William P. Weidner departs the LVS stage after nearly a decade and half at the top
“Mr. Weidner is no longer with the organization or a member of its board of directors.” In just sixteen words Las Vegas Sands Corp. announced on 9th March that William P Weidner, the man who had helped steer the company through unprecedented global expansion, had gone. It was barely more than one word for each year in LVS’s service. There was no eulogy, no words of thanks for a job well done, just bare fact—as if someone were announcing outgoing and incoming flights at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. The man who made number 42 last year on Inside Asian Gaming’s Asian Gaming 50 list is, for the time being at least, reduced to an industry footnote.
Mr Weidner had been with LVS for nearly 14 years, joining The Venetian in Las Vegas in December 1995 as its President and Chief Operating Officer, before graduating to the equivalent post for the parent company in August 2004.
He was sometimes characterised in the media as ‘good cop’ to company founder and chairman Sheldon G Adelson’s ‘bad cop’. References to Mr Adelson as ‘bad cop’ related not to any suggestion of criminality or bad character on his part but to the idea that his was the tough and uncompromising face of the organisation in contrast to Mr Weidner’s more approachable demeanour. It would be a mistake, though, to think Mr Weidner was any kind of soft touch—either for his underlings or for outsiders. Anyone who has ever overheard him on the telephone tearing a strip off a subordinate can attest to that.
A spade is a spade
His willingness to use earthy terminology such as “shellacking” to describe a bad quarter for LVS in the Macau VIP baccarat market a year or so ago was refreshing. It was especially so in an age when senior executives in most industries are increasingly shy about shooting from the hip and show a tendency to mind their backs and their careers by wrapping themselves in a cocoon of smooth-talking public relations people. Such PR ‘experts’ are usually schooled in the art of speaking at length to the media without saying very much at all.
There were signs in the last few years however that Mr Weidner may have become a little too off the cuff for his own good. Most of the incidents related to Macau. First there was his performance on the witness stand last year at the civil court trial in Las Vegas of the case brought by Hong Kong businessman Richard Suen against LVS. Mr Suen was claiming (successfully as it turned out) a success fee from LVS for help in securing LVS’s Macau gaming licence. Lawyers for the plaintiff managed to paint Mr Weidner into a corner. If Mr Weidner really believed Mr Suen lacked the necessary experience to broker such a big deal, then he, Mr Weidner, must have failed in his fiduciary duty to LVS by engaging with Mr Suen in the first place—ouch!
Then there was the very public insight into the LVS boardroom during the dark days of November after the company’s auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, said in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that if Sands defaulted on debt covenants it would cause “substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”
Go forthright and multiply (cash)
Mr Weidner went on record saying the fact that an effective funding strategy was not in place earlier to head off such a momentous filing by the auditors amounted to “a monumental screw up”.
If that wasn’t enough, in early January he scored what in retrospect might be considered a spectacular own goal. When addressing an investors’ forum in the US he talked up the benefits of Singapore’s low gaming tax and the company’s commitment to moving full steam ahead with its Marina Bay Sands resort in the city state, only weeks after LVS had announced the suspension of building work in Macau. It provoked a petition to Macau’s chief executive Edmund Ho calling for the Macau government to review its agreements with LVS and accusing the company of a cavalier attitude to the territory.
Three strikes
In the weeks to come more background may emerge about Mr Weidner’s exit— unless he has received the sort of ‘golden goodbye’ increasingly common in modern business whereby the late departed agrees not to talk in the public prints or to leak via friends. It could certainly have been worse for Mr Weidner. Under former US President Bill Clinton’s sentencing policy of ‘three strikes and you’re out’, anyone of a lesser stature than Mr Weidner might have been clearing his desk some time ago.
Mr Weidner’s successor Michael A. Leven certainly appears to be an experienced hand. Like Mr Weidner, he is a veteran of the hospitality industry. Mr Leven was formerly president and CEO of US Franchise Systems, Inc., a company he founded in 1995 to develop and franchise the Microtel Inns & Suites and Hawthorn Suites hotel brands. He was previously the president and COO of Holiday Inn Worldwide, president of Days Inn of America, and president of Americana Hotels. He has also served on the board of directors of Starwood Hotels and Resorts and Hersha Hospitality Trust.
No amount of experience on Mr Leven’s part can however make up for an important fact. Mr Weidner’s rule coincided with a time when LVS stood tall as probably the richest and most powerful casino operator the world has ever seen. Mr Leven has no such honeymoon glow to warm him during the chill of global recession. Inside Asian Gaming wishes him luck.
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