Las Vegas Sands Corp has appointed Ed Tracy as Chief Executive of Sands China, the company’s Hong Kong-listed Macau operating unit. The post had been vacant for a year since the sacking of former Sands China CEO Steve Jacobs last summer.
Mr Tracy moves up to CEO from his current role as President of Sands China—a job he took last year. Michael Leven, the President and Chief Operating Officer of LVS, who had been acting CEO of Sands China since Mr Jacobs was dismissed, will now be able to focus once more on his strategic role.
Mr Leven said on Wednesday—in a conference call to discuss the company’s global results for the second quarter this year—that LVS had finalised agreements with two major hotel brands for hotels at the company’s Cotai extension—known as Cotai plots 5 and 6. He didn’t name the brands. They are replacements for Shangri-La hotel brands. Shangri-La decided in March not to extend a provisional agreement to manage two hotels at Cotai 5 and 6, citing as the reason delays to the original construction timetable
Sands China plans to open its Cotai 5 and 6 facilities including 6,000 hotel rooms and casino space in three phases starting in the first quarter next year. Construction has been delayed partly due to government restrictions on the amount of foreign workers companies can hire.
Mr Leven said the total number of gambling tables at Cotai 5 and 6—a thorny issue since the government imposed a cap on tables until the beginning of 2013—could be 530. That’s 120 fewer than the company had indicated in some earlier announcements to the market. Even if only a portion of the 530 tables open in the first phase, it’s still likely to break the ceiling of the 5,500-table cap imposed by the government between now and the beginning of 2013. Since the opening of Galaxy Macau on Cotai in May, the number of tables in Macau now stands at 5,300.
LVS also said it had earmarked US$125 million in capital expenditure to drive its high-roller business in Maccau. Sands China’s recent loss of market share in the VIP business has been a concern for some analysts.
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