Macau casino operator Sands China Ltd says it will have more rooms out of commission during the fourth quarter this year amid the ongoing development work at The Londoner Macao resort (pictured).
Phase 2 of the transformation of The Londoner Macao has been described by the company as a US$1.2-billion investment. It includes the renovation of the Sheraton and Conrad hotels, as well as the revamp of the Pacifica casino space, into the “Londoner Grand Casino”.
The Sheraton brand – which offered about 4,000 rooms – has been replaced with the accommodation branding “Londoner Grand”, part of The Luxury Collection Hotels & Resorts stable.
The rebranded Londoner Grand Casino and 300 Londoner Grand suites opened in late September, noted on Wednesday Las Vegas Sands Corp, the parent of Sands China, in a presentation deck accompanying its third-quarter earnings announcement.
Speaking on a conference call with investment analysts, Grant Chum, chief executive and president of Sands China, stated: “In the fourth quarter, we actually go down further in the total number of keys available during the quarter versus third quarter, because we will 카지노사이트 be losing the rest of the Sheraton rooms and we will be staying – in terms of licensed new suites – at this 300 number for pretty much the whole quarter.”
He added: “So, we’ll actually reduce further in terms of key count by about 600 to 700 rooms in the fourth quarter relative to the third quarter.”
Mr Chum said it might take “until January” for Sands China to “start to get a significant uplift in the critical mass of new suites”.
“We hope to be above 1,000 new suites by January or at least by Chinese New Year in [late] January. And then it just ramps up from there until May or [the] middle of the second quarter to the full inventory of 2,400 keys,” he added.
Once completed in second-quarter 2025, the Londoner Grand hotel will feature 1,500 suites and 905 rooms, the company says.
According to Sands China CEO, the lower room inventory has had a negative impact on the firm’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA).
But he added: “We’re very confident that Londoner Grand and the whole Londoner Macao will deliver as we roll out what is really a top product of unprecedented scale. This Londoner Macao will be a 4,400-room hotel, with over 60 percent of the keys being suites.”
Rob Goldstein, Las Vegas Sands’ chairman and chief executive, said on the call that he expects The Londoner Macao – as well as The Venetian Macao, also in Cotai – to be making respectively “US$1 billion” each in terms of EBITDA.
“My goal is US$1 billion plus for each of those buildings and the rest of the [Macau] portfolio will be another US$1 billion plus. That’s my goal for our company long term over the next few years,” stated Mr Goldstein.
“We need … to see the return of more base mass gaming” in Macau, he cautioned, adding: “Someday, we’ll get back to US$3 billion plus EBITDA.”
Speaking also on Wednesday, Patrick Dumont, Las Vegas Sands’ president and chief operating officer, said: “As we think about Sands China, we’re very hopeful that it will be a dividend payer in the upcoming year.”
He added: “We think that that’s a possibility and we’d like to believe that it’s going to occur. But again, that’s up to the board there.”
The parent company restarted payment of dividends in August last year.
Banking institution Citigroup said in a Thursday note that it was modelling a 2025 dividend of HKD0.75 (US$0.10) per share for Sands China, implying a “circa 4 percent yield”.
Morgan Stanley had suggested in a September memo that Sands China would in likelihood resume dividend payments in 2025.
The casino firm’s ratio of net debt to EBITDA “declined from 5.7 times at end-2022 to 2.8 times at end of first-half 2024, and shareholder equity turned positive in [the] end of first-half 2024,” observed the Morgan Stanley team.
The improvement in business conditions “should enable the company to resume HKD0.70 to HKD1.00 dividend-per-share in 2025, implying 4.4 percent to 6.3 percent dividend yield,” it added.
On Wednesday, Sands China announced a new credit facility agreement amounting to HKD32.45 billion (US$4.18 billion).
