Edward Tracy, who brought sorely needed stability to the management of Sands China and led it to become the largest casino operator in the largest gaming market in the world, is stepping down as president and CEO.
The Hong Kong-listed subsidiary (1928) of Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) said in a statement that Mr Tracy will leave effective 6th March but will continue his involvement with the company as a consultant.
In a letter cited by The Wall Street Journal, the 62-year-old executive said he and his wife are returning to the United States “to focus on family and health”.
With the opening of The Parisian, Sands ’ fifth casino in Macau, still more than a year away, “the best management team in Macao already in place and several other important objectives already achieved, this seemed like the right point in time to announce my retirement,” he wrote.
Mr Adelson, chairman of LVS and Sands China, issued a statement thanking Mr. Tracy and said, “We remain deeply committed to the future of Macao and the more than 28,000 team members there who are a part of the Sands family.”
Though he’d been in gaming for some 20 years, Mr Tracy was little known outside the United States when he joined the company in July 2010, just weeks after LVS fired his predecessor, Steve Jacobs, who clashed repeatedly with Mr Adelson on matters of policy, according to complaints filed in a protracted legal battle that is still playing out in the US courts between the two and is rife with mutual accusations of wrongdoing.
Mr Tracy served briefly in the late 1990s as head of Donald Trump’s Atlantic City casinos during a particularly tumultuous period for the New York billionaire’s former casino interests and later managed a chain of riverboat casinos in the Midwest. His came to Macau (he was promoted to CEO in July 2011) as the antithesis of the outspoken Mr Jacobs and proved the perfect fit for a company plagued by a history of instability at the highest levels of management. Business-like, low-key, he repaired critical relationships with the junket operators that control the VIP trade, solidified Sands China as the industry’s mass-market gaming leader, oversaw the completion of the Sands Cotai Central complex and repositioned the flagship Venetian Macao as the center of big-time entertainment in the city with a strategic mix of popular Chinese performers, international headliners and touring companies and world-class boxing.
He’s leaving, however, in the midst of perhaps the most challenging period the market has ever faced. Pummeled by an intensive central government crackdown on high-level corruption, illicit capital flows and transit visa abuses, gaming revenues citywide fell year on year in 2014 for the first time since the modern Macau was born with the opening of LVS’ Sands Macao in 2004. The stocks of the six casino concessions have shed tens of billions of value over the last 12 months, and analysts see few clears signs of when a recovery will take hold.
His departure also is the latest in a series of high-level departures both at the local and corporate levels. Mr Tracy’s No. 2, Chief Operating Officer David Sisk, abruptly resigned last September and has not been replaced. Hugh Fraser, who headed casino operations across the four Macau properties, left not long before, as did Andrew Billany, who resigned as senior vice president of the company’s Plaza Casino to join local rival SJM Holdings. Mr Fraser moved to Australia to become general manager of gambling operations at Echo Entertainment’s The Star in Sydney.
In July, Ken Kay resigned as chief financial officer of parent LVS. LVS also lost its second in command with the retirement of Michael Leven at the end of last year. A veteran hotelier and trusted advisor to Mr Adelson, Mr Leven had been chief operating officer since 2009.
