Casino operator Sands ‘will emerge strong’

“I have never seen anything like it in my 70 years in business,” said Sheldon Adelson, chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands, talking of the Covid-19 pandemic.

He was commenting on the group’s first quarter results that took a heavy hit from the virus at its venues across Nevada, Macau and Singapore. Adelson said that despite the hit on the company’s income, Las Vegas Sands had a balance sheet strength sufficient to enable it to emerge from the pandemic “with all our promising future growth opportunities fully intact.”

Net revenue in the first quarter of the year was $1.78bn, down 51.1 per cent. Operating income fell 94.3 per cent to $55m. There was a net loss of $51m compared with a net income of $744m in the same period of last year. EBITDA was $437m, down 69.9 per cent.