Las Vegas Sands

Las Vegas Sands (LVS) is a Casino resort company based in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Founded in 1988 by Sheldon, a majority share holder with about 65% of the company. LVS is the owner and operator of two resort-hotel-casino in Las Vegas, "The Venetian" and "The Palazzo", its also own the "Sands Expo and Convention Center" also in Las Vegas. In Macau it has two resort casinos. In Singapore, LVS has won the right to develop "Marina Bay Sands Casino Resort". Its list of properties is as shown below.

Its earnings from 2004 to 2008 as shown below were not impressive.

As shown by the chart above, its stock price peaked in October 2007 at US$145.57 with market capitalization close to US$ 50 billion making Sheldon Adelson one of the world's riches men.

Before the current financial melt down, LVS has launched its ambitious expansion program totalling US$16 billion in building casino resorts in Macau and Singapore to cater to wealthy asian gamblers. It was also building a $600 million condominium in Vegas and a $600 million casino resort in Bethlehem , Pennsylvania. The current financial crisis and the associated credit crunch has affected its earning and the viability of its development programs. Facing with cashflow problem due to shrinking earning in both Las Vegas and Macau (restriction of visas Macau by Chinese Government), declining stock market, possible default on dabt, dumping of stock by investor and other bad news, the stock price has dropped to a low of US$1.38 before recovering to US$3.14 on Friday. At its low, its market capitalization was onlr $0.92 billion.

The chart formation so far does give any indication that the $1.38 level is the bottom of LVS. Hopefully its next pull back can show some direction.

In the last few months, there were some possitive development for LVS. In November Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam Adelson loaned LVS $475 million through a 6.5% convertible note due in 2013 to avert a default on debt. In an effort to raise operating capital, Sheldon Adelson and his family has agreed to put in another $525 million to buy 5.25 million shares of preferred stock and warrents that allowed the family to purchase 87.5 million common stock at an exercise price of $6.00 each. LVS is currently seeking to take advantage of low prices of its loans (60 cents to a dollar) by buying back the debt worth $800 million. LVS is seeking waivers or amendments to its bank agreements.