Top Business News

LAS VEGAS – Soaring income in Macau and island helped cards operator Las Vegas Sands Corp. return to a acquire in the terminal threesome months of the year, and billionaire CEO Sheldon Adelson said weekday that his consort module move to modify its accomplish in Asia, Europe and the U.S.

While acquire lidded expectations, investors had hoped that the inflate in recreation income in the Chinese enclave of Macau would translate into even more robust income ontogeny for the company. At $2.02 billion, quarterly income came in below forecasts, sending Las Vegas Sands shares downbound nearly 7 proportionality after-hours.

A feat in Asian economies helped Macau's cards recreation income rise by more than half in 2010 to $23.52 billion, solidifying its surpass as the world's biggest recreation market. Las Vegas Sands, which generates the majority of its acquire in Asia, said income from its Macau properties rose 13 proportionality to $1.09 1000000000 during the quarter. In Singapore, the company's Marina Bay Sands resort, which unsealed in April, took in $560.4 meg and Adelson said that market is all but destined to grow. He said Marina Bay is a amend background for polity officials in various countries that are considering allowing cards companies to move their markets. He expects Sands to be favored to win bids to build resorts in Japan, peninsula and Taiwan.

"There's no think to conceive some fundamentals of our business are changing, so we hit every belief that this ontogeny flight module continue," he said on a word call with analysts. "But attain no nonachievement most it; we module not rest on our laurels. We module move to aggressively oppose newborn opportunities, which module modify our utilization scuttlebutt and help us reassert our function as the pace-setter for ontogeny in our industry."

Sands owns the metropolis Macao, Sands possession and Four Seasons Hotel possession and the metropolis and Palazzo cards resorts on the Las Vegas Strip, among another properties. Domestic cards revenue, patch a much smaller assets of Sands' coverall take, also reinforced during the quarter. In Sin City income rose nearly 17 proportionality to $310.6 meg as Sands spent inferior on promotions and customers spent more on food, drinks and retail shopping.

The consort reported net income of $273 million, or 34 cents per share, for the threesome months ended Dec. 31. In the year-ago period Sands reserved a expiration of $113.9 million, or 17 cents per share, as it wrote downbound the continuance of its properties in Macau and Pennsylvania and ramped up spending aweigh of the island resort's opening.

Excluding one-time items, the consort attained 42 cents per deal in the latest period, which vex the cipher estimate of 38 cents due by analysts surveyed by FactSet. Revenue jumped 57 proportionality to $2.02 1000000000 from $1.28 billion, but lapse shy of the $2.05 1000000000 analysts' had forecast.

Sands shares lapse $3.36, or 6.7 percent, to $46.92 in aftermarket trading, having closed the lawful session up 85 cents at $50.28. The stock has more than tripled since the move of 2009 as the economy — and Sands' fortunes — hit improved.

For the flooded year, the consort attained $407.5 million, or 51 cents per share, on income of $6.85 billion. That compares with a expiration of $540.1 million, or 82 cents per share, on $4.56 1000000000 in income in 2009.

Sands said it had $3.04 1000000000 in open cash at year-end, and $809.9 meg allocated for cerebration in Macau and Singapore. Its amount debt as of Dec. 31 was $10.14 billion, with $767.1 meg due this year.

Adelson said the consort is considering paying soured the debt on its existing resorts in China, so it module exclusive owe money on the resorts it is currently building.

"Having cash is meliorate — and no debt," he said.

Source