{"id":2298,"date":"2010-02-16T19:32:11","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T03:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=2298"},"modified":"2010-02-16T19:32:11","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T03:32:11","slug":"sands-mgm-previewed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/sands-mgm-previewed\/","title":{"rendered":"Sands & MGM previewed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Weighing in ahead of Las Vegas Sands<\/strong> and MGM Mirage<\/strong> conference calls, J.P. Morgan<\/strong> analysts have some early projections. They remain bullish on Marina Bay Sands<\/strong>, although it may now open in late May. (Incredibly, Morgan says this one-month discrepancy is immaterial to cash-flow forecasts.) In Macao<\/strong>, ADRs remain soft — no surprise there — but convention business is expected to double from 2009. If so, heartiest congratulations are in order to Sheldon Adelson<\/strong>‘s management team.<\/p>\n

\"Sands<\/p>\n

It’s quantifiable: Sands Bethlehem is a dud<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Sands is predicted to beat revenue projections, thanks largely to Macao. The Chinese enclave represents 79% of 4Q09 cash flow. When you consider that Morgan is projecting Marina Bay Sands to surpass those numbers in seven months, in an untested market, S&G<\/em> skepticism may be forgivable. The one spider at the LVS picnic is Sands Bethlehem<\/strong>, which isn’t even coming close to cash-flow projections (less than $10 million for the quarter). If that Pennsylvania<\/strong> trend doesn’t improve, Adelson is looking at a measly 5% return on investment.<\/p>\n

\"MacaoOver at MGM Mirage<\/strong>, CEO Jim Murren<\/strong> can point to MGM Grand Macau<\/strong>‘s 12% ROI in the last quarter as vindication of his decision to bail on Atlantic City<\/strong> in favor of China<\/strong>. (In truth, the former was a lost cause the moment Pansy Ho<\/strong> refused to testify before the New Jersey Casino Control Commission<\/strong>, dumping the whole mess in Murren’s lap as she waltzed off into the sunset.)<\/p>\n

Morgan predicts a nearly $40 million shortfall from Wall Street’s cash-flow consensus for tout<\/em> MGM Mirage<\/strong> ($302 million). However, its analysts enumerate several positive auguries, including …<\/p>\n

\u2022 Improved Chinese New Year<\/strong> and Consumer Electronics Show<\/strong> attendance.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Room rates still declining — but more gently than before.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Strong high-end play, especially from overseas “whales.”<\/p>\n

\u2022 Re$ort fee$ (’nuff said).<\/p>\n

\u2022 90%+ occupancy last month at (unspecified) major MGM Strip hotels.<\/p>\n

\u2022 “Bellagio<\/strong>‘s results remain strong,” trending upward from last year’s. He may have been gone a decade, but one of the key players in MGM’s continued success is the living ghost of Steve Wynn<\/strong>. If he wants to take credit for that, he’ll get no argument from this corner of the peanut gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Weighing in ahead of Las Vegas Sands and MGM Mirage conference calls, J.P. Morgan analysts have some early projections. They remain bullish on Marina Bay Sands, although it may now open in late May. (Incredibly, Morgan says this one-month discrepancy … 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":[23,28,14,22,62,11,110,95,25,12,108,32,9,19,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2298"}],"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=2298"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2302,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2298\/revisions\/2302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}