Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

We still believe that. We think we’ll delever over time through EBITDA expansion. But more importantly, I think for us, that’s a key metric so that we maintain our investment grade rating for all the benefits we just described. So that’s kind of how we’re thinking about it.

Shaun Kelley: Thanks for that.

Daniel Briggs: Thanks, Shaun.

Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Brandt Montour from Barclays. Brandt, your line is live.

Brandt Montour: Great. Good evening, everybody. Thanks. So for Marina Bay Sands first, in your slide, you show flight capacity hovering around 80% recovered. Based on the momentum that you guys are seeing in that asset, do you still feel like you need that last 20% of China inbound to fully recover to hit that $2 billion run rate target. And can that happen actually while Tower 3 is under Reno?

Robert Goldstein: What’s happening, isn’t it? I mean, this quarter, we just did 490. I hate to say, if that’s happening. Good question. We always need China, let’s be clear about that. We always want more business in all countries. But I think what you’re seeing in Singapore is a very diverse bunch of assets are coming together. I think the biggest story is the suite product, which we haven’t — you haven’t seen it’s pretty extraordinary. When it goes from 200 to 700 — 770, it’s just a very potent combination of great food and beverage grade service. It enables us to get a place we’ve never thought of before. The real question is, I think $2 billion is our goal in the future and beyond. The real question is, when you get more China, when do you get more flights where you open up totally — the thing that we talk about [Technical Difficulty] it’s been open about six quarters of now.

If you follow the trajectory of Singapore, we’re hoping to see anything after Macao. We’re very early stages in Macao. Singapore opened up, it wasn’t that powerful in the first couple of quarters. And it been along, all of a sudden, it caught fire and now it’s certainly performed, we’re surprised how strong it is and because the place is kind of turn up. If you’ve been there, it’s got some real challenges from a physical perspective. So to answer your question, we think we can get to without more a lot more. We’ll take all the customers we can get. We think this is user for an asset. It’s one of the places you just want to go to. You’ll pay up for whether a room product or the gaming opportunity in retail it just is going to keep getting stronger.

Do we think it’s achievable? Yes, but we prefer to have all airlift coming in and all the potential customers in trying to have business [indiscernible]. We just have a huge faith in this product. We don’t think two at the end, at the beginning, we’re in to. So I do think it’s important that we look at it the cabin benefit of understanding. We’ve gone from a dead stop in January back to the very difficult times of no one coming to mere in nine months later about 80% of Q3 ’19. But how much for they’re going to go? I think a lot more. If you look at Singapore, this trajectory, I think it’s very telling what’s going to happen in Macao. So I think, again, another illustration of what’s happening in was on Page 25. I think the retail side is just you have to look at it.

I mean all you guys have spent time in about $3,000 a foot is a pretty good local mall. The four season Macao is 8,400 foot in the luxury segment and 3,700 of the non-luxury in Venetian (ph) Macau, which is not a necessary luxury malls to $70 a foot. So the power of the spending right now in the retail opportunity always seem to happen first. The gaming seems to follow us happen in Singapore to happen in Macao. But to your question, we have huge confidence in the future of MBS. And I think our investments will prove in the end we make works in many places is supremely strong buildings with great service and great architecture, and that’s what you have Rosadi (ph) and MBS.

Brandt Montour: Great. That’s super helpful. And then over on Macao, on Slide 14, it shows the win per visitor coming down quarter-over-quarter, it’s the second quarter that’s declined. Is that sort of wholly explainable by the reallocation of tables to base mass, which we talked about earlier in the call or is there any other constraints that you’d want to highlight why that sort of win per visitor is hovering around some of the quarters that we saw in 2019.

Patrick Dumont: Just a quick thought on Page 14. This is really driven by visitation by the number of visitors that we’re showing up to the market as it averages down. But I would like Grant to comment if he had any thoughts, just for some additional color.

Grant Chum: Yeah. Thanks, Patrick. No, I think what you’re seeing is the evolution of premium mass coming back first. So for the first couple of quarters after the Board has reopened, you saw the revenue per Macao visit arrival, which is what this page shows, upon skyrocketed versus the historical levels. And you’re now obviously getting more of the base mass, especially during the summer, so you are normalizing. But it’s important to note that you are still getting a much higher quality mix of customers even with that when you compare to the same quarter in 2019. So I think from this slide, you can see is 610 per visits arrival in this quarter versus 557 in the same quarter in 2019. So the narrative continues that you are getting that higher quality across every segment, a higher spend per capita. But between the premium and base mass, you’re now seeing the base mass starting to accelerate, especially during those July and August summer months.

Brandt Montour: Got it. So just sorry to clarify, so it’s mix to the base mass, but also more well-heeled customers that might be gambling slightly less, like families and such? Is that kind of a way to look at it?

Grant Chum: No, this is actually showing you that the mass revenue per visit arrival is actually higher than the same quarter in 2019. So actually, you suggest that the higher spend per capita is actually prevalent in all segments of the market right now. And that also shows through in the gaming. I’m sorry, in the retail mall that Rob referenced as well.

Brandt Montour: Perfect. Thanks for all the color.

Patrick Dumont: Thanks, Brandt.

Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from George Choi from Citi. George, your line is live.

George Choi: Thank you very much. While we do believe concerts can help to get incremental revenues in Macao. How should we think about the associated incremental expenses? And I guess more specifically, do you expect the [indiscernible] concerts at the Venetian this month to be both EBITDA accretive and margin enhancing at the same time?

Patrick Dumont: So one thing just to begin, and thank you for the question. Entertainment is a very important part of our business. We’re very focused on using entertainment to drive premium as visitation and create the programs that our customers feel like they’ll get experiences with us, they can’t get in other places. It’s a very successful thing in Asia. And in fact, we just recently opened a brand-new venue in The Londoner that allows us to do that in more scale. But so I think for us, these programs are very accretive. Directionally, we think more entertainment as high quality is good, not only for the market, but also for diversification in Macao and in Singapore. I think it brings a prominence and an entertainment glow to the regions. But I would like to turn it over to Grant to see if you guys any additional comments about an entertainment and cost associated with it.