Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Shaun Kelley : Great. Thanks for that, Rob. And then maybe a little bit more specific one for Grant, if I may. But just wanting to dig in a little bit more on the labor and staffing side of what you’re seeing in Macao right now. You talked about the margin structure high level. But are you fully expecting to return to levels of staff that you had pre-COVID? Are you already there? Will it be even above those levels? Kind of what’s needed and what have you optimized? I know those people have — many of them have found employment elsewhere, the market has grown since where we started. So kind of how do you think about maybe either FTEs or overall operating expense run rates relative to 2019?

Grant Chum : I think, Shaun, we’ve also become more productive and efficient through the past couple of years. So I think we’ll have to rethink — it wouldn’t necessarily be referencing exactly back to 2019. And also a mix of product has also changed quite a bit through the Londoner. We do have more high-quality non-gaming asset base to operate as well. So to give you a bit more color, today, we are short of manpower relative to full operating capacity and relative to the demand that we’re seeing. So we’re not operating one of the Sheraton Towers as we speak. So we are minus 2,200 rooms from our operating capacity. And our newest hotel Londoner Court, which we soft opened in the past year, we’re not at the full operating capacity for that high end all-suite hotel.

We’re still only about two thirds of the way through in terms of ability of manpower to operate the whole hotel. So both at the top end and at the mass end, we are still short of manpower to operate at full capacity. And we’ll be progressively hiring to fill the gaps as we go through the recovery. And hopefully, within the next few months, we’re going to be in a better place relative to our full operating potential because we clearly see the demand pattern, I think is going to urge the whole industry to staff up and to be able to operate, especially for these peak periods. And that’s another part. We have no crystal ball as Rob says served on the post CNY. But clearly, the early indications of metrics like the demand for the hotels is telling you that, yes, the demand is staging a strong recovery.

And obviously, we’re going to have to . Thanks.

Shaun Kelley : Thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Chad Beynon from Macquarie. Chad, your line is live.

Chad Beynon : Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. In the slide deck, you highlighted principal areas of development being Macao, which we just talked about, Singapore, which we talked about, and New York, which I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on. But second part of that question is, I know in the past, you talked about other potential opportunities in Asia like a Korea or a Thailand, years ago we talked about Japan. Wondering if those are going quiet at this time. So I guess, firstly, on New York, and then secondly, potential Asian opportunities? Thanks.

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