Sales may be down at Sands China’s shopping malls, but by nowhere near the decline in Macau’s gambling revenues.
Sands China has revealed that gross revenue from tenants in the company’s retail malls on Cotai (The Venetian Macao, Four Seasons Macao and Sands Cotai Central) and Marina Bay Sands in Singapore was US$139.3 million for the third quarter of 2015, a decrease of 6.8 per cent compared to the third quarter of 2014.
Operating profit derived from these retail mall assets decreased 5.2 per cent year on year to US$125 million.
By comparison, total net revenue for Sands China fell 28.8 per cent to US$1.66 billion in the third quarter, down from $2.33 billion in the same period last year.
As the table below shows, occupancy levels at the end of the three months to September 30 was running at 100 per cent – or close to it – at all the company’s retail properties in Macau. At the Marina Bay Sands, occupancy was at 95.5 per cent, perhaps reflecting an ongoing reshuffle of tenancies in the centre.
The company’s operating profit margin across all the facilities ran at between 87.7 and 94.1 per cent.
Sheldon Adelson, chairman and CEO of Sands China’s US parent Las Vegas Sands, said while the operating environment in Macao, particularly in the high-end gaming segments, remained challenging during the quarter, the company’s focus on the higher margin mass and non-gaming segments and the geographic diversification of its cash flows allowed the company to again deliver in excess of US$1 billion of adjusted property EBITDA during the quarter and weather this cyclical downturn better than the industry overall.
“In Macao… we remain confident that our market-leading Cotai Strip properties, which will be complemented in the future by the St. Regis tower at Sands Cotai Central opening in December 2015, and by The Parisian Macao, targeted to open in late 2016, will continue to provide the economic benefits of diversification to Macao, help attract greater numbers of business and leisure travellers, and provide an outstanding and diversified platform for growth in the years ahead.”
