In preparation for the LVS Q1 earnings release tomorrow, we’ve put together the pertinent forward looking commentary from LVS’s Q4 earnings release/call and subsequent conferences.


Post Earnings Commentary

MACAU               

  • “We’ve got a dominant position on the mass side and in the slots, and we’re experimenting with ETGs and it’s building up.”
  • “We’re bringing a couple of junket reps in that one of our competitors have, and we’re building special rooms for them in the Plaza. And that’s part of the Four Seasons casino. And it takes time to build the rooms, so I guess we’re partially done. It’ll take a maximum of six months to do it.”
  • “Now in the construction in 5 and 6, we’ll get about 4,500 workers on site, and we’re close – we’ve got plenty of foreign workers, but it’s tough to get the Macanese workers. But we’re ramping up slowly on that, and we’ll have enough workers to meet our schedule. So we’re going to open like a portion of Phase 1 in December, and we’ll open another – two portions in March and May. So we’re not experiencing a severe impact of the shortage of construction.”

 SINGAPORE

  • [Singaporean/non-Singaporean mix] I just looked at yesterday’s Singaporean versus non-Singaporeans, the foreigners, and we were about 30% of the days. We’d like to keep it down to 30%. The government would
    like us to keep it at 30%."
  • “There is some discussion going on with the government about allowing us to put in some more ETGs.”
  • “We’re short of VIP rooms, on the weekends. We're short of tables and slots.”

LAS VEGAS

  • FIT is recovering, not as fast as we’d like to see it recover. And we used to have an ADR of $250 weekend, mid-week. Just this past weekend, we had about $260 ADR with 100% – 98% to 100% occupancy.”
  • “We’ll probably, in 2012, have a record MICE year in terms of room occupancy and the percentage of total room nights that we occupy with groups.”
  • “I understand the Cosmopolitan is maintaining high rates. But I’m told, although I have no idea, that they have less than half their rooms open.”
  • “We have some extra land. We had bought steel to tear down the Sands Expo Center and move it a half a block away and connect it with a pedestrian bridge and build 5,000 more units where the Sands Expo is. We’ve scrapped that. And I think in the foreseeable future, I don’t think we’ll ever develop.”

NEW DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN EUROPE

  • “Now we’re not going to go into any project that we can’t make a 20% ROI.”
  • “We probably won’t have to put any money beside minor development money over the next couple years. But it’ll start in a couple of years, and then we’ll do it in four pieces at a time for a total of 12 pieces and see what happens after that.”
  • “I’m very leery about overbuilding in the United States. So we are more inclined to do things internationally.”

 

Q4 Conference Call:

USA

  • [LV] We continue to see an increase in MICE bookings through 2011 and into 2012.”
    • "We experienced over 90,000 room nights for the month of January which was significantly ahead of last year, and we’re still booking."
  • “Closer to home, we are following the process in Florida, Texas, and Massachusetts, and if the economics there provide a successful development opportunity, we will surely consider it.”
  • [LV] “For 2012, we’re forecasting about 781,000 room nights, which is more than what we have today for leverage. And a forecasted ADR is close to $200 for next year, versus this year’s forecasted ADR of $180.”

SINGAPORE

  • During the first quarter of 2011, most of the major remaining elements of Marina Bay Sands will be launched, including the ArtScience Museum and light and water show On the Bay, as well as the opening of The Lion King. These events will all drive additional visitation and produce increased earnings at the property.”
  • “I mean there’s a few days now right before Chinese New Year that it dropped down a little bit, but now it’s picking right up. Our occupancy numbers are getting close to the 90% target. Our MICE business in the first couple of months of this year is good. We still need to do some work there. We are really getting close to the occupancy potential now and the rate structure is very good. We’ve got a good rate going. Our restaurant business is up considerably from where it’s been and I think we’re probably 80% to 85% for the potential on the property for this moment in its lifestyle; so there’s somewhat to go but we’re really pretty well ramped up this point. Some more retailers are a little bit slower than we’d like. We’re open about 260 stores now, we got about 40 stores to go.”
  • “It’s about in the mid-80s EBITDA on the mall coming in on the mall revenue today…. But we’re still in the early stages, but the long-term future of the mall in our business plan is to eventually dispose of the mall. And if you put a cap rate on that of 4% or 5% and you can see that we can do $170 to $200 million of EBITDA out of there by 2013 or so, that’s a lot of money in the bank for us going forward, so that’s what we’re watching.”
  • “We’ll add 300 [slot] games by the end of Q1…. it’s ‘11 or it’s late in ‘11, you’re going to see $1.5 billion of cumulative revenue at a 65, 66, 67 point margin.”

MACAU

  • We should get some more improvement in the EBITDA margin.”
  • “We’re still waiting for the final situation with the government on the apartments. I feel very confident we’ll get something in this quarter.”
  • “We think it’s a huge upside for us on the junket side, and not the premium side.”
    • “In any event, where our relationship with the junket reps is improving, we’ve just brought on a top guy from one of our top competitors whose relationships with the junket reps is what we brought him on for. He’s a specialist in that, and we expect that to improve.”