Las Vegas Sands Corp.

Thank you for holding. We look forward to talking with you.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the SANS first quarter 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only note. We will open the floor for your questions and comments following the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Daniel Briggs, Senior Vice President of Invest Relations at SANS. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Paul. Joining the call today are Rob Goldstein, our Chairman and CEO, Patrick Dumont, our President and Chief Operating Officer, Dr. Wilfrid Wong, Executive Vice Chairman of SANS China, and Grant Chumme, CEO and President of SANS China and EVP of Asia operation. Today's conference call will contain four looking statements. We will be making those statements under the safe harbor provision of federal security laws. A language on four looking statements included in our press release in AK filings also applies to our comments made on the call today. The company's action results will be different materially from the results reflected in those four looking statements. In addition, we will discuss non-GAAP measures. Reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP financial measure are included in our press release. We have posted an earnings presentation on our website. We will refer to that presentation during the call, finally, for the Q&A session. We ask those with interest to please post one question and one follow-up question so we might allow everyone with interest the opportunity to participate. This presentation is being recorded. I'll now turn the call over to Ron.

Okay, thank you, Dan. Let's begin with Macau. This is a competitive market. It does not prove as we anticipated. However, we have the strongest assets in the market. We can perform better despite the challenging macro environment. But London is now fully open this time. 2,405 study rooms and suites as we prepare for bold week in May. Now that we've completed development projects, we expect this asset to elevate our performance. Our focus is on improving our revenue cashflow across the portfolio. There is opportunity in every segment to show strong results. Our business strategy remains unchanged. We have designed our capital investment programs to ensure we will lead in both Macau and Singapore. We delivered $535 million EBITDA for the quarter in Macau. SEL still continues to lead the market in gaining and non-gaining revenue in EBITDA. We have meaningful opportunities to grow in every segment. Our objective is to grow our share of EBITDA in the market. We have a unique product advantage in terms of scale, quality, and diversity of product offers. Turning to Maria Bay Sands in Singapore, we delivered a record quarter of $605 million in adjusted property EBITDA, an extraordinary achievement by any standard. I assume this is record EBITDA quarter for any gaining property in the world. Pretty extraordinary performance. Masking, we thought we had reached $778 million reflecting 73% growth in the first quarter of 2019 and 13% growth for one quarter a year ago. The results of NBS reflect the positive impact of our gaining investment program in the growth of high-value tourism. The growing appeal of Singapore as a destination is enhanced by the robust entertainment and lifestyle calendar. We believe there is a considerable runway for growth there as well. Again, thanks for joining the call. We'll turn the call over to Patrick before you go to Q&A. Patrick. Thanks,

Rob. Macau EBITDA was $535 million. If we had held it expected in our rolling program, our EBITDA would have been higher by 10 million. When adjusted for lower than expected hold in the rolling segment, our EBITDA margin for the Macau portfolio of properties would have been 31.6%, down 280 basis points compared to the first quarter of 2024. All 2,405 rooms and suites at the Lundner Grand are now available for the upcoming May Golden Week. Now that the refurbishment process is completed, we are focused on delivering revenue and cashflow growth at the Lundner. Margin at the Venetian was 35.3%, while margin at the Plaza and Four Seasons was 35.6%. We expect margin improvement as revenue grows, and we use our scale and product advantages to better address every market segment. As the Lundner ramps up and is integrated into our Cotai offerings, our competitive position will be stronger than ever. We look forward to utilizing our entire portfolio to grow revenue and EBITDA. Now turning to Singapore. MBS's EBITDA was 605 million at a margin of 52%. Given the mix of games and demonstrated player preferences over the last two years, we have updated our expectation for hold on rolling play at Marina Bay Sands to 3.7%. There will naturally be fluctuations in any specific quarter given by game mix and player preference. We will continue to provide the illustrative impact of hold on our rolling play in Singapore. The record financial results at Marina Bay Sands reflect the impact of high quality investment in market leading product and growth in high value tourism. We believe we are still in the early stages of realizing the benefits of our investments in Marina Bay Sands. Turning to our program to return capital to shareholders, we repurchase 450 million of LBS stock during the quarter. We also paid our recurring quarterly dividend of 25 cents per share. Before going on to Q&A, I'd like to provide an update on the New York development opportunity. We strongly believe in the development opportunity for land-based downstate casino license in New York. We also continue to believe that the Nassau Coliseum site is the best location for that development opportunity and should be highly competitive in the New York casino licensing process. However, as we have previously stated, the company remains concerned about the impact of potential legalization of iGaming on the overall market opportunity and project returns. We are in the process of attempting to secure an agreement with a third party to whom we can transact the opportunity to bid for a casino license on the Nassau Coliseum site. This would include those that may be able to address both land-based and digital markets in New York. For Las Vegas Sands, we believe the highest and best use of our capital in the near term is to purchase LBS and SCL shares. Accordingly, LBS has decided not to bid for a casino license in New York. We believe repurchases of LBS equity through our share repurchase program will be meaningfully accretive to the company and its shareholders over the long-term. Our board has increased our share repurchase authorization to $2 billion. We look forward to continuing to utilize the company's share repurchase program to increase returns to shareholders in the future. Thanks again for joining the call today. Now let's take questions.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. The floor is now open for questions. If you would like to enter the queue to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. If listening on speakerphone today, please pick up your handset to provide optimum sound quality. Also, we ask each participant to limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please hold a moment while we poll for questions. And the first question today is coming from Carlo Santarelli from Deutsche Bank. Carlo, your line is live.

Yeah, hey, thanks, everybody. Rob Patrick, thanks for your comments. As anyone could kind of see when you look at, you know, the evaluation of the Hong Kong listing and what it implies basically for the corporate and Singapore, one understands kind of the willingness and desire to kind of repurchase shares. As you do think about the two entities, though, and the various repurchases across both, and your stake in the Hong Kong listing specifically, how are you guys kind of balancing the way you more or less go about those allocations right now?

So I appreciate the question. You've heard us say it on prior calls. We see meaningful value in both LVS and SCL equity, and we're going to continue to act with this belief. So we were active during the quarter at LVS. I think our goal is to really be active in both SCL and LVS equity and continue to march towards that 74.9, and you'll see us do that. I think on the LVS side, you know, we think the valuation where our stock is currently is very attractive for us. We're going to be aggressive in the way that we buy back shares than we have done previously. So we view it as an opportunity, and we're going to continue to be active in the share repurchase market for both SCL and LVS.

Great, thanks. And then if I could, just a quick follow up. Obviously, the decision to raise the theoretical on the VIP side in Marina Bay Sands makes sense relative to the history here over the last two years. As you look at, however, on the mass side, hold was up nicely, and I know it's always tough to kind of guesstimate what handle would have been in a normalized hold environment and how to think about all of that. But when you look at kind of the impact, the higher hold year over year on the mass side, mass table side specifically had on MBS, is there any way you guys could maybe outline how you think about the potential EBITDAB benefit that stemmed from that?

The problem is, it doesn't matter high end or mass, the problem is it tends to want the customers back. And that's always been the reason why they just start talking about smart tables. It enables you to actually know and not guess whether it's 3, 4, 3, 6, 4, 1. It tells you specifically. I think that's the advantage we're going to have in both Macau and Singapore in the future. And again, it's a composition of bets. It really doesn't matter if it's pretty mass or base mass. The customer bets, I call them profits, but the lesser, the more available bets the house is going to drive the whole percentage. It's a very, for years people discussed this and guess what handle, the whole percentage, and false drop, et cetera. This takes the guesswork out of it, it makes it actually not the Mac and perfect. And that's our goal is to have that information across both

products, in both jurisdictions in

the future.

I think the most important thing here is that, while MBS obviously is impacted by old, our rolling program, really the outperformer at Marina Bay Sands has been the mass segment. I think that really has been the story of Marina Bay Sands. I think our rolling business has improved in a meaningful way, but when you look at Marina Bay Sands and the investments that have been made there, it's really to attract high value tourists on the mass side. And our premium mass and mass segment there has outperformed to an extraordinary level. And we think there's room to grow now that our renovation is complete. So I think it's an important story to talk about how we see the uptake of these side bets and how it has moved our hold over time. I think our team there has done great work developing game types and innovating so that we can benefit from player preferences and these more aggressive bets. But at the same time, it's really a mass driven story based on the investment and the non-gaming amenities that are driving visitation and high value tourism. That's why you see the EBITDA that we have today.

So Rob Patrick, then is it fair, if you look at last year, kind of the mass table hold was right around 20.1%. It had been kind of 18 and 19 in the prior years. Based on the theoretical that you guys are seeing with the information that you have to be able to do so, is 20 more like that normalized level on a go forward basis on the mass side?

I don't know. You can't know. Again, the difference is it's like sports betting. You read about the sports betting companies. When they have flat bets, if one team wins the other, the whole percentage is relatively weak. When they make side bets, it soars. And I think the same is happening here. The mass tends to bet more on the profits and is more advantageous. And that's my point is that if for 20, 30 years I've been doing this, people have been guessing what's the right open, it's 3.6, it's 2.4. The beauty of this whole thing is we'll know math and math be perfect based on the best they make. And we take the table drop out of it and then from the false drop in the handle, it comes down to it basically becomes a slot machine. You'll know exactly what this number should be. And I think we are seeing though across the industry is the development of side bets has been very valuable. And since we're the biggest stock provide in the world, so this company is very valuable that will impact EBITDA in the future because the more best they make in these side bets, the more they grow the whole percentage. Bob right here used to be a very big team house at two, six, two, seven, because the flat bets were predominant. Today, the fact is growing at three, seven, because they're at a four is hugely valuable for EBITDA. And again, it will be very clear within the next year, the exact mathematical number. You won't be guessing more and say, it's gonna be this though, it's gonna range it, right? Guess three, eight, up to 4%. But again, as these best proliferate and people choose to make these side bets, I think Bakra becomes more and more valuable to this company because it's our

principal sources

of

revenue. And we should just caution everyone that with player preference and game mix, these percentages will move around.

Yes.

And with that side. So we just have to be aware that this is the best that we can do in terms of providing information. And we're gonna continue to be optimistic about the types of gains we put on the floor in terms of growth they can provide. And we'll see what they do. But one thing that's good to know is that differences

are happening every day and these gains are very valuable for industry, very valuable for us. And it's happening and getting better by the day. And the more these bets continue to become more important, the more EBITDA will grow. I think it's gonna happen both in Singapore and I think it'll happen in Macau as well.

Thank you both very much.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Steven Grambling from Morgan Stanley. Steven, your line of life.

Hey, thank you. I think you mentioned that there's an effort to activate the properties and see revenue in EBITDA ramp from here as the Londoner project has generally come to completion. It looks like there's some moving parts across the different properties. So I'm curious if there's any thought process on some of the ones that maybe have lagged in terms of how you will reinvigorate growth there, whether it's Venetian or others, or is it just really a question of as the Londoner is kind of fully up and running, you'll see everything collect.

Yeah, thank you, Steven. I'll take that question. I think overall, yes, the focus will be ramping up the new product at Londoner brand. As Rob mentioned, we now have the 2,400 rooms and suites in full service and you'll see us leveraging the asset, the new product to drive our customer growth and obviously eventually for revenues and EBITDA. But the ramp up will take its course over the next 12 months. We're still at the early stages of it. We just got the full complement of the rooms in mid-April. As for the other properties, our intention is to maintain and grow each of the existing properties while Londoner is ramped up. So you'll see us focus across Venetian, Grecian, Four Seasons, and Sands, across all of the product segments and price points. But yes, the driver of our customer growth will be the Londoner over the next six to 12 months. And does

the initial read and what you're seeing there change the way you think about capex and allocating capital across the different properties or is there any kind of renovations that you see in the future at some of the other properties?

You know, I have to tell you, I think Macau is the greatest gaming market in the world. If you look at its size and you look at the potential and where its source markets are, the long term potential there is absolutely incredible. And so we love our ability to invest there. We love the scale nature of our portfolio, the number of amenities that we have and the quality of those amenities and now the high quality of our entire property portfolio. We think we're in a great position and we're gonna continue to invest to maintain that position, but also for growth because we think the opportunity is there long-term.

I think we will continue, Stephen, with regular upgrade and renovation of our existing assets. That's a given, given we have 33 million square feet of asset portfolio across Macau. But the major redevelopment and upgrading at the Londoner is largely complete. We'll have a few more amenities to add and restaurants. But from here on in, you should expect, yes, we will continue to reinvest back into the asset base because we need to upgrade and keep up with the competition, but it will be regular renovation where we'll be taking modest amount of keys out at any one time. And you'll see that over every year, every quarter, over the next several years as we upgrade the existing portfolio. Helpful, thank you. I'll

jump back in the queue.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Robin Farley from UBS. Robin, your line is live.

Thanks. I just wanted to circle back to the ramp-up you mentioned for the Londoner. You did mention that it may take 12 months. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about, do you think that your market share results in Q1, did the new Londoner rooms contribute to that, or would you say not really, like that's not really indicative of where you think your market share can go? And I guess I don't know if you can give a little more color around what would happen over the next 12 months or why it would take 12 months. I know you'll have, of course, very easy comparisons to the disruption in Q2 and Q3 last year, but that maybe is a little bit longer of a ramp-up period than maybe people would have expected.

Thanks. I have to tell you, this is what we spent a lot of time talking about. And we're very focused on growing our business in Macau. Unfortunately, we had 2,405 keys that we really wanted to be available. It took a little while to get them. So during the quarter, we didn't have full access to all the inventory we normally would have to bring to bear. So I think when you think about it, 1,700 keys that we were out, or 1,600 keys we were out in average over the quarter is equivalent to not having a property available in your portfolio. And so I think now that it's back and we have the full strength of our portfolio, we're gonna press very hard to continue to grow this business, recapture share, recapture EBITDA share, and grow revenue, which will expand our margin. But we have some work to do. I think that's very clear to us. We know it, we acknowledge it, and there's some things we wanna focus on in Macau to improve our outlook and grow our business.

Yeah, Robin, I think that the reference to the 12 months is simply that in any new property of this scale, we are going to get better and better over time. That's really the point of that comment. In terms of the market share, yes. I think our results were impacted by the fact that we lost market share, both against the prior year and sequentially. And we are looking with the new assets coming online, we are looking to be competing harder for the revenues in a flat market. And we fully intend to compete with the Londoner, but also you can see some of our results in the other properties. We're looking to improve performance at Venetian, as well as the other existing properties. So I think it's going to be a comprehensive effort to reactivate, engage new customer growth, as well as to fully leverage the new property in Londoner Grand.

Thank you. And maybe just as a follow-up, Mikhail has talked about kind of wanting to review the non-gaming investments and efforts of the concessionaires. Do you have a sense of what they would like to see more of or what may have changed recently, or they would be looking for more of going forward?

Thanks. I'll give my view and maybe Wilfrid can also chime in here in terms of the policy direction. For us, we are continuing to focus on what we've committed to the government in terms of non-gaming investments. And clearly we've already made a significant investment in upgrading the Venetian arena at a cost of around 200 million US dollars that was completed last year. That's our single biggest project that we've completed for the concession commitment. And of course, in terms of programming, in terms of developing sports and mega events with strong international IP, we'll bring the NBA pre-season games this October, which will be a multi-year partnership. Wilfrid, do you want to add to how things are evolving in terms of the direction on non-gaming investments?

Sure. I think the new administration now has had time to look at the overall picture of the non-gaming development. And they are, as long as we maintain our total commitment, they are looking to us to specialize in areas where we each do best, because they feel that maybe it's better that rather than six of us all working on similar areas, maybe there are emphasis that each of us can focus on. So there will be opportunities for us to discuss with the government how we do best in some of the areas. And the second area is that we, because of the GGR reaching a certain level, we are also committed to spending an additional 20% into the non-gaming investment. And the government is really looking into how best to coordinate the use of these proceeds.

Great, thank you. Thank you. The next question will be from Sean Kelly from Bank of America. Sean, your line is live.

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. You know, one big picture one, and then sort of one micro one, if I could. On the big picture side, just, you know, Rob or Grant, your high level view here on just, has the market dynamic in Macau, you know, changed at all as it relates to the balance between premium mass and the competition there versus base mass? I mean, as I think about it, you know, LVS has always succeeded, you know, I think really well when the market's been extremely full, but we've seen the visitation recover now and sort of both segments are struggling a little bit. And so I'm just kind of curious on the balance and sort of, are you, you know, pivoting strategy at all to kind of lean into, you know, particularly the premium segment, if that's the healthier one right now?

Sure, I think your opposition is correct. It's a, our scale and size played to our advantage for years and it was a huge advantage for us. And that's more difficult to think right. And it's more competitive in a segment. There's no more longer a free segment or easy business Macau. It's very competitive. But in the end, I think our assets give us a, I think that we've really handicapped this, this one of the things taken so long, it's so difficult. Now we have all these rooms back open again, we can service the base mass, premium mass. We've done well at the premium mass. We haven't done as well at the base mass, nor has the market provided opportunity to base mass. But your observations are spot on. We were the leaders and the margin leaders as well in that base mass segment, which is much more difficult today. And that's been the conundrum of Macau for us. I think now though, it's a new day. London is open. It's extraordinary, both in terms of scale and quality. I think it introduces all kinds of opportunities for us to maximize that asset and grow again and get back in the game. We're disappointed by results in every segment. We can do better. We plan to do better. But I think your observations unfortunately make that market is highly competitive. It's base mass, premium mass. There is no easy segment anymore in Macau, right?

Yeah, Sean, I think to add to the visitation question, although you do see this strong visitation growth and recovery, you can see also from slide 20 of Dan's deck, the visitation, especially this quarter, has been driven by the day trippers from Guangdong province because they've introduced a couple of new multiple entry visas to Zhuhai and Hengjin. And the non-Guangdong visitation is still only a recovery rate of about 75%. So clearly the overnight visitation, the customers are gonna spend more coming from further away. That's still lagging. But to Rob's point, the base mass is, the opportunity there has been more challenging for us. And therefore we are also competing for the revenues in premium mass, given a very competitive context in that segment, but that is the strongest segment. You're absolutely right in that observation. But we will continue to drive both premium mass and base mass, especially with the full inventory online now.

Great, thanks. And just as I follow up, this sort of alludes to, I think a comment that Patrick made in the prepare remarks about sort of expecting margin improvement as revenue grows. Just, I think as we did our math and this is high level, so could be off a little bit, but Macau OPEX, we had up roughly 7% across the properties this quarter. And we kind of curious, is that like the right run rate or are there things you can do to match cost to revenue? Again, maybe this was somewhat inflated by reopening of London or maybe the reopening of the arena in the Venetian, I'm not sure exactly, but felt like it was a little, that being up relative to kind of where revenues came in was a bit of a kind of a double issue for you.

Again, your observation is right. The main contributors, just additional payroll costs that we incurred, both because of our salary increases, but also additional headcount as we opened up these new assets. But at the same time, obviously we had a revenue decline in a non-rolling segment. We actually did well in the slot and also rolling, but the most important segment of revenue is the non-rolling tables. And we came down in that segment. So that's where you get that negative operating leverage. So hopefully we should be seeing the reverse of that over time as we compete with the new assets and the existing properties for the customers and the revenues. And as revenues improve, we should see the positive operating leverage even with the payroll cost increase.

Thank

you so

much.

Thank you. The next question will be from a Brand Montour from Parkleys Branch, Carolina's Life.

Great, thanks everybody. Thanks for taking my question. So I'm curious, and I know you guys don't give a guidance or a comprehensive forward look at the business, but there's been some commentary from the government, from other sources that there's a pretty decent momentum into Golden Week in May. I'm just curious if April and or the Golden Week bookings that you see feel better than normal, normal or worse than normal, or how would you characterize what you're seeing out there?

I appreciate the question, but we don't talk about it for a quarter. So I wanna move on to your next question.

Okay, fair enough. Sure, so next question would be on the Venetian. I'm curious, I understand we talked about the owner a lot here, and we kind of can see what's going on a little bit with the sequential share losses there because you didn't have the rooms. And so it's a tough environment for base mask. But what about the Venetian? You know, is there something, can you kind of walk us through the, maybe the monthly results in that property or how things evolve throughout the quarter? And if that was sort of affected at all by other things in the portfolio and optimization changes that you've made.

I think it's straightforward, Brian. I mean, Venetian, we just had two sharper decline in non-rolling revenues, especially in the premium mass segment. And we're addressing that. Obviously the whole percentage against both prior year and quarter on quarter was actually much lower as well. But nonetheless, we're focused on driving the customer and revenues across all segments of Venetian, premium mass and base mass. It's fair to say it's as well patronized, as well populated in terms of headcount as ever. In fact, we had quite significant growth in non-rolling table headcount during the quarter, both over the prior year and sequentially, but clearly the spend per headcount was lower. And so we do need to drive to secure higher value customers in the premium mass segment to grow the revenues back at the nation.

Great, thanks everyone.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Joe Stave from Susquehanna. Joe, your line is live.

Thank you, Patrick, Rob, Grant. Two questions on NBFs, please. I guess the first one, is there any way to assess, I guess, the level of consumer adoption, especially for the mass customer for prop bets? Naturally, kind of given the higher guidance that you have on VIP that the adoption rate is higher, but I was just wondering how you guys think about it.

I think it's very difficult. Are you saying how can you handicap people's willingness to bet a certain way? I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. No,

more like, I guess, the frequency of a mass customer to bet on props versus that of the VIP. Obviously, different bet sizes, but just the frequency between the two groups.

I don't think you can actually ever say 100% how people are gonna bet a certain way, but I do think the lower end customer tends to be, it's like lottery tickets, it tends to bet more, it's a lesser customer, I think, on the prop bets, and your large bettors, your more rolling and super high end tend to be more flat bettors, but that's not always true. That can reverse as well. And I think the truth is no one can predict this, but what you are seeing a little in the market is they are adopting or moving towards these prop bets in a way which I never thought we'd see these. Think about a whole percentage moving an entire point. It wasn't that long ago, 285 was the standard, but now Patrick mentioned 37, it could be 41. The truth is they are adopting these bets every day, both in the base mass, premium mass, and rolling segments. How much we keep moving after, I don't know, I can't predict that. I can tell you we've got the ability now, we're competent with the new machinery and our smart tables to tell you what it should be exactly, and you'll be able to tell for yourself. But I think people, a propensity of bet is very hard to figure out. Some people are dying to go bank bettors or player bettors, and some love prop bets. I don't think you can pigeonhole any one segment how they're gonna bet. We have people at the super high end who bet props like crazy, and it's hard to imagine they're that kind of money, and others who are dying to go flat bettors. And that's always been the case in gambling. You can't reassess how someone's gonna bet until they step up the table. Although people sometimes do see these bets and how we merchandise them, we very important future of our business to merchandise these bets in a way we get people to bet more in different directions. Flat betting definitely helped our company's hold percentage for the industry. But I think we're in a new world here in Baccarat, and it's an astounding new world. We're lucky to have it, because imagine a point and a half more of hold, what that does to this company's revenues and EBITDA. It's astounding. And we're seeing in Singapore, and I think you'll see in Macau as well over time. But you can't really get any capital excessive. You can't merchandise it better so people see it and have the ability to at least gravitate towards it.

Understood. And you also have more

games. As you all say, we also have people who spend their time thinking about developing these new games and how you do that, how you find new profits to make and make things more interesting and then merchandise it to the customer. So we're actively trying to do that. It's a very big part of our push towards better hold percentage.

Understood. And maybe a follow up on just the renovations in Tower3. You know, what, I guess very briefly, are you still on time to finish roughly in June and what, just take an inventory of what are the big items still that need to be completed?

So Tower3 is done. But the key thing is there's some things we're gonna be doing in the lobby on the Skypark over the next six to nine months. But as a lodging capacity, we're there. The

rooms are not public

space. Yeah, the rooms are good. It's the public space that we're gonna continue to work on throughout the year. But the rooms are there. And you're gonna start seeing the benefit of those rooms in the upcoming quarters. Okay,

thanks

guys. Thank you.

Thank you. The next question will be from George Choi from Citigroup. George, your line is live.

Thank you very much for taking my question. Now, obviously the introduction of the new CyBest was done in Macau only in the middle of last year. I just wonder how popular are these new CyBest in Macau thus far and how does it compare to Singapore? Is there any chance that you could also raise the theoretical whole way in Macau in less than two years time?

Hey, George. Actually, in terms of introducing new CyWages, we had one set of introduction in Q2 of last year and the other latest one in October last year. So progressively you're seeing strong take up of all of these new Wages. Obviously Macau is somewhat behind Singapore as a market. Some of these Wages were introduced a lot earlier before Macau. So we're only beginning to see the adoption, but the adoption I would say is strong. But at this stage, yes, in Singapore, we do see a higher propensity to wager these CyWages, but Macau is growing and over time, who knows? As Rob says, you can't predict the precise distribution. All we know is that the propensity is increasing.

I think with time, George, the two markets have become very similar. I believe that long-term, very similar, there's a whole percentage. Thanks for the color. You know before we know, but it's a little bit more important to know. You're ahead of us, George. You know this already, right?

Thanks for those kind words. And that question for me is on dividends. So we all appreciate the recent dividend assumption that stands China. Should we expect the pay ratio to be maintained at around 50% level? And I guess more importantly, should we expect an increase in the dividends of LVS as a result from the stands China dividend assumption?

So first off, in the honor of Sheldon Gialis, I'd like to say, yeah, you did it. I think that's very important here, very applicable. I think the key thing here is we're very happy that the SCO board determines you'll be able to start paying a dividend again at the stands China level. And we hope to be able to grow that dividend over time as our capex rolls off there. And as we generate more cash flow through revenue and EBITDA growth. So we're very excited about the opportunity to continue to return a capital at the SCO level and to grow that dividend into the future. I think at the LVS level, what you've seen us do in years past is really be very dividend heavy. And I think what you're seeing now is you sort of look at our return of capital, which is actually laid out on page 33 of our book. You can kind of see that our ratio from share repurchase to dividends has been very weighted towards share repurchases. And if you sort of review our prior commentary in this call, you'll see that we're very focused on returning capital through share repurchases, both at the LVS level and through the acquisition of further SCL shares. So while we don't necessarily target a specific dividend payout ratio, we do think where we are is healthy and sustainable for the longterm, for longterm dividend growth. And as SCL continues to grow dividend over time, as we hope, we'll have the ability to return more capital at the LVS level.

Thank you very much, I'll come back to you. Thank you. The next question will be from Colin Manfield from CBRE. Colin, your line is live.

Hey everybody, thanks for taking my question. Maybe the first one, can you give a little bit of color around what drove the decision to repay the parent loan from SANS China back to the parent? Just given, we talked about that in the past, it was a pretty attractive cost of capital relative to where your current spreads are. So just kind of curious, what influenced that decision and how should we think about future ability to dividend cash out of Macau, was that part of the decision too?

I think the idea was that decision was made at the SCL board level, but the general concept was SCL is performing in a strong way and as growth opportunities, its leverage level is quite low. And I think for SCL was just negative carry, it was accumulating cash, and why not pay down some prepayable debt since they no longer needed it, as SCL has access to the investment grade credit market, if there's any reason to create an opportunity for further borrowings. So I think with access to the revolving credit facility that it had, its current capital structure, its leverage levels, and the amount of cash that it was generating, it just made sense for SCL to pay back and get rid of some negative carry.

Okay, that's helpful, Carlos. Thanks, Patrick. Maybe second one for you, maybe, just thinking about capital markets activity coming up with your upcoming refinancing, both at the hold-co level and also SANS China. You guys are a seasoned investment grade issuer. How are you guys thinking about the timing, potentially tapping the capital markets? Would you potentially lean on the revolver since you have capacity and liquidity there too? Just how are you thinking about that?

So I think you'll see us address the 500 million of LVS bonds in 2025 in the near term. And I think we have an approach for that that we're very comfortable with. In regards to the SCL bonds, the billion 625 that comes due, we did actually, through the revolver refinancing there, we also initiated a term loan that we have the ability to draw on that amount. So if we choose to access the high grade credit markets, we have that opportunity, or we may put it into the term loan, which is also very favorable and offers a lot of flexibility. So we have an approach to both of those maturities in 2025.

Great, thanks for the color, guys. Thanks for letting me get on, thanks.

Appreciate it. Thank you. The next question is coming from Steve Wachinski from Steeful. Steve, your line is live.

Yeah, hey guys, good afternoon. So a bigger picture question that, I'm not even sure you're gonna have an answer or not, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. Rob, clearly there's a lot of uncertainty around the political environments in both the US and China. And I think the fear that's out there

is

China might at some point retaliate against US companies or something along the lines. And that's where a lot of investors head on these days. So I guess the question is, is that something, Rob, that kind of keeps you awake at night, or do you view your relationship with China in very, very good standing at this point, and that risk seems more low, if that makes sense?

First of all, I think we are not in mainland China. We're in the South, I say, I think there is a difference. Number one, I do think Macau is a different orientation, basically Beijing. Secondly, to your point, I think we have an incredible relationship with Beijing, and we've worked on it for many, many years, and it's very important to us. We're a big believer in the relationship between China and the US, we're very disheartened about what's happening right now, hopefully we can get back on track. But it doesn't keep me up at night at all. In fact, I think we're in a very good position at Macau. We've been the leader in CapEx, we've been the leader in developing non-gating assets, Sheldon has a legacy which stands well. I don't believe this, right now, this dislocation in countries is sustainable. There has to be a deal between the two most powerful countries in the world. I remain steadfast, my belief is come back to a much more normal, rational place quickly, they have to, and I'm hoping that happens sooner than I anticipate. But no, it doesn't keep any of us up at night. We feel very committed to Macau and vice versa. It's been a very special relationship in this company, and it began 20 plus years ago, and Sheldon first went there and made that pitch for KOTA. I think the Chinese are, they've been incredible partners, the government Macau, people in Beijing, we're grateful for their support over the years, and we do believe we'll be there for many years to come beyond the concession. And no, it doesn't keep me up at night at all. I would like to see a stronger relationship in the US and China tonight, because we all need it. Consumers need it, they need it, we need it. It's good for the world. And I'm very disheartened by this thing, but hopefully it gets resolved quickly. But no, we're not concerned at all about our position in Macau, nor should we be.

Okay, that's great color, appreciate that, Rob. And the second question real quickly, there have been some reports out there that the Singapore government wants to get probably a little bit more aggressive with driving visitation into their country moving forward. And obviously that should benefit NBS over time. So I guess the question is, have you guys thought about that more in terms of what obviously increased visitation could do to, you've always kind of given some longer term projections of what NBS could look like from an EBITDA perspective over time. And has this kind of changed your view around that at all?

So first off, I think Singapore is an unbelievable market for high value tourism. And Singapore has been very focused on creating opportunities for high value tourism for many years and investing behind that thesis. In airports, infrastructure and other things that create attractions to help create prominence and desirability to visit Singapore. And so I think for us, it benefits us, but we're also investing with this thesis. So if you look at how we invest, the amenities that we're creating, the way we're positioning ourselves, the way other non-gaming operators are positioning their tourism offerings, it's really a special place. I think for us, it's very motivating and we're very excited to continue to invest there and expand our offerings there. It's a very rare place. Singapore is rarefied air. And it's very special who goes to Singapore, the consumption habits. If you look at the retail consumption, including beverage consumption, the gaming play, the lodging consumption, it's really unique. And I think it's driven because of the overall goal of the government of Singapore, which is to create the opportunity for high value tourism. And so we've been benefiting from it for the last 15 years. And the Singapore government has been great in terms of investing in the assets to drive tourism. And we've been investing behind that.

I have to say though, as much as Singapore is a wonderful place, our asset is a wonderful asset within that place. And we've created our own very special place within the great state of Singapore. I think what we've done there is extraordinary and it attracts those people because there's nothing like it in the region. There's nothing that special. It's very seductive, the rooms, the product, we've created is amazing. And it's enhancing the poor and vice versa. So going back to the vision of Singapore government is amazing. Our vision is pretty good too, to build what we've built over there. Okay,

thanks guys. Really appreciate it. That's great color. Thank you.

Thank you. The next question will be from Ben Chacon from Mizzouho. Ben, your line is live.

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. First in NBS, great margin results and strong mass performance. Would you just remind us, would you say that 1Q25 had a difficult comparison year over year from the, it was a large concert in the prior year as well as the easing of the China visitation policy, which I believe was also in the prior year or was this a pretty clean comparison year over year and one follow up? Thanks. Well,

first off, I think

both

quarters were

awesome.

Yeah. That makes sense. So it's a tough comp, but as a practical matter, this was a totally normal quarter. So I would say that there wasn't anything extraordinary that happened in the quarter. This is pretty indicative of the performance of the business without any sort of anything that's out of the ordinary. Wasn't

Taylor Swift there?

And I think the key thing here is we really have been able to put the entire asset to work, which is something we haven't been able to do for a while because of all the construction activities. So we're really getting close to being able to see this thing really get to the point where it's not experiencing any interruption due to development work. And I think the key thing is this quarter was very normal. To your point, last year's quarter did have the Taylor Swift concert, did have a lot of other things going on that created very strong demand and very strong visitation. This quarter didn't. And so we were very fortunate that we had the results that we did. Credit to the team, they did phenomenal work. As Rob just referenced, the building's in phenomenal shape. We think it's the best building in the world. And we're really proud of what we've accomplished, but you can see the results from the activities there.

That's very helpful. And yeah, great, great result there. And then switching to Macau, maybe just touching on the sequential market share in Macau again, fully recognizing that you had rooms out of service in one queue, but also acknowledging that rooms out of service in four queues as well. I guess it's the interpretation just from some of the previous commentary that it's harder for you to leverage the current type of gameplay or player in Macau as it stands.

I think sequentially our room counts moved up marginally. So we're about 8,900 for Q4 and 91 or 9,200 in Q1. I think in terms of the London, the Grand Ramp-Up, that was really a very soft ramp for Q1 because we didn't have all of the rooms. And therefore it didn't make sense for us to operate as many gaming units in the London, the Grand Casino for the first quarter. But from now on, from April, you will see obviously us in full ramp-up mode. So I'm not sure if that answers your question, but is there something else that you're asking that we haven't addressed? No, that's fine, I appreciate it, thanks.

Thank you, thanks man.

Thank you. And the final question today will be coming from David Katz from Jeffreys. David, your line is live.

Thank you very much. Appreciate you working me in. I just wanna go back to some of the earlier commentary and questions because I heard the word, competition and competitive market in Macau quite a bit. Having been there not all that long ago and heard a lot of the on the ground commentary about more of a benign promotional environment. Are you suggesting that we might start to see that change as part of the Londoner ramp-up? When you use the word competition, what do you mean by that?

You mean competition, people are fighting for the various segments that's across the board. I'm not sure what you mean by benign, like that David, because I don't see it as benign. There was a time when FaceMask was benign and they'd sell in the door and no one gave me anything. Those days are gone, so I think it is our competitive. Again, our asset base is the best in class and scale and size. So I think we'll do better, but I think it'd be foolish to think that a non-growing market with a top-line friendship is not expected to be competitive and that reflects everyone's business, not just ours. So I'm not saying it's outsized or the facility competition, but it's competition, Grant.

Yeah, I don't have to add to that, Rob's comment. I think it's always been very, very competitive. I think we've just got to look at the competitive context, use the new assets that we have and the advantages of scale and the product that we have to really compete harder to get more revenue and customer growth. That's all we're saying. I think the market has been very competitive. I don't think there's been any significant deterioration in that, but we've also got to reflect and see where our position is within that context. And with all of the new rooms online, we fully intend to compete hard to get more revenue.

Well, there's a reduced liquidity obviously from 2019, reduced top-line results. So in any market where you're streaming by six, eight, $10 billion, you're gonna see more competition if the existing dollars are there and you're seeing that in the count. I'm not saying we can't compete, I think we can compete well, but I think it'd be foolish not to recognize that base mass, premium mass, rolling every segment in the cows under pressure in terms of getting your fair share.

Right, and if I can just follow that up, one of the observations is, and I think some of the earlier questions were to this end, is that the premium mass arena seems to be getting quite a bit more crowded. Part of my question was, are you planning to get more promotional? And I think that's what the word benign is really attached to, whether operators start becoming more promotional in how they compete.

I'm not sure, I think in terms of promotional, you have to look at it in different ways. I mean, firstly, we're going to aggressively deploy new assets, I think that's first and foremost. We have the largest scale in terms of the product, slide and product, and we need to drive that as hard as we can to maximize that scale advantage across all product types and across all price points. That's the second piece. In terms of marketing activities, there's always gonna be tactical promotions that the operator does. I think we're just going to be very active in engaging existing and new customers and reactivating all customers with the full inventory that we're going to have at our disposal. And we're gonna drive that very hard because we intend to gain customers and gain revenues. Thanks

very much.

Thank you. Thank you. This does conclude today's Q&A session and it does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation.