Las Vegas Sands reportedly considering sale of Strip casinos

Las Vegas Sands Corp is considering selling its two hotel-casinos on the Las Vegas Strip for about $6 billion, according to several news reports.

The properties included in the potential sale are Sands Expo Convention Center, the Venetian Resort Las Vegas and the Palazzo, according to Bloomberg and Reuters. A potential sale of the Las Vegas properties will concentrate the company’s casino portfolio entirely in Macau and Singapore. The U.S. was already a small and shrinking part of Sheldon Adelson business —chairman and chief executive of Sands—, accounting for less than 15% of revenue last year. Adelson has expressed interest in building in New York City, an opportunity that could arise next year.

Bloomberg reported that the $37.5 billion company is working with an adviser to solicit interest from potential suitors, with a company representative cited by the news outlet confirming there were early discussions about a sale and that nothing has been finalized. The three properties together may fetch $6 billion or more, according to the news outlet.

Sands ended plans in May to open an integrated resort casino in Japan without providing a reason for the cancellation of the project. The gambling industry is one of the hardest hit industries amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As of June 30, the company had $13.82 billion total outstanding debt, excluding finance leases.

Adelson said in the second quarter that a “recovery process from the COVID-19 pandemic in each of our markets is now under way.” The company reported a third-quarter loss of $565 million, after reporting a profit in the same quarter last year. Revenue fell 82% from a year earlier.

A recovery in Asia helped improve Sands’ operating results in the third quarter, Adelson said in an earnings call last week. In Singapore, Marina Bay Sands had a profitable quarter as operations progressively resumed across the resort during the summer.