No slowdown post Golden Week.  SJM steals the show yet again.

We expected November to be strong, but 63% y-o-y growth was better than almost anyone's projection.  Not only did business not decelerate post-Golden Week but it actually accelerated.  Adjusted for higher sequential hold in the month, y-o-y growth would still have been close to 50%.  Easy comps, the strong stock market recovery, lax visa restriction enforcement, the new CE, and new supply were probably all contributing factors to the furious recovery in Macau.  For all the reasons noted, and the coming visit of the Chinese Premier, the pace of growth could continue to exceed expectations through the first quarter of 2010.

While the rising tide lifted most all ships (well almost all - sorry, Altira), SJM continued to outpace its competitors.  LVS lost share due to weaker relative performance at Venetian but Four Seasons showed huge growth once again.  If Four Seasons stabilizes at these levels the property may be able to earn close to $50MM of EBITDA, way ahead of consensus projections.

Y-o-Y Table Revenue Observations:

LVS table revenues up 38% with almost all the growth coming from a 62% increase in VIP revenues

  • Sands was up 63%, driven by a 120% increase in VIP and 4% growth in Mass
    • VIP growth was largely driven by easy hold comparisons.  Sands suffered weak hold in November 2008 of around 1.6%, assuming 10% direct play.  If we assume 12% of total VIP play was direct in Nov '09, this implies hold 3.3% this year. 
    • Junket VIP RC increased 11%
  • Venetian was up 14% with VIP increasing almost 18% and Mass increasing 8%
    • Junket VIP RC increased 3.7% and hold appears to be roughly 50 bps better y-o-y
  • Four Seasons was up 248% y-o-y driven entirely by VIP growth 
    • Junket VIP RC increased almost six-fold to $881MM vs $133MM.  In 3Q09 FS also derived 50% of its RC from direct play versus having almost no direct play in 4Q08.  Therefore, if the direct play is material, volumes could be up even more y-o-y than the junket numbers imply
    • However, FS's very strong growth in VIP will be somewhat masked by low hold that we estimate to be in the 2.0%-2.2% range, assuming direct play was between $250-350MM

Wynn table revenues were up 34%

  • Mass was up 19% and VIP increased 38%
  • Junket RC increased a massive 66% which was somewhat offset by weaker hold
  • Assuming 9% of total VIP play was direct in Nov '08 and 12% was direct in Nov '09, we estimate hold declined 50 bps to 2.5% in Nov '09 

Crown table revenues grew 92%

  • Altira was down 21% (the only property in Macau with lower November revenues)
    • VIP roll was down 25% and hold was in the normal 2.85%-2.9% range
  • CoD table revenue was up 16% sequentially, benefiting from better hold than October m-o-m
    • Mass continued to ramp growing 18% m-o-m to $26MM
    • Junket VIP RC fell 13% sequentially.  It appears that CoD's junket play is stabilizing in the $2.4-3BN monthly range
    • Despite what the company said on its 3Q09 conference call, we saw that there was 10.3% direct VIP play as a % of total VIP roll.  If we assume that the direct play as a % of total VIP play is closer to 12% these last 2 months, it appears that hold was around 3% in November and 2.3% in October

SJM continued its hot streak, with table revenues up 114%

  • Mass was up 38% and VIP was up 191% 

Galaxy table revenue was up 44%, driven by a 45% increase in VIP win and a 39% increase in Mass

  • Starworld continued to perform well with table revenue up 53%, driven by 54% growth in VIP revenues and 38% growth in Mass win

MGM table revenue was up 38%

  • Mass revenue growth was very strong at 53%, while VIP grew 35%
  • Junket rolling chip was up 36% 

Market Share:

LVS share decreased to 20.8% from 23.7% in October, but higher than September's 19.6%

  • Sands' share decreased by 1% to 7.5% sequentially
  • Venetian & FS share decreased to 13.3% from 15.3% in October

WYNN's share at 12.1% increased slightly from a low of 11.9% in October

Crown's market share increased to 12.9% from 11.9% in October

  • Altira was one of the only properties to experience revenue declines y-o-y in the month of November

SJM's share increased to 33.1% from 31.6% in October

Galaxy's share decreased slightly to 12.3% from 12.8% last month

  • Starworld's market share grew to 9.9% from 9.4% in the previous month

MGM's share increase to 8.9%, from 8.0% in October, was mostly hold driven

THE MACAU NOVEMBER DETAIL - Macau Total Bac Rev Share Nov

THE MACAU NOVEMBER DETAIL - Macau MM Rev Share Nov

THE MACAU NOVEMBER DETAIL - Macau RC Turnover Share Nov