub is yielding more walk-in traffic, more drive-in traffic, more room nights and — best of all — more table game play to MGM Grand<\/strong>. Farther afield, the company doesn’t expect decisions on its Massachusetts<\/strong> and Maryland<\/strong> submissions until early 2014. In Macao, MGM Grand Paradise<\/strong> (right<\/em>) is now doing so well that the company expects to pay for much of MGM Cotai<\/strong> right out of existing cash flow an<\/em>d generate dividends, too. That’s a nice little cash register they’ve got over there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like the pig in a ham-and-egg breakfast, Deutsche Bank is committed to Las Vegas, while many of its brethren (like the chicken) merely hold an interest. However, DB’s $4 billion grubstake fortunately does not preclude analyst Carlo Santarelli from dropping … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[66,28,14,4,22,62,53,72,112,95,25,12,32,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10924"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10924"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10937,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10924\/revisions\/10937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}