The Macau Metro Monitor, June 9, 2011
DANCING WATER TURNING A PROFIT Macau Daily Times
Sunny Yu, MPEL's VP for entertainment and projects, said The House of Dancing Water (HODW) so far has received over 500,000 spectators and that the attendance rate is still above 90%. Yu confimed HODW's revenue is covering all operating expenses. "If it continues doing great, within 10 years we will get our investment back," said Yu.
LAS VEGAS SANDS AIMS TO SELL SHOPPING MALL AT SINGAPORE CASINO Business Times, Reuters
LVS COO Michael Leven said, "We did over a billion dollars in our first year in EBITDA (for MBS). We expect that to grow. I think a four-to-five year payback in that situation, anybody would be happy with that return on investment. We should do that very easily without even selling an asset like our mall (The Shoppes at MBS), which we expect to sell maybe in 2013 or 2014, which can provide as much as US$4 billion back for our $6 billion investment just on the mall alone."
The Shoppes now has more than 250 stores and restaurants. The Shoppes has been facing complaints of slow traffic from some retailers.
NO GOLDMINE Macau Daily Times
Samuel Tsang, the Century Legend Group chairman, said most investors don’t understand the risks of running a junket. He stressed the percentage of the bets paid back to VIP gamblers is increasing to an average of 1%. Meanwhile, the former executive vice president of Sands China, Luís Mesquita de Melo, wants more transparency and supervision of junkets. "The regulations somehow dilute the responsibility between junkets and operators, which allows for a lot of sub-junkets that don’t go through the licensing process...politicians need to discuss and decide if it makes sense to allow junkets to remain a subculture or if they should bring them into the gaming business," he remarked.