{"id":2900,"date":"2010-04-13T14:10:19","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T22:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=2900"},"modified":"2010-04-13T14:17:43","modified_gmt":"2010-04-13T22:17:43","slug":"betting-on-adelson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/betting-on-adelson\/","title":{"rendered":"Betting on Adelson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Adelson\"Analysts at J.P. Morgan<\/strong> are downright bullish on Las Vegas Sands<\/strong>, raising their stock price target by over 25% (to $29\/share). Their ebullience is motivated in large part by expectations for Marina Bay Sands<\/strong>, which they estimate will garner 55% of the Singapore<\/strong> casino market, along with cash flow of $904 million (up from $751 million) and $1.9 billion in revenue by 2012. They also predict the $6 billion megaresort will generate “solid out of the box returns and quickly de-lever.”<\/p>\n

In the Macao<\/strong> market, “the opportunity to monetize condos at the Four Seasons<\/strong> … is real” and undervalued by the Street, JPM analysts contend. As for Sands’ erstwhile flagship properties on the Strip, investor expectations are so low that Venelazzo<\/strong> is basically a non-factor in any calculation.<\/p>\n

Turning to MGM Mirage<\/strong>, JPM espies upward trends both in occupancy rates and — not surprisingly — room rates on the Strip through 2012, despite weak convention business and lower spend-per-customer at Bellagio<\/strong>. (Even so, room rates strongly suggest that visitors would rather stay at Steve Wynn<\/strong>‘s masterpiece and skimp elsewhere than gravitate to Aria<\/strong>.) Starting around July “higher-quality, higher-rate, higher-margin” customers are expected to start elbowing out bargain-conscious ones. MGM gets a comparable upgrade to Sands, to $17 from $14.<\/p>\n

Did someone say<\/strong> “Steve Wynn”? His Wynn Resorts<\/strong> remains the cream of casino stocks, its target price raised from $72\/share to $88 by JPM, despite weaker-than-expected hold at Wynn Macau<\/strong>. The opening of Encore Macau<\/strong> is seen as a positive catalyst, with projected cash flow of $681 million for the two Chinese properties dwarfing Wynncore<\/strong>‘s $290 million.<\/p>\n

Last and comparatively least<\/strong> is Midwest-centric Ameristar Casinos<\/strong>, downgraded to “neutral” following a more-than-average (i.e., 20%) decline in its stock price. However, JPM discounts the recent pummeling Ameristar took in Indiana<\/strong> and likes the company’s reduction in property-related expenditures.<\/p>\n

River City wins<\/strong>, everybody else loses. The introduction of a new Missouri<\/strong> megaresort, in the form of Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong>‘s River City<\/strong> pushed Show-Me State gambling revenues up 5.3%. So massive was the cannibalization, though, that the rest of the state’s casinos were, on average -5.3% for March. While generating slightly less revenue than expected, River City accounted for 10% of Missouri revenues. Both Ameristar St. Charles<\/strong> and Lumiere Place<\/strong> felt the pinch, each off 8%. Ameristar also hit a 6% dip in Kansas City<\/strong>, closing out a fairly rough month for the operator.<\/p>\n

\"ChisholmKansas still f-ed up<\/strong>. Nervous casino managers in Kansas City could take solace in the fact that the neighboring Sunflower State can barely open a casino to save its life. The latest operators to flee the state are Lyle Berman<\/strong> of Lakes Entertainment<\/strong> and his partners at Foxwoods<\/strong>. (Their not-coming-to-a-market-near-you project is seen at left.) Berman’s financing looked quite iffy from the get-so, so color this a complete non-surprise. It does, however, leave the state’s Lottery Board<\/strong> with a pair of casino licenses — the other slated for Cherokee County<\/strong> — that it can’t give away. While I never thought I’d live to see the day of “What if they offered a casino license and no one came?”, the industry is so overextended that such an unimaginable situation has arrived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Analysts at J.P. Morgan are downright bullish on Las Vegas Sands, raising their stock price target by over 25% (to $29\/share). Their ebullience is motivated in large part by expectations for Marina Bay Sands, which they estimate will garner 55% … 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":[40,56,14,68,45,136,62,11,39,30,12,108,32,9,19,20,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2900"}],"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=2900"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2904,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2900\/revisions\/2904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}