Las Vegas Sands Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

AlphaStreet
Provided by AlphaStreet
January 29, 2025
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Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Sans 4th-Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. We will open the floor for your questions and comments following the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr Daniel Briggs, Senior Vice-President of Investor Relations at Sans. Sir, the floor is yours.

Daniel Briggs
Senior Vice President, Investor Relations at Las Vegas Sands

Thank you very much. Joining the call today are Rob Goldstein, our Chairman and CEO; Dumont, our President and COO; Dr Wilfred Long, Executive Vice-Chairman of Sanch China; and Grant Chung, CEO and President of and EVP of Asia Operations. Today's conference call will contain forward-looking statements. We will be making those statements under the Safe-Harbor provision of federal securities laws. The company's actual results may differ materially from the sources such in this forward-looking statements. In addition, we will discuss non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measure are included in our press release. We have posted an earnings presentation on our website. We will refer to that presentation during the call. Finally, for the Q&A. We ask those of interest to please post please one question and one follow-up. So we might allow everyone with interest the opportunity to participate. This presentation is being recorded. I'll now turn the call over to Rob.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Thanks,. Thank you for joining us today. We'll beginning Macao. The Macao market continues to grow. Annual revenue for the market grew 6% in Q4 of 2024 when compared to the 4th-quarter of 2023. Mass gaming revenue grew 5% in the quarter compared to one year-ago. We believe the Chinese economy will grow and Macau market will grow as well. Gross gaming revenue in Macao should exceed $30 billion in 2025 and continue to grow. The scale and quality of the assets we have built are second to none and our assets position enable us to grow faster than Macao market in every segment. Our business strategy remains clear and constant. We are investing high-quality assets that also have scale. We've designed our capital investment programs to ensure that we will be the market-leader in the years ahead. Our approach will enable us to grow faster in the long-term, grow our share of EBITDA in the cow market and generate industry-leading returns on invested capital. While we're so confident in our future success in a competitive market like Macau, our assets give us a strong advantage. The scale and quality of the room inventory, coupled with our retail, dining and entertainment enables us to tailor our offerings to attract the most profitable customer segments. Turning to our results in, we delivered a solid EBITDA for the quarter despite having 20% fewer rooms available in Code Tai than we will have once London is completed by the second-quarter of 2025. We opened the London Grand Casino in the last week of September and operating 315 suites during the quarter. We will introduce more Lunder suites during the next two quarters. Today, as the Lunar New Year begins, we have approximately 1,000 Under suites and rooms in-service. The full complement of 1,500 suites and 905 rooms will be in-service by May of 2025 finally. SCL continues to lead the market in gaming and non-gaming revenue and market-share EBITDA. Our objective is to capture high-value, high-margin tourism. We have a unique competitive advantage in terms of the scale, quality and diversity of product offerings. Upon completion of the London in May, our product advantage will be more pronounced than ever. Moving on to Singapore, another strong quarter of $537 million in adjusted property EBITDA, mass gaming slot reached $746 million a quarter, reflecting a 71% growth in the 4th-quarter of 2019 and 28% growth from just 1/4 a year-ago. The results in sales reflect the positive impact on our capital investment program and the growth of high-value tourism. The growing appeal of Singapore as a destination is enhanced by the robust entertainment and lifestyle event calendar. As we complete the balance of our investment programs in the first-half of 2025, there will be considerable runway for growth. Thanks for joining the call and through the before we go to Q&A. Sure.

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Thanks, Rob. There's something I want to mention before we get started the details of the quarter. The 4th-quarter of tourism to the Macau market was impacted by the celebration and events in December that marked the 25th anniversary of the special administrative region of reunification with China. Macau EBITDA was $571 million for the quarter. If we had held as expected in our rolling program, our EBITDA would have been higher by $22 million. When adjusted for lower-than-expected hold in the rolling segment, our EBITDA margin from the Macau portfolio of properties, excluding the Londoner, would have been 35.1% or down 230 basis-points compared to the 4th-quarter of 2023. Our turnover rents in Macao were $27 million lower in the 4th-quarter of 2024 than the prior year 4th-quarter. Our margins at the London were directly impacted by the reduction in available room inventory during the quarter. We will have approximately 20% of rooms and suites on Kotai by May of this year and approximately 47% more rooms at the Londoner as we complete the Londoner brand renovation. Margin at the Venetian was 36.7%, while margin at the Plaza and Four Seasons was 37.2%. We continue to expect margin improvement as our revenues grow as we use our scale advantages to better address the unrated play in the market and as we focused on managing our costs, including refining our reinvestment optimized cash-flow. As Rob mentioned, we are nearing the completion of our Londoner grand renovation program. Upon completion, our competitive position will be stronger than ever. We expect meaningful EBITDA growth and margin expansion in the future. Turning to Singapore, MBS' EBITDA came in $537 million. Assuming expected to hold our rolling play, our EBITDA would have been approximately $2 million lower. The strong financial results reflect the impact of high-quality investment in market-leading product and growth in high-value tourism. Had we held as expected in our Rolling Play segment, MBS's EBITDA margin would have been 47.2%. We will have substantially completed our $1.75 billion program at MBS by May of this year. We are still in the initial stages of realizing the benefits of these new products. We expect growth in the future as we continue to attract high-value tourism to Singapore with our enhanced product offering. Turning to our program to return capital to shareholders, we repurchased $450 million of LVS stock during the quarter and paid our recurring quarterly dividend of $0.20 per share. Our annual dividend will increase to $1 per share or $0.25 per quarter for the 2025 calendar year. In addition, we purchased approximately $250 million of China stock during the quarter and in January of 2025, bringing LVS equity interest in Sans China to approximately 72.3%. We look-forward to continuing to utilize the company's capital return program to increase returns to shareholders in the future. Thanks for joining the call today. Now let's take questions.

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Operator

Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for questions. If you would like to enter the queue to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. If listening on speakerphone today, please pick-up your handset to provide optimum sound quality. Also, we ask each participant to limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please hold a moment while we poll for questions the first question today is coming from Carlo Santarelli from Deutsche Bank. Carlo, your line is live.

Carlo Santarelli
Analyst at Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft

Hey, guys. Thank you. Patrick, obviously, you guys have been active in the China stock. And when you look at kind of the valuation of that stock today, coupled with the announcement of the dividend increase, is your thinking changed at all-around the way you allocate capital, perhaps maybe being more advantageous looking-forward with respect to the SCL shares?

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Look, I think we really believe in the SL story. We've been being investors in growth in Macau for years. And if you look at our investment program, it's designed to grow our business and our strategic advantages there. And we've been investing to create growth for 2025 and beyond in every segment. Look, our view is that we want to execute against our massive asset-base there. And I think for us, the way we show that is not only through growth, but also through acquiring more shares. We want to own more of SCL and you'll see us be active in the market over-time to do that. We really believe in SCL and we think there's real value in the future and owning the shares there. And so we're going to we're going to exercise against that thesis.

Carlo Santarelli
Analyst at Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft

Very good. Thank you. And then if I could just follow-up as it relates to MDS, there's clearly been a lot of change in the property, all the rumor models, all the things that you've been doing over much of 2024. And in the 4th-quarter, clearly across the mass side, whether it's drop revenue on the table side, drop revenue on the slot side. You guys saw a very nice acceleration of year-over-year growth when looked at relative to the 3Q. How much of that do you think is, I don't know, maybe exogenous or maybe -- I don't want to say one-time, but a result of some other things going on in the market versus how much of that is the successes of kind of the capital you put in and the fruits of that.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Well, one thing I would say, Paul, it's not a one-time event, an ongoing event that keeps accelerating. I think you're right observation. I look at these numbers, non-rolling win and slot win is a $3 billion run-rate. That's pretty astounding. And I think it's a few things our favor. One is a very strong market, but also with great assets are coming to the fruition. So when you invest heavily in something is that good a market, get the right thing in the right place, right time, it all comes together. It's not a one-time thing nor is a peak. The finalization -- the final product will be there this summer. It's an amazing place. I think you've been there recently and it keeps on-going. But you're right, right, the acceleration year-on-year is truly exceptional, but I think we're just at the beginning of a huge growth surge in Singapore. It's not going to-end when the right place, right time with the right product.

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Hey, one thing I do want to say is the key thing about Singapore, and you've heard Rob and me and the rest of the team talk about this on many quarter calls. The key thing about Singapore is about the quality of tourist. It really is an unbelievable market in terms of the value of the tourists showing up there and we've been very focused on investment in the highest-quality of assets to match that high-quality of tourism. I think for us, this quarter validates the investment thesis and the growth that's available to us in this market because of the strength of what's going on in the cashman area. And so when you look at Singapore as a market, it's incredibly strong and desirable. There's a growing high-net worth population, there's growing high-value visitation, there's a lot of business activity there and there's continued investment in strong tourism infrastructure. So from that standpoint, it's a very unique market and we really believe in it. We think the highest-quality cash-flow in our industry.

Carlo Santarelli
Analyst at Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft

Thank you both very much.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Thanks, Carlo.

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Thanks, Carlo.

Operator

Thank you. The next question will be from Robin Farley from UBS. Robin, your line is live.

Arpine Kocharyan
Analyst at UBS Group

Hi, thanks very much for taking my question. This is for Robin. I know you don't talk about the current quarter, but I was wondering if you could take a few minutes, you know, to give us your overall take on the Chinese consumer, what you are seeing in terms of bookings for the upcoming holiday? And more importantly, do you feel there are macro indicators that the base consumer could return to pre-COVID levels in Macau this year? How do you see that recovery? And then I have a quick follow-up.

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

So I think first-off, I think we're still talking about a $30 billion GGR market. It's the largest market in the world. It's been growing. It looks like it's going to continue to grow for the foreseeable future. We believe very strongly the strength of this market. We've been investing into it for that reason. I think it's very hard for us to point to a specific indicator of the Chinese consumer that is an indicator for our business since we represent such a small level of penetration into our core market, which is China. And so from our standpoint, we sort of look at-the-market, would we do better with a stronger Chinese economy? I think that's an easy thing to say yes to. But I think overall, we're very happy with the direction of our business, our investment. And hopefully, as things progress over-time, we'll be the beneficiary of a stronger Chinese economy and see our investments produce more cash-flow. Grant or Wilfred, do you guys have any other comments regarding this question.

Grant Chum
Chief Executive Officer and President, Sands China at Las Vegas Sands

I think the GGR and you can see throughout last year in 2024 has been very resilient. And I think if you look at the premium side of the business are very strong throughout the year. And you saw October, we had the best month since the pandemic for GGR. Yes, there are other parts of the consumption universe, which are much weaker than what gaming has been. And you see some of that reflected in our retail business where the retail sales were down against the prior year, whereas for the Macau market, the was still up 6% as Rob referenced in his opening remarks.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

One thing is that our -- our actions speak loud and we keep investing, investing and buying into Macau, we believe in Macau, we believe in China. And we believe the return of the base mass as well as the continued strength of premium asphal will grow. We're big believers. We wouldn't be putting billions dollars in the ground we didn't believe. So yes, we do believe it's going to come back and we don't -- we can't pinpoint a handicap at date or time. But I think as Patrick alluded to, it's still a $30 billion market in the face of a very difficult economic environment macro. So we believe in it. It's going to come back. We just don't know when. But our actions are going to be very loudly, billions of dollars of investment and we keep investing in it. So we believe in the terms around the border will come.

Arpine Kocharyan
Analyst at UBS Group

Thank you all. I just have a quick follow-up. Could you share your latest thoughts on New York license if iGaming you could be legalized there two years into construction, let's say, as an assumption, sort of your thoughts on how that changes the return profile of a potential casino in that market?

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

You've asked and answered my concerns. First, I believe in New York is a very strong market, which is under consideration of this company for a long-time. However, the iGaming possibility to me in any market that has land-based gambling has sports-betting, iGaming seems inevitable. And so I think you have to agree -- your comment that sometime during the construction phase, you could be faced with iGaming competitor, which dilutes the value of the product. So that's our conundrum. And you said it well. The results coming out of neighboring states of New Jersey or Pennsylvania or as far away as Michigan underscore that concern. So you've asked and answered the question, great market. We like to be there. The caveat is how do you deal with the ongoing threat, which appears to me to be inevitable in a lot of states, especially land-based properties coupled with sports-betting. I don't know why you wouldn't have iGaming at some time in the future. So that's our concern as we look at that market. You're absolutely correct.

Arpine Kocharyan
Analyst at UBS Group

Thank you very much.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Sure.

Operator

Thank you. The next question will be from Sean Kelley from Bank of America. Sean, your line is live.

Shaun Kelley
Analyst at Bank of America

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Robert, Patrick, I want to start with just the Londoner. Obviously, some of the disruption timing probably came in a little bit differently than maybe everybody thought, but could you just walk us through your thoughts about kind of ramp-up from here and how we should think about it? It's a pretty big margin drag. I think it's pretty understandable given the impact of hotel rooms on margins. But just help us think about maybe your thought process behind how that property should ramp-in the next couple of quarters, if you could.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Yeah. So I think it's really interesting because I have to hand it to the team in Macau they did a phenomenal job this quarter being disciplined in our reinvestment and actually generating this much EBITDA with that many rooms out. We are an inventory -- a room inventory driven reinvestment model. So we base our reinvestment on the scale of our ecosystem, the diversity of amenities, the quality of room product, the quality of experiences. And so when you're down 20% of your inventory, there will be a meaningful impact into your productivity because we carry the expense base, right? Our second-largest expense is payroll, and that doesn't change. And so we had less inventory to sell-in the quarter. There wasn't disruption, there was just less inventory. So credit to the team for creating the quarter that they did in this market given the competitive dynamics. But I think now that we start to get these rooms back across the quarter on these 2,000 rooms, think about it, it's two-thirds of a Venetian. When you think about the productivity of the Venetian resort, the Venetian Macau and the room count that it has and the number of tables and the scale that it has, imagine if two-thirds of the rooms were not available. And that's the case with the. And so they were able to create this performance without that inventory. The good news is it's coming online, some of it's online now and the rest of it should be online by May as we mentioned in our opening remarks and that should position us well to get to our ultimate goal, which is to have two properties that have an equivalent run-rate and maybe one day the Londoner does better than the Venetian because of the key count. But I think the opportunity is there for the productivity to really increase now that the rooms are becoming available and now that we've completed this renovation, which in our mind creates one of the best properties in the history of our business. And we're not just saying that because we did it. We think it's really good. So I think from our standpoint, we have the Venetian, we have the Londoner, we have the Four Seasons, we have the Parisian. We have this high-quality portfolio and getting these rooms back online will enhance our competitive positioning, but also allow us to grow cash-flow and EBITDA because we're carrying expense anyway and now we'll have the inventory to sell. So I think it was pretty meaningful, but I do want to give credit to the team there for the quarter that they put up. Grant, do you have any comments?

Grant Chum
Chief Executive Officer and President, Sands China at Las Vegas Sands

Yeah, Patrick, like you said, the room inventory was at the low-point during the 4th-quarter. Like we said last quarter, it reached the lowest point around 8,700 keys in November and December. And for the whole quarter, we continue to have to 315 London and Grand suites and then shortly after the year end, we got licensed for further 700 suites and keys. So for this Lunar New Year, we have at a disposal just over 1,000 keys to use from now on. We expect that the continued ramp-up in rooms to continue throughout the first-quarter and the first part of the second-quarter, yeah, culminating. The goal is to have the full 2,405 keys fully operational by May Golden Week and we believe we can achieve that. Construction wise, we're well on-track. It's a matter of statutory licensing at this point.

Shaun Kelley
Analyst at Bank of America

Thank you both. And then maybe just as a quick follow-up going back to New York, Rob, we did notice that New York did not include the casino licenses or the downstate casino licenses in the state budget figures. So we were just kind of curious, does this imply as it may, especially given the timing of the fiscal year that the downstate process is slipping further at least for I think the third license that many of us are very focused on here for LDS? Thanks.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Hard to say. I can speculate you are, but I don't know if you're right or wrong. I think it wasn't the budget, it wasn't a budget. I don't really know the answer to that, Sean, to be honest with you. It's hard to determine what I keep hearing is going to be this June with the determination of a license by year end. Again, as you're saying, it's hard to know because they haven't been clear about this a long-time. Have to wait-and-see with you.

Shaun Kelley
Analyst at Bank of America

Thank you very much.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Sure.

Grant Chum
Chief Executive Officer and President, Sands China at Las Vegas Sands

Hey, Sean.

Operator

Thank you. The next question will be from Brandt Montour from Barclays. Brandt, your line is live.

Brandt Montour
Analyst at Barclays

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question, everybody. So a follow-up on Sean's question on the Londoner. In the Pacifica casino floor, floor especially which I know you owned and where you sorry, you opened in September. But without many hotel rooms above it, I have to imagine it's hard to activate that casino floor in the 4th-quarter. Can you give us a sense on how you activate the casino floor? And if 1,000 rooms would be enough natural foot flow to actually create a buzz and get that asset almost sort of all the way up in sort of producing before you can get the last batch? Or is it specifically correlated with how many rooms are open.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

So of the question to me is pretty simply, where you in our industry, whether it's Macau or Las Vegas or Idaho, what do you have sleeping above you is where you get gambling below you. So it correlates to more rooms, the more gambling. 1,000 keys is still a lot of people. I think yes, it can create a buzz, but that buzz will obviously increase as you have more keys. So 2,000 is better and 2,400 is better than that is enough sure it's better than having 300, but again, to your point, it begins with only 300 this quarter and goes to 1,000 during the moon of the year and eventually gets this spring to 2,400, I believe. And then of course, your bathrooms adjacent to it on the same roof in other phase of lumber. Plenty of room is there more than most hotels have in anyplace else. And I think the results will speak to themselves, this has been a long, hard process for the team over there, but it's probably coming to a head. And we believe and will always believe that assets drive results. This asset is extraordinary. And. And yes, we'll see some buzz in February-March, you'll see more in May, but we're in this for long-haul and London will be a world-class asset and take its place alongside some of the lessonary performers just like Bay Santa did and did.,

Brandt Montour
Analyst at Barclays

That's super helpful. And then a follow-up question would be on the Thailand opportunity. I know it's really early, but I'm sure you guys have done plenty of work so-far on that market. And maybe you could just talk high-level about that opportunity versus your large coming second build-out investment in Singapore and sort of how you think about those two markets vis-a-vis each other and if they sort of are totally separate opportunities that wouldn't have to be considered in relation to each other.

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

So a couple of things here. So I think first-off, Thailand is an unbelievable tourism destination. It has very desirable attributes, great culture, great food, just beautiful scenery. It's a great place to visit. And I think it has a great opportunity to add destination resorts and create a very large-scale industry there. The great news is there's an enormous tourism base there already and it's separate and think from people who go to Singapore. Is there overlap? Sure, do people go back-and-forth between Bangkok and Singapore all-the-time. Absolutely. Is there an argument that it actually just strengthens our ecosystem because people have more choice within our environment. There's an argument for that. Although I would say that you know, I think they're both different offerings. I think if you look at what we have in Singapore, it's specifically tied to the highest-level of high-value tourism. It's verified air when you look who's in that environment and the type of consumption that's there and the type of both business and leisure tourism that takes place. I think in Thailand, it's a completely separate market. I think there will be some overlap inevitably because people are going to want to see it on both sides. But as a practical matter, given the population base, the visitation they have today and where people are coming from in terms of inbound tourism, it's a separate and distinct opportunity. And that's how we see it. It. And we're excited about it, but there's a lot that has to be done and a lot that has to be learned before it's something that we can evaluate. That being said, it would be great for our industry to be fair, great for LVS if it's possible.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Kind of say that one thing about your comment about the mix of those two markets, think about this for a second. There's about 4 billion Asian people, which I think is about 3.5 billion more in the entire United States. As I look out the window here in Las Vegas, there's more casinos in Las Vegas than there is in all of Asia, okay. So my point is, there's a whole lot of people in Asia, high propensity gamble. I wouldn't worry too much about Singapore doing very, very well. There's just not enough capacity. Shell now to build a strip in every Asian country if possible. The point being, we'll do very well in Singapore for years and years to come. We'll make all kinds of money there, but Thailand is an extraordinary market and it will do very well. Again, Las Vegas must-have, I don't know, 200 casinos. There's not 200 casinos in all of Asia. So the concern about it categorizing, I think, is not necessarily even better to think about. 4 billion people in Asia looking for a place to go. Thailand will do very, very well, but so will Singapore solar count.

Brandt Montour
Analyst at Barclays

Excellent. Thanks, Patrick. Thanks, Rob.

Operator

Thank you. The next question will be from Dan Politzer from Wells Fargo. Dan, your line is live.

Daniel Politzer
Analyst at Wells Fargo & Company

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. First, I wanted to touch on Venetian. Last couple of quarters, it looks like mass volumes have slowed a bit there. Can you maybe talk about a little bit what's going on with that property relative to some of your other properties in the market? And also, I think the arena recently opened there. So any kind of incremental -- incremental details on how that's been trending.

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Yeah. One thing I do want to mention, I think the Venetian really is for us the benchmark in Macau and we're very focused on growing revenues in Venetian and maintaining margin there and generating a lot of cash-flow. And we think it has the capacity to do it. In the first-half of the quarter, things were going great and things were accelerating. In the second-half of the quarter, there was some disruption in visitation because of what I mentioned earlier on in the prepared remarks, which is the 25th anniversary of the handover. And so there were a lot of things going on in this quarter. And one of the things that went on is that base mass was impacted most meaningfully by that event and by that 30-day period. And so I would not necessarily look at this quarter as representative of the base mass run-rate associated with Venetian going-forward. Brand, I don't know if you have anything else to add.

Grant Chum
Chief Executive Officer and President, Sands China at Las Vegas Sands

Yeah, that's right. And I think with the with the premium mass, I think the business continues to be very strong there. And also, I think you have to consider that most of the largest in Venetian together with the Four Seasons, it plays as a complex for that segment. So you can see how strong the Four Seasons Plaza was in the non-rolling segment this quarter, up 26% against prior year. So I think you should look at it in a composite as patrons move around between the two properties. But the base mass, as Patrick said, was affected during the quarter. We had a very strong first-half of the quarter and then it softened thereafter. As it regards to the Venetian arena, we launched a fully upgraded arena in late November. We've had a few events, some of them more like a warm-up event during 4th-quarter. We had concerts and then we also hosted the NBA Legends game that accompanied our announcement of the strategic collaboration with the NBA over the next few years. So the facility gives us, I think very strong scope to program content for our calendar, entertainment, sporting events, mice groups. And at the same time, we'll continue to use London arena. And really this is another example of the scale advantage and the product diversity that we have. We've learned how to program the London arena successfully. We'll be hosting some major concerts in the Venetian Arena as well as the NBA Games in October in 2025. So we'll have the full flexibility and benefit of having these two great venues for different types of programming events and we believe that it's going to support the growth of the business in 2025 and beyond.

Daniel Politzer
Analyst at Wells Fargo & Company

Got it. That's helpful color. And then just a follow-up. I think for the or all-in, you'll be -- have invested around $8 billion. How do you think about, I guess, the return on this? Is this consistent with some of your other properties in the mid to-high teens? And if not, why would that be? And then how do you think about the timing in terms of the ramp and do you need to see that base mass business come back into the market given that you've certainly invested in making this property a more premium mass-centric?

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Yeah. So I think the key thing here to note is, it depends on how long your IRR measurement period is. And so I think for us, when we first opened the property, it had a ramp-up period where if you sort of looked at it at peak, it was at, I think, $1.1 billion run-rate of EBITDA. And so if you sort of drew your trend-line off that, it would be an unbelievable investment. Then events overtook that measurement and we realized we need to reinvest and reposition, which we did. So if you think of this as a 30-year asset, which we do and you look at the potential cash-flow generation out of this asset, given its positioning, its theming, its amenities and its structure, which is not replicable anymore in Macau, we feel like this is a very high-return potential asset. And that's why we put the capital into it. If you look at its structure, you look at the room count, you look at the organization of the casino floors of the retail and of the amenities around it to support the activity of our patrons, there's nothing like it, right? And so we feel like this asset will provide very-high returns over-time. Otherwise, we would have done it. If the model didn't work, it wouldn't have happened. But I think it depends on how you view the market and how long you view the asset to be running in this way. But we've done the major structural lift. So we think we're in good shape to carry this asset forward for years to come.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Dan, one additional comment to Patrickson. I think you made a comment that's premium mass-centric. I would disagree its market segment is open to everything. What makes these buildings so powerful like the Londoner, innovation, successful buildings in the world get everybody. They get the base mask, the grind, the because they have all kinds of capacity. They got sleeping rooms, they've got retail, they've got entertainment, they've got just capacity. What makes it special versus some of our competitors, they can't -- they don't have that scale capacity, lodging and gaming. This thing better have in all segments to get the numbers I want to see you get to, which is far beyond $1 billion. And I think the answer is -- I think Patrick said, well, it's a time issue and how you view the market. Having not fixed the Under, it wouldn't be competitive to old couldn't withstand the pressure of this market. Will now do well, do very well. It will do well with not just pre-mass, but base mask drawing, everything. It's going to dominate just like Eastern didn't get there with high get there. You walk-in, there's poker, there's base masks, there's all kinds of logs, all kinds of retail, all kinds of food and beverage. That's how we model the lung. That's why it's near $1 billion-plus dollar building when it gets fully operation.

Daniel Politzer
Analyst at Wells Fargo & Company

Got it. Thanks so much. That's really helpful.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Sure.

Daniel Briggs
Senior Vice President, Investor Relations at Las Vegas Sands

Thanks, Dan.

Operator

Thank you. The next question will be from Chad Beynon from Macquarie. Chad, your line is live.

Chad Beynon
Analyst at Macquarie

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Rob, you mentioned in your prepared remarks that there was a decline in the turnover rent. It looks like I believe pretty much all of that may have been at the Four Seasons. The other properties in Macau and in Singapore had some nice increases year-over-year. So firstly, just kind of wanted to ask about that, if that was something related to maybe some VIP business that was there last year, anything structural in the property? And then secondly, I know the market and everyone are expecting visitation in GGR to be up next year. Is there anything in the model that would put a lid in terms of what's happening with retail given where the base is right now? Thanks.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Yeah, I'm going to defer to Grant, who should answer this question. Grant?

Grant Chum
Chief Executive Officer and President, Sands China at Las Vegas Sands

Yeah. Thanks, Rob. Yes, the turn of a rent change is largely related to the Four Seasons Mall. Last year, or I should say 2023, that was a record year, that was an all-time high for the Four Seasons Mall in terms of retail sales coming out of that post-COVID spend. And so when you look at year-on-year comparison '24 against '23, the turnover rent is heavily impacted by the sales at the Four Seasons being down year-on-year. And there's nothing structural, there's nothing a one-off about the '23. I think it's just the way the sales evolved straight after the pandemic and of course, the softening macro-environment thereafter. I think we're strategically very well-positioned for the retail sector over the next 18 24 months. We are opening a number of very significant flagship stores across a number of the major brands. You've seen the first of these opening in November in-full seasons with the PK AP House, the largest in Asia. That will continue in 2025 with some other major flagships and also significant store openings. So we feel that between now and end of '25, you're going to see a further strengthening in the tenant mix and the product offering in the more. And hopefully, that positions us very well for the eventual recovery in the macro and the retail sales that will come with it?

Chad Beynon
Analyst at Macquarie

Great. Thank you very much. And then back to the US, I know we talked about a few potential legislation positives or opportunities. Anything changed in terms of your view on Texas, the timing of that and kind of where things stand down there?

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Yeah. So as we said before, we think Texas has a great potential as a market for our business, but there's really nothing to report at this point. The session just began, and we'll see how it goes. Great. Thank you very much. Thanks, Jet.

Operator

Thank you. The next question will be from Joe Stau from. Joey, your line is live.

Joseph Stauff
Analyst at Susquehanna Bancshares

Thank you. Good afternoon, Rob, Patrick, Grant. I had two questions on MBS, please. One, you know, where are you seeing the, say, the biggest early returns from your investments thus far? I'm wondering if it's more heavily weighted towards a particular metric, longer stays, new customers, higher spend? And then my second question really is on a longer-term basis for MBS, as for the three towers, as we think about the ramp-in EBITDA, Patrick, you had mentioned Singapore certainly is rare fried air. But could you comment on longer-term, what these new investments and where you think the biggest opportunity is for you to ramp EBITDA?

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

So really appreciate the question. But I think for us, Sands customer-base is very diverse, diverse markets around Singapore who all want to do business in Singapore or all want to go there for leisure purposes. And the spending habits are very powerful. And I think the biggest growth that you'll see you sort of look across our business, it's in every facet. And credit to the team there, they've done phenomenal work this quarter and utilizing the assets that were put into production and they still don't have everything in inventories. And so I think the key thing here is if you sort of look at our gaming growth, it's been fantastic, particularly on the non-rolling side, absolutely phenomenal and in both segments in terms of slots and tables, but also on a rolling basis, it's been very strong. I think the other thing is, if you look at the non-gaming side, it's been extraordinary. If you look at the -- across-the-board, things have performed incredibly well. We just had a question about retail and Macau, but if you look at the retail in Singapore, it's performed incredibly well and shown to be very resilient. So I think the offering there is quite strong, addresses the market properly. And I can't really point to one thing to say that it's -- it's the way to measure the investment. I think it's a very holistic approach. Rob earlier mentioned that we address all segments. I think in Singapore, the market is filled with high-value tourists and we really address with a variety of amenities something that's very unique and that experience in our ecosystem is not replicable. And so I think we get the benefit of that. And I think you see the results in our in our EBITDA this quarter. And I think there's more to come. And I think when we get the rest of Tower 3 online and we get some of the other investments fully in, the room is completely done, I think you'll see the power of this building as people start to figure it out.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

I think that building, if you've been there, have you see the building

Joseph Stauff
Analyst at Susquehanna Bancshares

And Joe is there with us.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Okay. If you've been the building to see it, there's just nothing like it and the at the center of affluence in terms of it's got the room product, it's got sweet, the food and beverage retail, it's got it all. And I think for people who can afford the experience and want to gamble, which is a lot of people in Asia, it's just a very unique product. It's going to capture all those people. It's also got a wonderful place to be, which is Singapore itself. So I think we're in the right place, right time to keep growing that. And where we measure obviously the profitability and the profitability of soaring. But. But I think you're just investment is yet to come. I mean, Singapore is just the beginning of its run. As Patrick alluded to, the quality of asset in the finishes, et-cetera are extraordinary and it's hard to replicate. So I think we have every confidence we're just at the beginning of this thing, not the end, it's not aberrational, it's just the way it's going to be. Singapore is an exceptional asset and a very strong market, lots of countries driving it. And also it's the beneficiary of lots of great publicity and awareness of how -- and people tell MBS, they see it on newspapers, magazines of the Internet, it's very powerful. It's a real brand to us now. So I think you're at the beginning of an exceptional growth story in Singapore. As the asset matures this summer, again, I think the future is very, very strong.

Joseph Stauff
Analyst at Susquehanna Bancshares

Thanks very much.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question will be from George Choi from Citigroup. George, your line is live.

George Choi
Analyst at Smith Barney Citigroup

Oh, thanks for taking my questions. First of all, you noticed the introduction of some new background since late September in Macau and would you please comment on how popular they have become and is that potential impact on longer-term? And then I have a follow-up this. Thank you.

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

George, I got to tell you, they're very popular with me. I think they're great.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Unfortunately bet that much. George, I think you know the story. I appreciate the question. It's a very, very powerful possibility. It's not a reality yet, but the side bets, as you know, are akin to parlayed bets or wages on the sports-betting. It's more of a prop bet, more of a long-shot type bet, which people gravitate to. Some people like it. It. You know the house advantage is much higher than the flat beds, the bed player type pair. So for the industry, we're at the forefront of this, we want to offer those bets and hopefully the customers will come towards them. It's got great potential. It's early days yet. But as you know, this rod is our primary business and it can be very, very powerful in the years to come if the customers decide to take higher long rod type bets, so they do benefit the house, no surprise. There's an article recently a journal about sports-betting and parlay betting is akin to that. So we're hopeful that more people will partic in that and helps drive the curve and it'd be very advantageous for those companies who are rug-centric like Las Vegas Sands.

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

And just to sort of connection thought yeah, I think the key thing here is it's early days yet. And so I think our goal is to continue to evaluate how the market is adopting and actually choosing to utilize those bets. But we'll see.

George Choi
Analyst at Smith Barney Citigroup

Thank you very much. And obviously, very encouraging to learn that you have 700 more suites at Londoner brand open after year-end. I'm just wondering if you have opened any new premium capacity at the London grant

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

On the gaming floor

George Choi
Analyst at Smith Barney Citigroup

Yes

Grant Chum
Chief Executive Officer and President, Sands China at Las Vegas Sands

We did we just opened yeah, just around the time of the Lunar New Year, we opened a new premium mass on Level 1 of Grant. So we're obviously ramping-up on the gaming side in sync with the room inventory.

George Choi
Analyst at Smith Barney Citigroup

Thanks for the comments.

Robert G. Goldstein
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Thanks, George, as always. Appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. And the next question will be from Steve from Stifel. Steve, your line is live.

Steven Wieczynski
Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus

Yeah, hey guys, good afternoon. So Patrick or Robert, maybe even Grant. If we go back to the Londer, obviously, you have that coming back online over the next couple of months and obviously, your competitors in the market know that property is coming back online as well. So the question is, have you seen any changes in the promotional activity from your competitors in the market in anticipation of that property coming back online?

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

I think, first-off, I think we mentioned this in the prior quarter's call. Macau has always been incredibly competitive and very promotional. And I think to the team's credit there, they've been very disciplined. When we closed the P6 casino and there was some promoing there to move people around. And we talked about that, but I think as a practical matter, we're very focused on leveraging the assets that we invest in for the long-term to drive customer visitation and patron experience. And I think for us, the goal is to be disciplined in the face of this market, which by the way is ever-evolving. If you go back more than a decade, there were different segments that are in favor, different ways that people thought about those segments and invested against the opportunity. And I think that's what we have today. I think we have a very competitive market as we've always had. I think people are investing against the segments in the way they think that will create the most profit for them. And I think for us, we're doing the same thing, but our model has been pretty consistent, which is about investment in-product, investment in a great team, great service levels and focusing on the way that we can drive margin and cash-flow. Grant, do you have any other comments you'd like to add?

Grant Chum
Chief Executive Officer and President, Sands China at Las Vegas Sands

I think you said it well. I think we remain focused on EBITDA generation and the profit share. And if you look at the 3rd-quarter results when all the results came out from all of the operators, I think those who gained revenue-share didn't necessarily see that translate into profit share gain. And I think we continue with our strategy. I think it remains competitive regardless of whether we're bringing London or Grand suites online or not. I don't think that changes. I think that's a constant. And so our constant is that our strategy remains on leveraging our core products, leveraging the quality and scale of what we have and the upcoming online of the Rooms London Grand is the perfect opportunity for us to really drive home that strategy and we really look-forward to having the full inventory in-place and then from May Golden Week into the summer and for the rest of the year, we hope to see that really deliver for us.

Steven Wieczynski
Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus

Okay. Thanks for that guys. And then real quick, Patrick, you obviously brought up the President's visit in December. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do this or not, but just wondering if you guys have some sort of estimate on what the potential impact on from his visit was on your properties during that time-frame.

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

You know, unfortunately I really can't give you a good estimate. All I can tell you is that there was a noticeable change. But the important thing is that we're looking-forward to a great '25. We're excited about the opportunity. We feel really good about where our assets are positioned. We have a great team. We have great service levels, and we're excited about what we can do now that we're finally getting all of our assets back-in inventory. We're looking-forward to it.

Steven Wieczynski
Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus

Okay. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Patrick Dumont
President and Chief Operating Officer at Las Vegas Sands

Take care. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. There were no other questions at this time. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

Corporate Executives
  • Daniel Briggs
    Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
  • Robert G. Goldstein
    Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
  • Patrick Dumont
    President and Chief Operating Officer
  • Grant Chum
    Chief Executive Officer and President, Sands China
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