Las Vegas Sands Corp Booming Asia Business: Shares Rise 2.3 Percent
Shares in Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS.N) posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit last week thanks to its new Singapore resort and gambling in Macau.
Sands, whose shares rose 2.3 percent in morning trading, earned 17 cents a share in the second quarter after adjusting for one-time items. Analysts on average expected 9 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Net revenue rose nearly 51 percent to $1.59 billion.
"They had a monster quarter," said Sanford Bernstein analyst Janet Brashear.
Gambling revenue in Macau, the world's largest gambling center and the only place in China where gambling is legal, has soared this year, most recently rising 65 percent year-over-year in June.
Sands said second-quarter net revenue at its three Macau properties rose 41 percent from a year earlier to $1.03 billion.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Adelson said during a conference call that he still expects the Singapore resort to bring in $1 billion in EBITDA next year, due in part to a broader-than-expected customer base.
"There are so many people that are coming from different countries in Asia ... We have a group of Koreans flying in every week," he said. "I think that the outer reaches of our marketing radius is wider than what we thought before." Chief Financial Officer Kenneth Kay said highly-leveraged Sands plans to launch later this week an "amend and extend" transaction for its $5 billion U.S. credit facility.
"The transaction contemplates a paydown of our term loans and a reduction of a revolving credit facility commitment in exchange for the extension of maturities and other modifications to the credit agreement intended to increase the company's financial flexibility," he said.
After payment of preferred stock dividends, Sands had a second-quarter net loss of $4.7 million, or 1 cent a share, compared with a net loss of $222.2 million, or 34 cents a share, a year earlier.
In addition to Singapore's Marina Bay Sands, Sands owns the Palazzo and Venetian resorts on the Las Vegas Strip, three casinos in Macau and a casino in Pennsylvania.
Sands shares were up 43 cents, or 1.7 percent, at $25.73 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Deena Beasley; additional reporting by Karen Jacobs; editing by Dave Zimmerman and John Wallace)
