Key questions from the first quarter earnings call conducted by Las Vegas Sands Corp. on April 30, 2008.
Felicia Hendrix (Lehman Brothers): You mentioned that you were going to explore or starting to grants credit. What percentage of your overall business you might carve out to grant credit to?
Brad Stone: It is not a matter of a percentage; it is a matter of decision to make sense. We would be challenging our people over here; we have a strong base of Asian business that we have granted to in our Las Vegas operation. We have established certain credit lines, we are going to review those lines and it is a balance we were on a call the other day. We were talking about our provision for bad debts, is basically non-existent here in Macao. It is almost like a bank that does not have a few bad loans they are out lending enough money. We are going to be cautious about it. We have expanded credit to our junket reps and as we have talked in the past we have done somewhat collateralized by the commissions we owe them. We are going to look at that as well and probably extend more credits to the junket reps themselves those who have performed well. We do not have a target, the target is to issue as much quality credit as we can to attract particularly the premium customer directly to our property and continue to support the junket reps in their endeavors as well.
Felicia Hendrix (Lehman Brothers): You have implied in the past that the Four Seasons could be an all VIP property. Would you address that?
Brad Stone: We are going to have two different types of experience for the VIP customer in the Macao shortly; one is the big property Venetian experience which includes showing Dion shows, lots of restaurant, shopping and entertainment options, a lot of variety of room product. We are also finding a desire on the VIP market for a smaller and more boutique hotel experience and The Venetian, The Palazzo and Four Seasons allows that opportunity for us. There is and the plans for the property are that we will have a ground floor for premium player area, which is designated for customers directly marketed by Las Vegas Sands and Venetian Macao limited here. We will end up more than likely with two floors of junket rooms above those, because we are seeing a desire by our junket reps to have a presence at the Four Seasons itself. Then later on, at the end of this year we are opening 19 luxurious apartments with their own casino. Each suite has their own casino gaming room, as well as restaurant reminiscent of what you would see in London, in terms of the type of experience and similar way to what The Mansion provided in Las Vegas for its customers. There is going to be an emphasis on product and we are hearing from the market itself that there is a strong desire for a Four Season's type of product to round out our initial offerings here in at the Cotai Strip. We are looking at a July opening right now. The key there is the shops are progressing well at the Four Seasons. The property is a gorgeous property. We want to make sure that this property is opened properly and as a Four Seasons would be and so we are focusing on an early third quarter opening.
Felicia Hendrix (Lehman Brothers): You mentioned that the overall property now with the increase of 70% in terms of room base, conference bookings at the time your talking about were only up about 25% to 27%. How that in the quarter was and how your conference and convention business is looking?
Brad Stone: What we have done at The Venetian and The Palazzo is the group bookings are a combination of both properties do not say group bookings at The Palazzo versus The Venetian, it is a total. We have done recently because of the better known name of The Venetian as we launched The Palazzo product. As we have moved significant number of group room nights that we originally booked in The Venetian product over to The Palazzo and back filled The Venetian with FIT business because we get a higher call volume per room on The Venetian, because it is a well established product and that is a short-term strategy. We are aggressively out there in a more than competitive environment right now economically, aggressively booking the group business and we may have some statistics there I do not happen to have them here in Macao.
Rob Goldstein: April both slots of The Venetian are above 95% and an ADR excess 245. Bookings are trending upward slots are filling up. As the property ramps up, we get stronger. The economic conditions in Las Vegas have been difficult in first quarter, but they are improving and as always the first segment to improve and to grow is the group segment, which is our strength and we will keep playing with that strength.
Sheldon Adelson: On VP, we are up 110,000 rooms in forward bookings for the seven month balance of the year.
Larry Klatzkin (Jefferies): You had some bad rock at Sands Macao. Could you quantify what that cost you?
Scott Henry: At the Sands Macao, it is more complicated to calculate that now because of the two different programs we operate at the VIP level. If you go back and look at the way we do, we do it where we hold win constant, then we also do it where we hold the ruling volume pass it and the mid-point of that range is around $7 million or $8 million of the Sands.
Larry Klatzkin (Jefferies): Could you give a breakout of net revenues and EBITDA for the Palazzo?
Bob Rozek: It was under $20 million for the quarter.
Scott Henry: We opened on January 17, with 44,000 that is off the books and it was a work in progress.
Larry Klatzkin (Jefferies): As far as timing of the future projects and the budgets for everything can do usually go through that or is that possible?
Brad Stone: We have mentioned the Four Seasons property opening early in the third quarter. The budget on that is intact, as we discussed on the investors day. Sites five and six, continue to move towards their spring of the first phase of spring of 2009 opening for the Shangri La traders and first Sheridan Tower and again with the second Sheridan Tower and the St. Regis, and St. Regis, apartment is opening towards the end of the year. That project is in the same budgetary state. It is seems to be tracking on well. We are ready to start work on site 7and 8. We have the rigs there. We have just been frustrated because of the some challenges within the government, based upon the scandal that happened here in an area that related to the Public Works Department. There has definitely been a slowing in the pace throughout Macao of approvals. We are anxiously waiting to get through that. That is a project whose budget is still work in progress, as we go through, and take the conceptual design and work on pricing it. We do not have any reports specifically on that project. On site three, it is similar site somewhat behind seven and eight. We have filings in for all this projects with the government and we are just waiting for the government to write itself in such a way that we can get a more normal development cycle. In Singapore, that project is progressing well. I was there about a week an half ago, and spend some time on the site. If you look at pictures of it, yet one has to realize that there was several floors underground. We are coming out of the ground with the towers now. We have an aggressive goal of the end of next year in the fourth quarter of 2009. We are working basically 24x7 on that project, where we are allowed with the government. We are still in the range that we have been talking about $4.5 billion, $4.6 billion, including land and all end costs on that project. Bethlehem is progressing nicely. Steel is being erected aggressively, now. Our goal is to get that open by the third quarter of next year. That project is consistent budgetary with what we expressed in the investor conference Day, back in February. Those are the main projects that we have discussed. Though the Condo tower is also moving along nicely and that is currently on the same budget we discussed at the investor day.
Larry Klatzkin (Jefferies): When do you start to see Condos, Four Seasons unit sales?
Sheldon Adelson: It is a complicated process, and we have met some resistance shall we say, in Macao, in terms of the sale of the units. I do not want to get into too many details at this point. We have plans to move forward. I think the primary issue we are having there in Macao is, having those that have invested interest in real estate to understand, we are not selling residences here. We are selling, what we call vacation suites. We do not want to just sell real estate and pick up dollars, although that is a nice thing to do. We want to sell reasons for people to visit. We want our cake and eat it too. We want people to pay us a lot of money for these residences that they use when they come to visit. We do not want a residential tower. We want units that wealthy people buy, so they have their own place on the Coati Strip, similar to the market that we are focusing on here in Las Vegas. We want that tower not to be quote unquote residences per say. We want them to be residences for wealthy people that want their own place on the Strip. So they pay us, and they make an investment, and they expect to make money on that investment, when and if they decide to sell it. But in the mean time they come and visit three times a year, eight times a year, seven times a year or whatever number of times a year to have their own residents on the strip. It is exactly the same intentions in Macao, it is that the local market who sell real estate do not get. We are working our way through and we are comfortable we will find a resolution.
Larry Klatzkin (Jefferies): How is the mall going in Macao? |