My first trip to Hong Kong was a success. Not only did I get the obligatory gifts for the kids (they liked them!), but I got to hear and meet a lot of people during the 21st annual Hotel Investment Conference Asia Pacific. It was a great conference that oozed optimism.
One of the executives I heard speak was Sheldon Adelson, the chairman of Las Vegas Sands Corporation. I never had the pleasure previously and he lived up to my expectations.
Adelson arrived in Hong Kong Thursday to receive the conference’s Innovation Award. The venerable gaming icon used one of his fleet of wide-body jets to swoop in to the InterContinental Hong Kong. His wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson, and hotel industry icon Mike Leven, the president and COO at LVS, joined Adelson.
At times, Adelson left the 700 attendees in stitches with his quick wit. At other times, he left them wondering if he was serious.
One of the topics he addressed was possibly changing the name of Las Vegas Sands. He said an argument one of his people gave against doing so was that LVS easily rolls off the tongue, but he gave the impression he is seriously considering changing the name nonetheless.
“Sands International, Sands Resorts, whatever. I’ll bring it up at the next board meeting,” he said.
Adelson said LVS’ stock price (US$38.59 at closing Wednesday) is 50% back to where he wants it. “I want to get back to where my stock was at its highest when I went public in ’04,” he said. LVS’s IPO was priced at US$29 per share in December 2004 and shot up to as high as US$138.93 in late 2007.
Hot market in Asia
Adelson joked (I think!) he would consider moving his company’s headquarters to Asia in reference to a comment that fellow casino mogul Steve Wynn made earlier this year. “We’re really an Asian company with some small holdings in the States,” he said.
Adelson said there’s no trick up his sleeve when it comes to the company’s good performance.
“The trick up my sleeve? It’s called continuing doing what you’re doing, and it seems to be doing OK,” he said.
Adelson said Asia is ripe for more casino-resort destinations. “There’s room for five Las Vegases, each with 150,000 rooms,” he said. “You could put a whole Las Vegas in Japan, two or three in China and one in Thailand and one in Vietnam.
“The Asian propensity to play … it’s insatiable. I don’t think there could be enough money … to absorb the demand in my lifetime, and if I take the youngest person here, I’d say their lifetime.”
LVS has a property in Macau and one in Singapore. The Marina Bay Sands property in Singapore (which is run by Tom Arasi, a former top-level exec with Bass Hotels and Resorts (now IHG) and president and CEO of Lodgian when it had more than 100 properties in its portfolio) took home HICAP’s Reggie Shiu Development of the Year award.
“Macau has an unending stream of visitation from mainland (China),” Adelson said. “Singapore is the Switzerland of Asia. People come to visit their money.”
He said 70,000 to 75,000 visitors a day are visiting the company’s Venetian Macau and 25,000 people a day stop by the billion-dollar Marina Bay Sands.
“Just remember, a billion doesn’t buy what it used to,” Adelson quipped. “I would love every country in the world to be like Singapore.
“… The financial tsunami slowed us down, but we finished Singapore,” he said, adding the recession cost him US$1 billion. “People come there saying I want one of those (the Marina Bay Sands).”
Adelson’s best point came when he sidestepped the ridicule he received for opening new destinations to gaming. “Supply begets demand and demand begets supply,” he said. “People don’t get that there was never 39 million people that stood up and yelled out we want Bugsy Siegel to build the first property on what would be called the (Las Vegas) Strip.”
He beamed with pride when he talked about how LVS takes care of its employees, including an employee concierge, a menu to decide their healthcare plan and onsite daycare facilities.
And finally, Adelson gave a great piece of advice for anyone looking to further their careers: “Just go to someone in your business and ask them if they were to rewrite the rules of your business, what would they change, then change them,” he said. “That’s how it works.”
All in all, it was interesting to hear Adelson’s take on things. It’s too bad I had to go to Hong Kong to hear it, but based on that and the fantastic trip to nearby Lamma Island with the Horwath HTL crew, I’ll be back.
