Takeaway: We agree that November won't be as bad as October but December may be

Fairly negative commentary overall but a ray of hope: "October was an anomaly"

CONF CALL

  • November trends:  more normal.  Still tough but October was 'an anomaly'
  • Gaming revenue affected by changes in Mainland China regulatory policies
  • 3Q dividend:  22 cents/share; dividend policy:  pay no less than 50% of profits
  • Cutback in luxury goods and gambling budgets
  • Other factors:  Visa restrictions, increased funding costs in junkets and increased scrutiny on UnionPay transactions (cannot be in casinos)
  • October:  continuation of trends in past summer 
  • Mass market affected in October:  partial smoking ban and HK protests
  • Grand Lisboa tables:  
    • Going to reconfigure Grand Lisboa to accommodate mass market by shifting 5 tables to mass market 
    • Expect more tables from govt (have applied for 45 tables - 35 tables allocated to Legend, 10 tables to Grand Lisboa) 
    • Adding new premium mass space in January (shift VIP to mass - 15 tables in Grand Lisboa) 
  • Grand Jai-Alai will open in 2015
  • SJM Cotai on schedule to open in 2017
  • 1 item items in 3Q:  higher staff costs (14th month bonus - $43m; $5-6m incremental costs for rest of year), change in marketable securities value ($20m)
  • 3Q EBITDA margins:  have normalized;  declining VIP volumes have had high adverse impact on margins
  • Occupancy Grand Lisboa:  40 rooms being refurbished (process will take 2 yrs)
  • Smoking ban: have impacted player time on tables; saw more impact on slot side than table side
  • VIP business at old Lisboa was very soft
  • Oceanus will be impacted by Grand Prix
  • Grand Lisboa visitation:  visa restrictions had impact on premium mass segment.  October visitation was down 8%.
  • Mass reclassification:  have not reclassified any tables in October; do not have any current plans to reclassify
  • Grand Lisboa:  have placed 7 smoking areas