{"id":5436,"date":"2010-12-24T16:20:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-25T00:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=5436"},"modified":"2020-08-22T04:50:26","modified_gmt":"2020-08-22T12:50:26","slug":"sheldons-chinese-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/sheldons-chinese-box\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheldon’s Chinese box"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Sheldon Adelson<\/strong> 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<\/strong> of apartment sales at 286-unit Four Seasons Cotai<\/strong>. This would add another $1\/share to Las Vegas Sand<\/strong>s’ share price, says casino analyst Joseph Greff<\/strong> of J.P. Morgan<\/strong>, who adds that it also signals that U.S. casino operators aren’t in bad odor with Peking<\/strong>, as feared.<\/p>\n

Greff’s colleague Carlo Santarelli<\/strong>, of Wells Fargo<\/strong>, 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<\/strong>, “given it too has land available for an apartment development on Cotai<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Another Christmas card for Adelson<\/strong> was the Wells Fargo estimate that, at current pace, December casino revenues in Macao<\/strong> 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<\/strong>‘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<\/strong> crept into the four spot with a stellar (for it) 12% market share, while Melco Crown and Galaxy Entertainment<\/strong> were in a dead heat for last place.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span>With Sands doubly chastened by the loss of Cotai Sites 7 & 8 <\/strong>and by a mortifying, large-scale prostitution sting, Sands China<\/strong> CEO Michael Leven<\/strong> is singing a humbler tune these days<\/a>. “They\u2019re trying to manage growth in a healthy way<\/em>,\u201d 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<\/strong>‘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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … 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":[28,96,94,62,93,11,110,12,61,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5436"}],"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=5436"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27811,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5436\/revisions\/27811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}