By ESTHER FUNG and KATE O’KEEFFE
SHANGHAI—Sands China Ltd.’s expansion project in Macau’s Cotai area is on track to open in the third quarter of 2011 and the casino resort will have roughly 670 gaming tables at the opening, Chief Executive Steve Jacobs said Monday.
The Macau unit of casino operator Las Vegas Sands Corp. cancelled a news conference last month for a signing ceremony with contractors to re-start construction of the project, raising concerns it would face further delays after construction was halted in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis.
The cancellation came days after the Macau government said it would cap gambling tables in Macau at 5,500 until 2013 from the current 5,000 despite operators’ major expansion plans.
A person familiar with the matter said last week rival Galaxy Entertainment, which also plans to open a major expansion project in Cotai in early 2011, would be given permission to put at least 400 new tables in its casino, driving speculation Sands China would need to take tables from its existing casino operations in Macau to open its new project.
Mr. Jacobs declined to comment on how many new tables Sands China will be allocated and said the company was still in talks with the government on those details.
“We support the table limitation approach that is being taken by the government. We think it’s good for Macau because it forces the other concessionaires to invest as we have in non-gaming operations to drive their businesses forward,” he said.
His comments came despite concerns among industry watchers that the table cap will affect Sands China the most negatively due to the project’s ambitious scale.
“It’s clear that if the government wants to diversify…that we’ve got to lead that effort,” added Mr. Jacobs, who had just returned from a 12-city roadshow in China, which he said was aimed at promoting both Sands China and Macau as a destination for meetings and exhibitions, shopping and entertainment.
Mr. Jacobs reiterated the casino and hotel expansion project in Cotai would open in phases with the first comprising two casinos, retail and restaurant space, 3,700 hotel rooms from the Traders, Shangri-La and Sheraton brands along with some “new features” which will be announced in the coming weeks.
He said the first phase would be completed by the third quarter of 2011, while the second phase, which will add 2,300 rooms, will be finished four to six months later. There is no timeline for the third phase, which was planned to include the St. Regis hotel, nor is there clarity on whether it would be built.
“We’re in the process of ramping up the construction of the project,” Mr. Jacobs said, adding the company won’t re-schedule the construction signing ceremony.
He said the company has been given the labor quotas needed to complete the project. Analysts have raised concerns the Macau government would be reluctant to offer substantial quotas to construction companies to employ workers from China as local Macau workers have criticized the government for importing too much foreign labor.
“It typically takes anywhere from two to three months to get everybody on site,” Mr. Jacobs added. “If you stop by the site today, you’d see we have several thousand workers underway.”
Mark Russell, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Venetian Macau, one of Sands China’s properties, told reporters there has been a pick-up in meetings and events this year, and that he is seeing more clients make long-term commitments in their bookings.
About 12% of Sands China’s revenue comes from non-gambling businesses such as restaurants and hotels.
Sands China, Macau’s second largest casino operator by revenue after SJM Holdings, is due to report its first-quarter earnings May 7.
