Las Vegas Sands Sees Profit Taking on Disappointing Earnings and Revenues

Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS) has gone from out of favor with the Macau casino exposure to being back in favor. A 50% rally from its low of $34.88 ought to at least mean something. Now the Sheldon Adelson casino and resort stock has reported its first quarter earnings. The initial trading response was a sell-the-news response, but that is after a significant bounce of late.

Consolidated net revenue was down 9.8% to $2.72 billion in the quarter, and its so-called hold-normalized adjusted earnings per share (EPS) was $0.57, with an adjusted EPS of $0.45 and GAAP EPS after items of $0.40. Thomson First Call was projecting $0.62 in a hold-normalized basis and $2.88 billion in revenues.

Las Vegas Sands  said that it had a hold-normalized adjusted property EBITDA of $1.03 billion and a consolidated adjusted property EBITDA of $917.6 million. The adjusted property EBITDA was $510.4 Million for Macau, a tad better than expected – implying weaker trends when considering Las Vegas and Singapore. The Marina Bay Sands in Singapore’s hold-normalized adjusted property EBITDA was $382.8 Million, with an adjusted property EBITDA of $274.9 million.

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At The Venetian Las Vegas and The Palazzo, which also includes the Sands Expo and Convention Center, the company saw a 10% year-over-year increase in Revenue per available room (RevPAR) to $231, which drove a 17.3% increase in adjusted property EBITDA during the first quarter.

Sheldon Adelson, Chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands, said:

The operating environment in Macao remained challenging during the quarter; but we do see signs of stabilization, particularly in the mass market. Our focus on the higher margin mass and non-gaming segments and the geographic diversification of our cash flows enabled us to once again deliver in excess of one billion U.S. dollars of hold-normalized adjusted property EBITDA during the quarter. We remain intensely focused on the consistent execution of our proven global growth strategy, which leverages the power of our unique convention-based Integrated Resort business model.

Our convention-based Integrated Resort business model continues to appeal to the broadest set of customers, generate the most diversified set of cash flows and deliver the industry’s highest revenue and profit from non-gaming segments, while bringing unsurpassed economic and diversification benefits to the regions in which we operate. We remain confident in our ability to both further extend our global leadership position and deliver strong growth in the future.

The prudent management of our cash flow, including the ability to increase the return of capital to shareholders while maintaining a strong balance sheet and ample liquidity to invest in future growth opportunities, remains a cornerstone of our strategy.

Las Vegas Sands’ shares closed down 0.6% at $52.18 ahead of earnings. That is up roughly 50% from the 52-week low of $34.88. Its 52-week high is $57.77 and the consensus analyst target ahead of earnings was $48.65.

The after-hours reaction had Las Vegas Sands shares down over 6% at $48.85.