Las Vegas Sands Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS) reported third-quarter financial results on Wednesday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

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Access the full call at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/171901993

Summary

Las Vegas Sands reported softer high-end market performance in both Singapore and Macau, impacting financial results despite strong EBITDA generation at Marina Bay Sands and Sands China.

The company remains confident in its long-term strategy, focusing on premium travel and entertainment experiences, with significant investments in Singapore and Macau, including new developments and renovations.

Las Vegas Sands repurchased $950 million in stock during the quarter and announced a 20% increase in its quarterly dividend, reinforcing its commitment to shareholder returns.

Despite macroeconomic uncertainties and temporary setbacks, management remains optimistic about future growth, driven by economic trends in Asia and ongoing strategic investments.

Operational highlights include significant market share growth in Macau’s mass gaming segment and continued investment in service enhancements to support future growth.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Good day everyone and welcome to the Las Vegas Sands third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are placed on a listen-only mode and we’ll open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to hand the floor over to your host, Mr. Daniel Briggs, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, the floor is yours.

Daniel Briggs (Senior Vice President Investor Relations)

Thank you. Joining the call today are Patrick Dumont, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Wilford Long, Executive Vice Chairman of Sands China, and Grant Chum, CEO and President of Sands China and EVP of Asia Operations. Today’s conference call will contain forward-looking statements. We will be making those statements under the safe harbor provision of federal securities laws. The language on forward-looking statements included in our press release also applies to our comments made on the call today.

The company’s actual results may differ materially from the results reflected in those forward-looking statements. In addition, we will discuss non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations 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 and A session, we ask those with interest to please post one question and one follow-up so we might allow everyone with interest the opportunity to participate.

This presentation is being recorded. I’ll now turn the call over to Patrick.

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Dan. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining the call. I wanted to start with a few summary points. We remain confident in our long-term strategy in both Singapore and Macau and we’ll continue to invest for future growth. We have a long-term view on economic growth in Asia. We believe the trends of economic growth and wealth creation will continue into the future. Our goal is to position our property portfolio to capitalize on the growing demand of premium travel and world-class entertainment experiences in Asia.

We are fortunate to have the balance sheet and cash flow strength to support our meaningful capital investment program. According to our quarterly results, the high end was softer in both of our markets this quarter, which negatively impacted our reported financial results. Despite this, we delivered strong financial results at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, generating an EBITDA of $590 million for the quarter. If we had held as expected in our rolling play, our EBITDA would have been $4 million higher, or $594 million.

Singapore remains an ideal market for high-value tourism. Our focus on creating unique and memorable entertainment and hospitality experience for our customers continues to generate industry-leading financial performance. We believe that growth in tourism in Singapore will continue over the long term. Our financial results continue to reflect the elevation of Marina Bay Sands’ structural earnings power following our significant product investments, suite renovations, service enhancements and the execution of our premium customer strategy.

Looking further ahead, we remain enthusiastic about the additional growth opportunities presented by our new development project in Singapore, which will be directly adjacent to Marina Bay Sands. It will meaningfully increase our premium suite capacity, service and entertainment offerings and will include the introduction of a state-of-the-art arena envisioned to be the finest in Asia. We remain on track with the development process and look forward to opening our new development in early 2031, subject to the required government approvals.

Let’s turn to Macau. We delivered $529 million of EBITDA for the quarter. If we had held as expected in our rolling play, our EBITDA would have been $11 million lower, or $518 million. Sands China’s growth in gaming revenues and volumes meaningfully outperformed the Macau market overall. We are encouraged by our progress there. Our market share of Macau mass gaming revenue reached 26.1% for the quarter, our strongest performance since the fourth quarter of 2023.

When compared to the third quarter of 2025, we delivered growth in gaming volumes across all segments. Rolling volume was up 31% year over year, our non-rolling drop was up 11% year over year and slot/ETG handle was up 26% year over year. We believe these improvements are indicative of our progress in product and service level improvements. I would also like to highlight our approach to reinvestment in Macau has remained consistent over the last several quarters.

Our goal is to remain consistent with our reinvestment strategy going forward and to achieve greater profitability as revenues grow in the future. With respect to operating expenses, as we mentioned last quarter, we have elected over the last year to invest in additional table operating hours, increased sales, marketing and customer service personnel, and enhanced levels of customer service. We continue to believe these investments are critical to the achievement of our long-term objectives.

These objectives are providing outstanding service and hospitality to our customers and creating unique and memorable experiences. We are continuing to invest in Macau and we are focused on the highest return projects over the next three years to create the best opportunities to increase cash flow. Through our capital investment program, we are reorienting our Macau portfolio to address the most profitable segments. The renovation of The Venetian, which commenced in March, is progressing.

We expect to have The Venetian refreshed and reintroduced by Chinese New Year 2028 along with new premium-focused gaming salons and related amenities. Macau remains the largest gaming market in the world and we believe the market will grow and reach new heights in the years ahead. We retain our goal of reaching $700 million in quarterly EBITDA and more over time as we fully implement our investment and operating strategies and as the Macau market grows in the future.

Regarding our program to return capital to shareholders, we repurchased $950 million of LVS stock during the quarter. We have now repurchased 19% of the company’s outstanding shares over the last 12 quarters. We have approximately $5 billion remaining on the $6 billion repurchase authorization from our board approved in July. We believe additional repurchases of LVS equity through our share repurchase program will be meaningfully accretive to the company and its shareholders over the long term.

We also paid our recurring quarterly dividend of $0.30 per share during the quarter. In addition, our board has approved a 20% increase in our quarterly dividend to $0.36 per share beginning in the first quarter of 2027. We also purchased additional shares of SCL during the quarter. The company’s ownership percentage of SCL has reached 75.6% as of September 30, 2026. We look forward to continuing to utilize the company’s share repurchase and recurring dividend programs to increase returns to shareholders.

Thanks again for joining the call today and for your interest in the company. Now, let’s take some questions.

OPERATOR

Certainly everyone at this time will be conducting a question and answer session. If you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if you’re listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Also, we ask each participant to limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. And once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone.

Please hold while we poll for questions. Your first question is coming from Dan Pulitzer from JP Morgan. Your line is live.

Dan Pulitzer (Analyst at JP Morgan)

Hey, good afternoon everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Patrick, first off, I think in your prepared remarks you alluded to some incremental softness in Macau and Singapore, particularly at the high end of the market. Can you maybe break down how much of that, the recent step-down, you attribute to macro or cyclical factors versus any behavioral shift among that high end customer base, particularly pertaining to some of the Chinese offshore wealth tax strategies or collections?

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, so first off, I do want to point out that there was softness at the high end in both of our markets and so that was really the story for the quarter for us. I think we made a lot of strides in the things that we’re trying to improve and create better experience for our customers. But when the customers don’t show up, it’s a little problematic. I think to address your question in terms of Asia macro, there are a bunch of things going on globally that may have an impact on tourism visitation, how people think about tourism or just their spending during the quarter.

I also want to point out that the World Cup Final was July 19, so that did happen. There are many things in the global environment generally that create a lot of uncertainty in the quarter. And, you know, just when uncertainty is introduced into people’s lives and how they think about tourism, it may change their behaviors. So, you know, I can’t really point to one thing that I would tell you that was the cause. We feel pretty confident that the future will not be impacted by this.

Just knowing what our customers like to do and how frequent they show up and what we have on offer. So we feel pretty good about how we’re positioned. We also don’t base our decisions on these cycles. We have a long-term view on growth in Asia. We really believe fundamentally that the trends of economic growth and wealth creation are there and we’ll believe that they’ll continue in the future. And that’s really what we’re focused on. But this quarter was definitely aberrational in that regard.

Dan Pulitzer (Analyst at JP Morgan)

Got it, thanks. And just on Macau specifically, you’ve been through several stages of improvement in Macau, right? You improved your properties, you’ve been promoting a little bit more at a more competitive level and now you’re even investing in increasing your service. So where do you think you are in terms of the OPEX increases in Macau just given—obviously there’s concern on kind of the growth outlook for the market and kind of where you sit in the expense structure.

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks. So first off, I think we’re in early days in terms of our product repositioning and I think that’s really important. So as we get great product online and these high value customers come to our properties because of it, the service will really matter. But that will also grow our revenues, our gross gaming revenue and our EBITDA. And so just structurally we’re positioning ourselves to grow as we bring these products online which address the segment that is there and that is strong.

We just don’t have all the product that we want to address it. I will tell you that we’re making progress as evidenced by our volume growth, the drag on our EBITDA was higher expenses and the reinvestment strategy that we have, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, is consistent. So it’s really as we continue to grow revenues, we’ll gain operating leverage and we’ll see more flow through. Grant, I don’t know if you have any other comments or anything you’d like to highlight.

Grant Chum (Chief Operating Officer, Sands China Ltd.)

I think the most important point for the quarter is we’re able to gain revenue share across all segments whilst controlling the reinvestment. As Patrick referenced, we’ve remained very consistent in the reinvestment strategy. We have optimized the program significantly over the last nine months and we’ve been able to gain share partly because we’ve been able to invest back into the customer experience, both in terms of service levels as well as our event calendar.

So I think you’re seeing some of the positive progress that we’re making in that regard. With respect to operating expenses, I think we’ve talked about this before. In the last quarter we’ve been increasing our payroll as we’ve hired more gaming staff for the additional table hours as well as the sales distribution and then also the hospitality staff to enhance the service levels. We see now that this cost increase is embedded in second quarter and third quarter. And I would say that, sequentially, we are essentially flat in terms of fixed expenses, and we would expect, obviously, the payroll would inflate by the cost-of-living adjustment allowances next year.

But we don’t anticipate significant increase in headcount from this point on.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Lizzie Dove from Goldman Sachs. Your line is live.

Lizzie Dove (Analyst at Goldman Sachs)

Hi, thanks for taking the question on Singapore again. I’m wondering, in terms of your comments, has anything changed about what you see as the run-rate quarterly for this business? I know there was a period of time where it was, you know, 700 million hold-adjusted, plus or minus. Has anything changed there? And on the point of whether this is kind of temporary or changed more structurally, anything you can share in terms of cadence throughout the quarter, whether that got better post World Cup, or even anything in terms of kind of any October rebound?

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you. So, in our mind, nothing’s changed. This is a $2.7 billion to $2.8 billion run-rate property. In my mind, that’s where we’re focused. I think this quarter was operational. There are a bunch of things that happened in this quarter that we thought were unusual. And then I also feel like some of the sentiment out of the market for our highest-end players—they didn’t visit. So I think for us this is something where product is still strong, response is still strong from the customers.

We still have a view about that sort of baseline of EBITDA range that I just talked about and hopefully growing from there in the future. That’s really what we’re focused on. You know, I think there was particular softness in both July and September, just as you look across the quarter, but we feel pretty good about how we’re positioned going forward in Q4.

Lizzie Dove (Analyst at Goldman Sachs)

Got it. And then just one follow-up. Obviously a really big repurchase number this quarter that’s kind of been ramping the last few quarters. Is this kind of the new run rate, would you say, as you still kind of work through these challenges in Singapore, Macau, or how should we kind of think about any changes in terms of capital returns?

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, so first off, I just want to say that we see meaningful value in both LVS and Sands China equity, and we’re going to continue to act on this belief. So you saw that on full display this quarter. You know, we intend to continue excess cash flow to shareholders, with the repurchases representing the larger portion of our overall capital return—so, you know, more than dividends. You’ve heard us on prior calls; we’ve been focused on shrinking the share count over time.

It’s because we see meaningful value in LVS and SCL that we’re acting so strongly. You know, we see really long-term value creation in our ability to compound earnings and free cash flow growth per share just by reducing the share count, particularly at current prices. And our free cash flow and excess cash balance provide flexibility for us to opportunistically increase the amount of share repurchase based on market conditions. And that’s what we did this quarter. And so for us, you know, I think we really understand the importance of share repurchases, but we also understand the importance of maintaining our investment-grade rating, which we view as a competitive advantage.

So, as you kind of think about it, we intend to stay within what we articulated previously in terms of our gross leverage target of approximately two times to three times. But this is before the impact of any development-related debt. So when you think about share repurchases, we sort of think about it like cash on hand: How do we think about return of capital and how aggressive can we be based on the market? And you saw that this quarter.

Lizzie Dove (Analyst at Goldman Sachs)

Great, thank you.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Sean Kelly from Bank of America. Your line is live.

Sean Kelly (Analyst at Bank of America)

Hi, good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for taking my questions.

OPERATOR

Thank you.

Sean Kelly (Analyst at Bank of America)

Patrick or Grant, whoever’s right to answer this, I want to go back to Singapore for a moment and just ask. Patrick, you mentioned a couple of times behavioral changes out there. I think one thing that jumps out in the numbers is mass-market hold. The volume looks pretty good, actually, but the hold number kind of set back to levels that we haven’t seen in a couple of years. Is the behavior aberration that we’re seeing just that perhaps people are not feeling as good about the market and they’re getting up from sessions earlier or acting a little differently at the tables themselves?

Or is it more of, again, a direct traffic issue? And sort of why would that be weighing on maybe that hold figure, given that, again, the volume numbers—even the VIP volume number—wasn’t that far out of whack relative to what we’ve seen in the last quarter or two?

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, it’s an interesting thing. I will tell you, over the last couple of years, as we introduced the side bets, there was the opportunity for players to have a little more volatility, for us to hold a little bit better. I think what happened in Marina Bay Sands is we just didn’t hold well during the quarter. And if you sort of look at that, it’s very different from a year ago. And so that will impact our margin and our earnings. So that hold was meaningful.

But the good news is the door swings both ways, right? There are times, like a year ago in that quarter, where we held really strongly. And the great thing is the volumes are there, the customers are there. We had a lot of high-value patrons at our highest, highest levels just not show up this quarter at certain points and, you know, you just don’t get that revenue back. So, from our standpoint, volumes were good, we missed some customers, but the hold did impact our quarter.

But the good news is, in the future, hopefully—that’s the nature of our business. And, you know, when you have less offsetting play, the volatility on the bet size matters. And so for us, having these very high-value patrons that come in—and Marina Bay Sands, this very specialized casino with the best patrons in the world, in our view, concentrated at the high end—there’s volatility both on the mass side and on the rolling side. And if you go to page 11 in our deck, we lay out our AEC hold, our smart table hold, and you can see that volatility, and that’s driven to some extent, as we said on prior calls, by patron decisions and how they choose to wager.

But on the mass side, we just didn’t hold as well as we did in the prior year, and it did impact us for the quarter. But hopefully, in the future, we’ll continue to hold in a positive way.

Sean Kelly (Analyst at Bank of America)

Thanks for digging in on that. And just my follow-up would be, you know, maybe, Grant, your little bit longer-term perspectives on what’s happening as it relates to the offshore trust issue. I think this has been a very common topic discussed for perhaps a broader, weaker market environment. So my question to you is: Do you agree with that? Do you think this is changing behaviors over there? And, more importantly, do you think this is kind of temporary or a moment in time as it relates to once that window stops—I think is in the next day or so—that perhaps behavior normalizes a bit with some of those mainland customers?

Grant Chum (Chief Operating Officer, Sands China Ltd.)

Sean, I think in reality we’ve had many, many different policy changes, new initiatives that have, to varying degrees, impacted the Macau market to a greater or lesser extent over the years. I don’t think we can make a judgment on, you know, the specific measures that you just referenced. What we can say is that during the quarter the premium segment was a little softer, but there were also plenty of indicators—certainly in the Sands China portfolio—to indicate that the underlying demand is still very solid and very deep.

We had double-digit growth in patron count, we had high single-digit growth in property visitations, like Patrick referenced. We had very strong gaming volume growth across all segments. Of course, some of that is market share gain, but we see in our portfolio pockets of strength in all segments. This quarter we were able to capture some of the super high in the premium mass. Unfortunately, we played a little unlucky, and that affected our Londoner hold percentage and EBITDA and margin. But overall we saw good progress there. We also experienced strong mid-tier and base mass growth in the properties that are more geared towards those segments. So we’re able to significantly outgrow the market at the Parisian and the Sands Macao. And also by product segment you can see that our slot ETG segment grew 18% year over year in revenue.

That’s double the rate of the market growth of 9% in the overall Macau market. And then lastly, when you look at a weaker consumption backdrop in China, our retail tenant sales growth still achieved 10% year-on-year growth, and it was a mixture of strength in different luxury segments as well as the mass retail segments. So overall we see a lot of positives still in the underlying demand in visiting Macau and spending there. But yes, the spend per visitor—some of that has softened, particularly at the high end.

Sean Kelly (Analyst at Bank of America)

Thank you both.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Brandt Montour from Barclays. Your line is live.

Brandt Montour (Analyst at Barclays)

Hi, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. So I wanted to ask about the high end—just more, maybe more drilling in on Macau versus Singapore. You know, it’s hard for us to tell how much overlap you have between the high-end guests at Macau versus Singapore, but are you seeing any differences in behaviors between those two sets of inbound consumer players? You know, length of stay, booking lead time, sort of maybe differences in the exit rate coming out of third quarter that makes you kind of more, you know, favorable on one toward the other here?

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

So it’s a great question. Just to sort of highlight: Marina Bay Sands has a catchment area that is Southeast Asia. So, you know, if you think about who comes as luxury inbound tourists into Singapore, a lot of that is driven by Southeast Asian people who have been successful—so Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the surrounding areas, Cambodia, South Korea, and some Japan. And so the catchment area there is different from what you have in Macau, where the vast majority of visitors come from China or Hong Kong.

And so, on the super high end, there’s some back and forth, but not a whole lot of overlap. And so the sentiment was consistent in both. But we don’t know if it’s the same reason or same multitude of reasons or different reasons. We just know that we had a lot of very high-end patrons who just weren’t visiting as frequently. And so that’s what we saw this quarter in both places. I will tell you that this quarter, in our view, does not represent the true earnings power of our properties in both Marina Bay Sands in Singapore—excuse me—or in Macau.

So, you know, long term, this is something that we think is particular to this quarter, and we see strength coming out of it.

Grant Chum (Chief Operating Officer, Sands China Ltd.)

Thanks for the question. First of all, the NBA event was a tremendous success this year. It was across a number of categories, and even more successful games week than a highly successful one in 2025. We will discuss the financials of that in January. But from, I think, all of the media, the social media, and the reporting on the week, I think you can see just how successful it was for the entire city across not just the excitement of the basketball, but also the activations we had across the whole resort, in the fan zone, in the MICE events, and all of the different brand partners that came to Macau to promote their product and services in Macau.

If you talk about seasonality of fourth quarter, typically it is a relatively stronger quarter for Macau because of the October Golden Week and now also a lengthened Golden Week as a result of the NBA games week. And then typically December will also be relatively strong. So the seasonality would point to stronger third quarter and stronger fourth quarter compared to the second quarter. And then as to how this plays out in the current market conditions where we’ve had a few months of contracting overall GGR growth, that remains to be seen.

But from a pure seasonality point of view, it is going to be typically a stronger quarter.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Robin Farley from UBS. Your line is live.

Robin Farley (Analyst at UBS)

Thank you. That actually covered a lot of my questions about some of the dynamics between Macau and Singapore. I guess my only other question is, you talked about OPEX increasing staffing hours at the tables and hospitality and sales. Just given that maybe it’s unclear if, you know, if it’s not entirely clear what the factors are causing this softness, is that something you would revisit, those OPEX levels, to maybe be more in line with the trends here?

Because I think it looks like October will be kind of month number five, maybe, with year-over-year down in Macau. So just how do you think about those OPEX levels potentially needing to be adjusted? Thanks.

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

We’re actually focused on investment for growth, not on cutting our personnel that we just hired. I think we’re very excited about the future of Macau, and the way we’re sort of looking to make all this converge is we’re underway in our investment cycle to renovate and create higher value products for our patrons. But we need the people to run them. We need the team members to operate them to be successful. So we’ve hired those teams now so we can train them, get them up to speed, and make sure they’re offering seamless, flawless service and focused on our customers and in our culture in a very strong way as the time the product comes online.

And so it’s a simultaneous story of capital investment to create the products from the rooms that we have, the suites that we have, and the space that we have in Macau to a higher level to attract these higher value patrons, and at the same time train and create the opportunities for them to be in our property and have the experiences they need to come back and to spend. And so we have to do both. And so while we’re carrying this additional OpEx, we actually view this as part of the additional investment we need in the future to grow and address the most important segments that are coming to Macau today.

Robin Farley (Analyst at UBS)

Okay, great. Thank you.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Steven Grambling from Morgan Stanley. Your line is live.

Steven Grambling (Analyst at Morgan Stanley)

Thanks. Wanted to dig in on the CapEx plans a little bit, just starting with Macau. I’m curious, how has your view of what is maintenance versus growth CapEx evolved, and perhaps where you see ROI moving to and where the best returns may be had as you think about where you’re spending? And then on Singapore, kind of a related question, as we think about the $8 billion spend and the potential returns on the next project, how do you think about bookends both in terms of ultimate construction costs and returns, and what might weigh that one way or another?

Grant Chum (Chief Operating Officer, Sands China Ltd.)

Stephen, I’ll take the question on Macau CapEx. If you look at our portfolio, which we started developing from 2004 to now, our depreciation charge is somewhere in the region of 750 to 800 million. So spending around 300 million on maintenance CapEx is reasonable, and that’s reflected on slide 21 of Dan’s deck. In terms of the development CapEx, if you look at our number for 2027, there are really three key projects that we can reference. Firstly, we have the highest-ROI projects in there, which in our minds include the Venetian renovation, then as well as the Conrad renovation and rebranding into a Londoner-themed hotel. Those are the most critical projects for us if we are to continue in our product investment and innovation to capture the most important segments in the market.

Then there’s a third flagship project which is for the concession commitment, which is, as you know, we have a botanic garden project that we are looking to accelerate and bring into Macau earlier than we had previously anticipated. And we’re making good progress on design. It is going to be one of the most innovative and new tourism landmarks in Macau. So we’re very excited to bring that forward and deliver that for the city over the coming years.

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

And in regards to Singapore, I don’t think there’s a better market to deploy capital in, in scale, in our industry at the high end. So on page 29 of our deck, we laid out the MBS expansion project development costs. I do want to highlight that of the 8 billion, 2 billion is actually land premiums, and in effect you can amortize over time, but we just wanted to include everything related to development. The other thing is we’re spending a very significant amount on an arena which will be what we hope is the most important live entertainment venue in the region. It will be technologically advanced. It will have VIP areas, hospitality areas that are more akin to what you’d see at the top arenas in the U.S. versus ones that are in Asia, and that will be a differentiator. The other thing is it will be integrated and connected to all the amenities of the Marina Bay Sands program.

And so for us, the ability to use this arena not only for live entertainment and to draw tourism into Singapore, which has been evidenced by Taylor Swift and by other large performances that have occurred there, but also to use it as a MICE space and to use it for other forms of entertainment is very powerful. So when you look at the way we think about returns here, it will not only benefit the new development and the new tower we’re building, but it will also enhance the way that we draw high-value tourists into Singapore to benefit Marina Bay Sands and actually the surrounding area and the Marina Bay precinct.

So the way we think about returns is that this will be very positive. Right. If the market continues the way that it is today, and we have these conditions, we believe this will be very successful, and we believe very strongly in the future growth of high-value tourism to Singapore, because of the focus of the government there and the work that they’ve done and their continued investment and great tourism assets and connectivity to the surrounding region.

We think we’re in a great position to take advantage of the, call it, the structural benefits of being in Singapore and the long-term prospects for wealth creation in Asia and the importance of Singapore in that. And so for us, the returns we believe will be very strong. And we think that having the connectivity back to the arena from Marina Bay Sands and our MICE facility will only enhance those offerings as well.

Steven Grambling (Analyst at Morgan Stanley)

Fair enough, that’s helpful. Maybe one very quick follow-up would just be, how much of the construction costs are kind of locked in at this point, or is there some wiggle room that could happen as we look closer to the opening?

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, I think right now, I think what you’re asking is, is there inflation? Because of the current market environment, we haven’t seen it yet, but we’re monitoring it closely. So a good portion is locked in, but there’s still a lot to buy. So we’re being very thoughtful and very cautious now about the current conditions and how we look to approach some of the fit-out costs and some of the construction costs that we have to deal with.

Steven Grambling (Analyst at Morgan Stanley)

Great, thank you.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Steve Pizzella from Deutsche Bank. Your line is live.

Steve Pizzella (Analyst at Deutsche Bank)

Hey, good afternoon, and thank you for taking our questions. On reinvestment in Macau, can you talk about what you are seeing in the market from a competitive standpoint? Has that changed at all over the last couple quarters?

Grant Chum (Chief Operating Officer, Sands China Ltd.)

Thank you for the question. The market remains very competitive. That is no secret. We, on the other hand, have continued to optimize our reinvestment program. That’s been a focused strategy since the first quarter of the year, and we are achieving, sequentially, a lower level of reinvestment and capturing high market share. So we will continue in that effort. As Patrick said, we will remain consistent in our approach. We obviously have to respond if market dynamic competition and reinvestment levels change significantly.

At this point, we don’t see it. But that’s not to say the market is not competitive. It remains highly competitive, but we haven’t seen significant escalation in the reinvestment levels. And that’s why we’ve been able to do what we’re doing, which is to optimize reinvestment, maintain or reduce, and at the same time continue to gain market share.

Steve Pizzella (Analyst at Deutsche Bank)

Okay, thank you. That’s helpful. And then just staying in Macau, wondering if you would be able to help us think about what the size of the World Cup impact was the last couple quarters as we think about the normalized run rates here. Thank you.

Grant Chum (Chief Operating Officer, Sands China Ltd.)

It’s difficult to pinpoint. It’s very clear that we had a sharper decline in June and July than we did in August and September. That’s about all we can say at this point.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Peter Cipino from Wolfe Research. Your line is live.

Peter Cipino (Analyst at Wolfe Research)

Good afternoon, everybody. Question about the Venetian renovation. I’m wondering if, as that renovation has progressed, have any of the renovated rooms returned to inventory? And if so, are you seeing any early impact, especially on higher-value gaming activity?

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

I will tell you that anecdotally the response has been very strong. I’ll let Grant give some additional comments, but I think for us, credit to our design team and our development team for the high-quality work they’re doing and their ability to identify what’s advanced in the market and what the market feels is very luxurious and aspirational, because the response has been very strong, not only in this renovation, but in other renovations we’ve been doing.

So we’re very pleased about the progress of our capital investments and where our portfolio is headed in terms of esthetics, design, and aspiration. And I’ll turn it over to Grant.

Grant Chum (Chief Operating Officer, Sands China Ltd.)

It is still very early days, but Patrick is absolutely right. We’ve received very strong feedback from the customers who have experienced the new suites from a design, from a functionality. Of course, it’s actually an iconic hotel suite layout that Sheldon brought to Macau. It’s famous for its spacious layout. Everyone knows this room and that presents an exciting opportunity for us because when this is all fully upgraded and renovated and modernized, it’s going to do even better than it has been doing in the last few years.

If you look at the rooms out of inventory, we had about 400 rooms out this quarter. It will increase slightly to about 500 next quarter as we continue to renovate, including the multi-bay Paiza suites. But the initial feedback from the rooms that have come back, which is around 600, has really been, I would say, surpassed our initial expectations. And you can see also that we have been managing this renovation better in terms of customer mix and we’ve seen that sequential improvement in mass revenue at Venetian versus second quarter.

So we will continue and the team will continue to manage the rest of the program. But we are very excited at the prospect of having all of these new suites back in by early 2028.

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Paul.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Steve Wiszynski from Stifel. Your line is live.

Steve Wiszynski (Analyst at Stifel)

Yeah. Hey guys. Good afternoon. Patrick, two bigger-picture questions for you. So first of all, you talked about your balance sheet at this point, your investment-grade balance sheet giving you somewhat of an advantage relative to some of your peers. So wondering with where overall gaming valuations currently are, which obviously is somewhat depressed, maybe give us your updated thoughts in terms of your appetite for M&A at this point.

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

I think we’re really interested in buying more of our company. I think we have great assets. We’re in the two best markets. We feel really strongly about the future of the Asian economic growth and wealth creation story. And so our share repurchases are focused on owning more of the great Las Vegas Sands assets that Sheldon built for us. You know, we’ve been blessed with these assets that are in very privileged markets, very special markets with unbelievable catchment areas and just a huge amount of investment going on around them.

And it’s creating economic growth. So for us, I think we’re focused on owning more of Las Vegas Sands and not really focused on M&A.

Steve Wiszynski (Analyst at Stifel)

Gotcha. And then, Patrick, I think the answer is going to be no to this. But, you know, as you look at Macau today and where visitation levels are, spend levels are, do you think the market at this point has too much gaming capacity and is somewhat oversaturated? Or do you believe we are just essentially stuck in this bubble and the market is clearly, down the road, in a position to use the existing capacity that is currently in place.

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

So first off, I think both markets would benefit long term from more high-level hospitality capacity. I think that will only help both markets grow over time. I think when you think about Macau and you realize the number of hotel rooms that are there and you realize that its catchment area is China and Hong Kong, it feels like it’s undersupplied. So from our standpoint, it’s something where we have to focus on bringing more high-value tourists into the Macau market over time.

The higher value segments and premium customers are out there in size, but they have to have the right experience available and know that it’s there. And so it starts with great product, it starts with great service and all the range of luxury amenities that we have. So in my mind, it’s not that it’s a capacity issue, it’s that we have this great product. It needs to be globally competitive. Our high-end customers are very sophisticated. They know great hotel rooms, they know great restaurants, they know great retail, they know great entertainment. And so we have to present all of that to be competitive. And so for us, it’s not a question about capacity being too small, it’s a question about what type of capacity is there and how competitive are we globally for high-value tourists and how do we invest to ensure that those tourists choose us over anyone else whenever they think about a trip.

And for a lot of these customers, it’s pretty frequent. They’re very affluent, they travel a lot, they enjoy what Macau has, they love what Singapore has. And for us, it’s about making sure we capture their attention and we capture their tourism dollars. And for me, it’s not really a supply issue because all of the supply in Macau is not the same. All the supply in Singapore is not the same.

Steve Wiszynski (Analyst at Stifel)

Understood. Appreciate the color. Thank you.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Your next question is coming from David Katz from Jefferies. Your line is live.

David Katz (Analyst at Jefferies)

Afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I know hypotheticals are not always the favorite choice. But listening to the commentary about buybacks and where the stock is currently trading and the lack of recognition for the future, is there any thought in the future to not having a public stock given the strength of your balance sheet and the ability to do that and still fund your business, et cetera? Could we ever be in a world like that?

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

I don’t know how to answer that question other than we’re going to keep buying back shares. I don’t think there’s any interest at this time to take the company private. It’s not something that we talk about. In my mind, this is a company with a lot of growth potential. We’re happy to have public equity. We think it’s the right way to go. We think it allows the public markets to ride along with us as we grow and create success over time. And we’re very happy with it.

I think from our standpoint, the market is looking at us a certain way today. And we’re very happy to have a repurchase program to take advantage of the share prices where they are today. And we’ll continue shrinking our share count, shareholder value. That’s kind of what we’re focused on.

David Katz (Analyst at Jefferies)

Appreciate you addressing it. And as my follow-up quickly, just going back to Singapore, I think you mentioned some of the elements that impacted the quarter being World Cup, a little bit of hold. Could you just go back and walk us through? Because I think earlier on you said several issues were impacting Singapore. And how are you seeing the competitive landscape? Right? I mean, you have one really, you know, what are you seeing from your competitor in that market?

Thank you.

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

So maybe I’ll answer the questions in reverse. I think Marina Bay Sands competes with every great tourism destination in Asia. The people that come to Marina Bay Sands and come to Singapore can go anywhere, right? They’re affluent. There are flights all over Asia. They’re choosing Marina Bay Sands because of the experience we provide. We compete with everybody. So, when you think about luxury, high-value tourism experiences, there’s a lot of different places you can go.

So the reason why we keep investing and the reason we’re so focused on service, on high-quality amenities, great retail, great food and beverage, great entertainment, is because we have to out-compete everybody. We have to get everyone’s attention and we have to make sure they want to come back and we have to do that every time they visit. So for us, we don’t think about a single competitor in our market outside of our market directly, it’s everybody. We’re competing with everyone all the time. And the way we win is with the investments that we’ve made and that we will keep making. That’s why we’re so focused on upgrading the facilities we have there all the time. That’s why we’re so focused on IR2 by adding the arena, by having entertainment as a component of what we can offer, by increasing our MICE program.

We’re constantly remixing our retail. We’re constantly reinventing our food and beverage offerings. All of these things are designed to captivate the attention of our highest-value tourists and the people who come to our building. So that’s kind of how we think about our positioning within Singapore and, to be fair, across Asia, I think. Sorry, what was the other question?

David Katz (Analyst at Jefferies)

So with respect to Singapore in the quarter, you said several things. Talk about World Cup, talk about holding. Walk us through that list.

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

Oh, sure, yeah. Sorry about that. Yeah. I’ll just go back to sort of the points that we made previously. We just had less visitation from our highest-value patrons. That was the primary driver. You can attribute it to World Cup. You can attribute it to some of the other things that are out there that I’m sure everyone reads. We can’t tell you which one it is. We just know that our highest-value patrons visited less. And to be fair, we did experience some low hold.

David Katz (Analyst at Jefferies)

Thank you.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Trey Bowers from Wells Fargo. Your line is live.

Trey Bowers (Analyst at Wells Fargo)

Hey guys, I sound like a broken record on this, but wondering if you could just comment on the promotional intensity in Macau and if you’re seeing any kind of opening up. And if not, if it’s still very heavy promotions, what kind of breaks that cycle as we go forward? Thanks.

Grant Chum (Chief Operating Officer, Sands China Ltd.)

I think we talked about that just a moment ago. The market remains very competitive. We see no let-up in the reinvestment intensity. However, we also don’t see any major escalation and that’s allowed us to optimize our reinvestment levels. And whilst doing that, we’re still gaining market share and we will continue to do that. We will, of course, respond if we need to, if that level of competitiveness changes in either direction. As to what actually will help the market to moderate the levels of reinvestment, it’s primarily going to be a function of market revenue growth. But we do see that there are some indicators where different operators will be looking to fine-tune their reinvestment levels even in the current market condition because the profit margin of the industry is simply not where it was. So in a nutshell, nothing has really changed in the competitive intensity.

We continue to gain share and optimize reinvestment. If revenues make a big comeback in recovery levels, then we should see the reinvestment levels moderate naturally.

Trey Bowers (Analyst at Wells Fargo)

Great. And then as a follow-up, just one more on Singapore. I think earlier, Patrick, when you responded to the question about the investment, you kind of highlighted, one, you’re building out a lot of space for your highest-value customers, and I would think that’s the tower. And then, two, you’re building out things like the arena that would maybe appeal to that more mass table play, the non-rolling chip volume. One, is that kind of the right way to think about it?

And then, two, just in terms of that incremental tower appealing to that high-value customer, it would seem like if you’re experiencing a quarter like you just did, where sometimes those customers just don’t show up, maybe help us understand why you need that excess capacity. Is that there’s incremental customers out there that you just need to entice to the property with something new and more exciting? Or I’ll stop there, just help us kind of bridge that divide between those two competing directions.

Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

So really appreciate the question. Our highest tiers of customers have been growing both in Singapore and in Macau. And they’re younger and they’re people we’ve never seen before. There’s been a lot of wealth creation in Asia over the last five years. And a lot of the people who are creating this wealth want to experience travel, want to experience tourism, want to experience hospitality at the highest level. They want to experience great things and they’re coming to us.

And our problem is, particularly during peak periods, we don’t have enough capacity. And we see that today, never mind four years from now when this thing opens. And so our goal is to really create the best hotel that’s ever been created. We hope it’s the best hotel in the world. We’ve benchmarked against a lot of high-end properties, including our own. And our goal is to create something that includes wellness, that has a residential feel and that feels very special and very unique in terms of its approach, in terms of its service levels that will allow us to have more of these high value customers show up more frequently.

If you remember when we opened the renovation in ’25, in early ’25, we took our suite count up from 132 to about 770. And that allowed us to have this step function growth in earnings because we were able to accommodate these high value patrons in a way that we never did before. They are out there and now we’ll have more of that capacity. And so in a quarter like this, as I said before, I believe this was operational. We had people who didn’t show up. But the good news is they’re out there and we have great products, we have great services. And now with this tower coming online in a little under five years, we will have the ability to have more of them in the building with more unique experiences and take advantage of the growth and wealth creation in Asia and the experiences that these wealthy people want to have.

And I will tell you that that arena is going to be very special because if you look at the amount of entertainment tourism that Singapore does today and the capacity of hotel rooms around us and the great infrastructure to travel from all around Southeast Asia into Singapore, we feel that being able to program that arena will be a very powerful tourism driver and a very powerful MICE space. And the good news is depending on stage configuration, it’s got about 15,000 seats.

If the stage is really big, it’ll have a little bit less, but that’s the idea. And so we’ll be able to put our highest value patrons in there in very special VIP areas, we’ll be able to have local Singaporeans have an unbelievable music experience and everyone in between, including our mass customers that show up. And so we’re very excited about that as an asset that will help create high value tourism visitation not only to our property but also to Singapore.

OPERATOR

Appreciate the caller, thank you. Thank you. Your next question is coming from Timothy Chao from Citigroup. Your line is live.

Timothy Chao (Analyst at Citigroup)

Thank you management so much for taking my question. My first question is about the actually the mass hold rate because I see that especially for Londoner and also Marina Bay Sands, the mass hold rate seems unusually… No, I understand that management doesn’t really adjust for the mass segment for the hold rate. I’m just wondering if this, will you say this is actually mostly luck driven? Are we seeing shocks in both state players?

Grant Chum (Chief Operating Officer, Sands China Ltd.)

Thanks for the question. For Macau, yes, the lower hold we experienced at the Londoner was primarily due to playing unlucky at the super high end segment of the premium mass. And to be fair, in Marina Bay Sands we also experienced some negative luck factor within the non-rolling drop.

Timothy Chao (Analyst at Citigroup)

Thank you so much for the color. And the other thing is about the China’s offshore tax feature and overall tightening of outbound investments and the impact on both Macau or Singapore. I believe management has already touched on this topic a little bit earlier, but just trying to get more color from you if I may. Do you think the hit we are seeing now is something structural or temporary, that we still hopeful that the gaming appetite from Chinese players will recover soon?

Thank you.

Grant Chum (Chief Operating Officer, Sands China Ltd.)

We don’t have any specific comment on the tax issue. There is a confluence of many macro factors that are converging that can impact the demand levels. But I think as Patrick has referenced very well, there’s a huge amount of demand creation through the wealth creation and growth over the past several years and that will continue and that will positively impact both markets. We’re very confident of that and that’s why we continue to make the investments we’re making in the product uplift as well as the infrastructure and the service levels of our business.

So we continue that strategy and we are very confident that the demand cycle will come through in our favor over time.

Timothy Chao (Analyst at Citigroup)

Thank you so much for the color.

Daniel Briggs (Senior Vice President Investor Relations)

Thank you.

OPERATOR

Thank you. That completes our Q and A session, everyone. This concludes today’s event. You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

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