Afternoon. My name is Tia and I will be the conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Las Vegas Sands Corp. 1st Quarter 2013 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.
After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Thank you. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Daniel Briggs, Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.
Thank you. Before I turn the call over to Mr. Abelson, let me remind you that today's conference call will contain forward looking statements that we are making under the Safe Harbor provisions and federal securities laws. The company's actual results could differ materially from the anticipated results from these forward looking statements. Please see today's press release under the caption forward looking statements for a discussion of risks that may affect our results.
In addition, we may discuss adjusted net income, adjusted operating earnings per share, adjusted property EBITDA, hold adjusted adjusted property EBITDA and hold adjusted adjusted diluted earnings per share, which are non GAAP measures. A definition and a reconciliation of each of these measures to the most comparable GAAP set of items are included in the press release. Please note that this presentation is being recorded. We also want to inform you that we have posted supplementary earnings materials on our Investor Relations website. For your use with that, let me please introduce our Chairman, Mr.
Sheldon G. Abbe.
Thanks, Dan. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We look forward to answering your questions in just a few minutes. We're obviously pleased with the all time record quarterly financial results. Those results reflect strong revenue and cash flow growth.
And as I've mentioned in our previous calls, the continued execution of our 4 strategic objectives to maximize shareholder value. I'd like to provide a focus report on those objectives now. 1, maximize organic growth from our property portfolio 2, deliver additional growth by making new investments in our current markets to enhance growth 3, identify new IR development opportunities in geographic areas outside of our current margins and 4, this is a good one, increase the return of capital to shareholders. 1st, organic growth. I will highlight our all time record performance in Galle,
where our
industry leading investments and the unrivaled scale of our properties have again enabled us to deliver robust market leading growth in the world's largest and most profitable gaming market. Our mass table win in Macau for the quarter was up a whopping 63.2 percent to a record USD 863,000,000 and $9,000,000,000 of capital investments in Macau were targeted toward and designed to serve the mass segment from the very beginning and have allowed us to lead the Macau market and EBITDA generations since we entered the market way back in 2004. Our market leading hotel, retail, convention, group meeting and entertainment offerings It will allow us to continue to lead the McConnell market in both revenues for mass gaming and in EBITDA generation for the foreseeable future. Also impressive is our rolling growth in Macao, which was up 24.9% this quarter to a record US41 $1,000,000,000 That represents VIP market share 17.4% of Macao market rolling volume compared to just 12.6% 1 year ago. That's a 38% increase in market share of rolling volume.
Sands Cotai Central continues its steady ramp with both the mass table and slot businesses reflecting meaningful growth this quarter. We welcome a record 14,000,000 visits to our Macao properties in the quarter. If you annualize that, that means we are bringing in almost 2 visits for every official visit to Macao. So if you get approximately 60,000,000 if we get 60,000,000 visits in our properties, that means that we're getting 2 visits for East assuming 28,000,000 to 30,000,000 visitors to Macau. So each Macau visit is because is we're experiencing 2 visits.
A fully enclosed pedestrian walkway with escalators and moving sidewalks has successfully interconnected our protest bid properties, enabling customers to more comfortably move between our properties and allowing them to enjoy the full array of amenities on offer throughout our entire Cogastric property portfolio. That means you can go between almost 9,000 rooms without stepping outside. It's probably the only pedestrian bridge with moving sidewalks and air conditioning anyway. The interconnection of our properties is contributing to enhanced financial performance today. And as the hotel inventory of Sands Cotai Central becomes more productive and our Cotai strip offerings continue to evolve that interconnectivity should contribute meaningfully to our financials.
Now we're turning to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. Organic growth was again on display in our results. The record US18.2 billion dollars enrollment volume was up over 42% compared to last year and was the highest quarterly volume in the history of the Singapore market. If we had held 2.85% against that rolling volume, we would have produced EBITDA of $451,000,000 this quarter at Marina Bay Sands. That is the strongest total adjusted performance in the history of the property.
Organic growth was also on display in our mass table win, which was up 7% as growth from visitors to Singapore continued to expand. Growth was also on display in our hotel revenues, which were up 10% and our retail revenues, which expanded 7%. Let's turn to strategic objective number 2, development growth in our current markets. The Parisian Macau, our 4th integrated resort property in the Cotai Strip and our 5th in Macau overall is now under construction. The Parisian will add another interconnected integrated resort property to our portfolio of the Cotextra.
The piling construction is now underway and the podium and hotel towers substructure work will commence shortly. Based on our current construction schedule and subject to timely government approvals, we are still targeting the opening of the Parisian for late 2015. We've also submitted plans to the Macau government for the development of a 2,000,000 square foot tropical garden retail mall just south of Sands Cotai Center on the east side of the Cotai Strip. The mall would feature over 900,000 square feet of value oriented destination shopping and dining, targeted specifically at the mass market business in Brazil. We commend the Macau government for the way they have encouraged the growth in the mass market and encourage the development of mass market targeted non gaming amenities such as our proposed Tropical Garden Retail Mall.
Moving on to strategic objective number 3, a development of integrated results in new markets and geographies. As you all know, we are committed to identifying new development opportunities in Asia and work in that region. We have also been investigating opportunities in other parts of the world. As we have previously discussed, in December of last year, the government of the region of Madrid passed legislation that outlined the regulatory framework to enable integrated resource development in Madrid. There are a variety of steps left in development process, which continues to move along.
Any investment would be subject to the receipt of government approvals and the finalization of the grants and incentive funding that would enable investment as well as success in competitive tender process. As the company's largest shareholder, my interest are aligned with yours. I have a vested interest in pursuing only the highest value projects that will maximize shareholder returns. Now to strategic objective number 4, return of capital to shareholders. We have now returned $4,000,000,000 of cash to our shareholders through dividends over the last 5 quarters including nearly 3,400,000,000 dollars from our Vegas Sands shareholders and nearly $600,000,000 to the non LVS shareholders of Sands China.
It is gratified that we have now built our businesses and expanded their cash flows to the degree that we are able to return such substantial sums to shareholders, while retaining both a strong balance sheet and sufficient liquidity to fund future growth opportunities. We have every intention of increasing the recurring dividend at both Las Vegas Sands and Sands China in the quarters ahead as our business and cash flows continue to consistently grow. We will also consider seriously consider other avenues to return capital to shareholders in the future, including special dividends and the implementation of a stock repurchase program. Before moving to your questions, I wanted to again highlight that our retail mall business in Asia continues to grow. We expect that growth to continue this year and to accelerate in the future as we remerchandise the bonds in both Macao and Singapore.
The eventual sale of monetization of those assets will provide enhanced financial flexibility, including the potential to increase the return of capital to shareholders in the future. With our outstanding strategic positioning and strong operating momentum and the disciplined experienced leadership team we have in place to execute our strategy, I couldn't be more optimistic about the future. Yay, return of capital. With that, let me turn the call over to Mike to begin the Q and A.
Thank you, Sheldon. Good afternoon, everybody. Operator, may we please have the first question?
Yes, sir.
While the operator is popping the questions, let me just ask everyone to keep your questions to one question and one follow-up to allow everybody to have an opportunity to participate in. Thanks.
The first question will come from Joe Greff with JPMorgan.
Good afternoon, everybody. A question for all of you, maybe specifically for Rob. Singapore mass tables and slot volumes per day showed a nice sequential and year to year uptick. I know you've been talking about getting the mass position correctly. Can you talk about what the drivers were for that performance and whether it's the new hires that you put in that market, whether you're marketing differently with the health of the overall market?
What specifically are you doing and how sustainable is that?
Yes, Joe. As you know, Singapore, that's the best quarter we've had. It measures up to the Q1 of the previous year. We're back to a run rate of 4.6. The answer is twofold.
On the slot segment, we continue to show weakness and that's because slots are primarily driven by the local market, which has not recovered. On the table side, we're growing again and that's because of the programs in place both to accelerate new customers to the building and also reactivate missing database. So we're seeing a tale of 2 stories there. I think it's so we'll continue to see table growth. We're hoping to see more growth in the slot side as well.
But clearly, we're back in a positive place in Singapore, the most important segment, the non rolling and slot and ETG segment. And we're seeing some results that come out of the database reactivation of the database. Clearly, we're seeing new customers as well. So we're happy to see it. We hope it continues and the team is adding people by the day.
We should be at 20 hires by the end of the year. And I think we'll see real growth in that segment in the quarters ahead.
Excellent. And then as my follow-up, Dan. Sheldon, would love to get your thoughts and recent views on some of the goings on in Japan with respect to IR legislation. How real does it feel now some of the fits and starts that we've seen in the past?
Mike says he wants to answer that question.
Joe, the thank you, Sheldon. There's a lot of noise about Japan about 100 people in the legislature wanting to get legislation as early as November. The most recent conversations we've had was that looks like when it might appear. As of this morning, there was another article that said that if the legislation passes, it's a 1 to 2 year process to get it ready to go. In terms of selection of those particular companies and the news has been really us and Genting as 2 of the leaders in terms of looking at that marketplace.
We hope it could move faster, but essentially Japan, it's a little more active than it has been because of the November situation. Although there's some talk there was some talk from Osaka about the possibility of moving that legislation up to the summer, but our best knowledge today from the ground is November looks like the time for the first legislation.
Great. Thank you. Good work guys.
Thank you.
The next question will come from Thomas Allen with Morgan Stanley.
Hi, guys. On San Francisco TysCentral, you continue to ramp that property. Is there anything saying that you couldn't do close to the same EBITDA as you do at The Venetian? And just on the margins, I guess they were a little lighter than we had expected. Can you talk about how those should ramp?
Thank you.
I think to answer
your question, I think it's The Venetian obviously is
the biggest performer in the market. It's ramping to $1,500,000,000 and I think that's a little bit ambitious for SEC today, this current situation. However, it does have it's a different product. You don't have the theming, the Venetian theming nor the retail component, which I think are the primary drivers of foot traffic in Venetian. Sheldon referenced on the opening remarks how important the visitation is.
The Venetian gets a disproportionate share of visitation because of theming in fact those retail and food offerings. Having said that, obviously the biggest advantage that Cotai Central has is the room product and the diversity and size of rooms. So I believe it will continue to ramp and 2 things have to happen. The miss at Cotai against The Venetian comes from primarily mass tables in all three segments, both the super premium mass, the premium mass and mass mass tables at Sands Cotai have not gotten in the kind of numbers that we do at The Venetian. They'll ramp as the rooms fill, as we get more promotion, we're aggressive on that.
But clearly, there's massive opportunity. We've grown to a number, it's respectable, but it could be a lot higher win per unit per day. The junket segment is the highest performer in our portfolio and spot ETG is getting close to Venetian numbers. It gets better and the spread gets smaller per quarter. The whole key to the Sands Cove DSSENTIAL story is going to be filling those rooms, taking advantage of that 6,000 key opportunity, the cross over bridge, etcetera.
I have every confidence that SCC is a $1,000,000,000 EBITDA property of the future. I don't know if you can ever reach the kind of numbers that Venetian is going to get to because Venetian keeps growing. It looks to me like it's going to grow 1,000,000,000 dollars 4,000,000,000 $5,000,000,000 $6,000,000 It's a phenomenal property and it hits on all cylinders. SCC, I do think is a $1,000,000,000 property and the primary driver will be that mass table segment. If we can get that thing to 11,000,000, 12,000 a day like that each of us
we'll be
at $1,000,000,000 And that's the answer in nutshell.
But Rob, there's another nutshell here. Okay. I'm the blank square who founded Hudson But I could see ahead of my business. I could see through the fog and the snow. We're spending a few bucks on what was formally expected to be a theater.
I think it's about a 40,000 square foot footprint that we're going to enlarge. We put in the premium mass has grown dramatically since we originally planned the property, Sanseco Dicentro because that was the one that we stopped if you remember in the middle of the or at the end of the financial crisis. And then we started up a couple of years later. But so there was no premium mass market identified as such to that. So we didn't leave enough room in the high mimic the ruby and the diamond categories, what we call aspirational categories before we get to positive cash and then the VIP rooms.
However, we're putting in another 80 some odd tables, pushing 100 tables. We're taking underperforming. We're not the only ones. Our competitors I'm sure are doing the same thing. They're putting their underperforming tables to better use and increased revenue.
So we're going to put in we've I've approved the expenditure. We've got the CapEx Board of Directors meeting yesterday and we're moving forward on that. And that is going to take about 10 months or so, maybe a little more in 10 or 12 months. It will be ready, I think next April.
Correct. Is it next April? Yes. So we've
got about 10, 11 months yet to go. The delay in that is that we never put in as we didn't know where we're going to put in. We never put in pilings underneath that space. So we got to get the piling machines that were normally built building and then put them get them to work and the excavation and piling machines so that it will take an extra period of time. So there is a lot of potential upside filling up the rooms, getting more mass market, creating the capacity and putting the tables to get them.
I don't know if it will get to where the Venetian is, but as he said the Venetian is a very unique property. But I think it gets to where the Venetian was before.
I agree.
And who knows what will happen over the long term.
I think Sheldon's comments are great because they reflect the we want to be in that they're great. Of course, they're great. Nothing. Right. It's an opportunity.
That's why I get the big bucks.
But I think you should realize the opportunities in the segment you referenced the super premium and premium, but also in the mass. What makes us unique at our company is that other people don't have that capacity to grow. Our mass mass tables at Venetian are just extraordinary performers. And if we can get there at STC, it's going to be some very good things ahead for that property. Okay.
And then just a quick follow-up on the mass and premium mass in Macau. One of your competitors talked about how on the mass side it was seeing more customers purchasing chips at the cage instead of at the table. Were you seeing something similar? I noticed high hold at The Venetian in the Q1. Was that kind of driving that?
Thanks.
Well, there's a moving question you raised because I think I heard the call and I think the answer is simple. Case drop is a phenomenon you're experiencing in Macau In most jurisdictions, you have cage drop. It's about 25% of our drop. And we certainly can give you those numbers as well as a part of the entire drop program. We hold about 25% to 26% since we've opened SEL, about 23%, 24% on NAS Play and MBS.
Case drops components, we're clear about that, that mostly impacts the super premium and premium mass because you can't buy renminbi back at the table. You can't cash in renminbi at the table. It's against foreign currency restrictions. You have to buy at the cage. And that's why that phenomenon happens.
Also you can't process the money easily for the small denomination. So it's a cage function to make logistically works better that way. Having said that, we're very confident that across the entire portfolio, we handle about probably this year is about $14,000,000,000 dollars 15,000,000,000 consolidated, will hold up 25%, 26% of that. So we know the whole percentage. We know where the customers buy the chips be it cage or tables, only 2 sources.
What we can't be consistent about is that customers move money between a property or a segment. Like what Steve was referencing is the difficulty is knowing which segment they're losing at and that affects that whole percent. But in the aggregate, we do know where that's at. And it's not a confusion for us nor anybody else in the marketplace. So the nice thing is as we keep growing drop, we're getting to a point where we can hold 25%, 26%, 27%, again, for what appears to be growing to a business we could see ourselves getting $4,000,000,000 of top line out of this next year.
So it's a phenomenon because of the foreign exchange situation and the size of the bills.
And we're going to I intend to continue ramping up in all properties because we're going to wake up from sleep and we're going
to crack the whip on them. Right. Good idea.
So was that
did I answer your question? Yes, that was great. Thank you. Thank you.
The next question will come from Shaun Kelley.
Hey, good afternoon, guys. I guess my first question would be maybe a little bit around the Parisian. I think in the prepared remarks, Sheldon mentioned that you're still targeting a late 2015 opening, but I noticed on the CapEx schedule, you actually brought down your target CapEx for this year. So can just give us an update on if you've broken ground, are you driving piles on the property and kind of where that I guess where the status of that project sits right now?
Well, I had a conversation with Mike Lynch ahead of development yesterday. He continues to be more and more impressive as time goes on. And Ed Cooper, who's a descendant of Cooper, Fran and Ollie, says he's related to that. He said yesterday that the piling caps, here we are on May 1 in June, we're going to start the piling caps, which is really think of it as the foundation. It's like a matte foundation like we did this Venetian here we did matte foundation in Vegas.
And that's where think of it as the foundation that's where you put the subscription. We're going to do it on a gradual basis from one end to the other. And as soon as we finish enough pilings, we're putting the pile caps on. And as soon as we finish enough pile caps, we're going to start the structure. So it's that was quite a good surprise to me yesterday.
And that's the process. And I think there are 2 different types of pile cap. There is poured concrete, pile caps like you put a big pipe in the ground, you put a lot of concrete in it. And then there is the driven piles. You've heard of driven snow, weed and driven piles.
There's no snow in that town. So they're moving along on the piles. And the date to open in 2015, I'm cracking away to try to get it done by the middle of 2015. So we're not looking at always a delay, always a delay like we've had in the past. We're looking for always a shorter period, always a shorter period.
Listen, every month we don't open is the fruits of an investment. We're losing whatever it is. We could lose $50,000,000 a month to start off with. So if we spend an extra $50,000,000 to accelerate the project, how many more months do we open faster and then we get a big return on
That's helpful. And then I guess my follow-up would be, I guess also in the prepared remarks you talked a little bit about return of capital. So I guess the question that kind of comes to mind and we get from a lot of investors, I think once you compared yourselves to Apple, and I couldn't help but notice this week that Apple did a $17,000,000,000 bond offering to help return capital to shareholders. So how do you guys think about target leverage? And would you be willing to put a timeline around kind of next steps on the return of capital initiatives?
Well, I'd like to tell you, Sean, but you're too nice to gather and have to cater if I tell you. It's a really selective disclosure. I can't be honest enough because I this is not selective disclosure in this call. We are very actively considering it. It is on the table.
We had lengthy discussion at our Board meeting about it. We have a very positive attitude to doing this. It's not we're not at the finish line yet, but we're in our final stretch.
Sean, do you think we could get $17,000,000,000 at 1.9 percent?
I'm not sure, but we can talk to our capital markets guy and get back to
you. Former bankers.
Thanks a lot. I think that we're at the point where we're discovering should we have a fixed amount for 10 years or should we have a floating amount and buy off 50% of what we fix the rigs. So if we're at that point, we're getting close to it. We lost him. We didn't have the tech question.
Next question.
The next question will come from John Oi with CLSA.
Hi, guys. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, Jim.
All right. I'll start off with in Macau, could you give us some anecdotal updates on visitation and spending trends from your customers, especially in the high end level, especially post the political transition in China in March? What have we seen? And what are you expecting in this Golden Week in May?
You're going to know the Golden Week numbers very shortly, I'm sure.
Golden week, we're not looking to silver, we're looking to gold.
I think John, one of the things we all the noise from the government doesn't seem to be impacting what's happening to us. You see that in the Q1. And I think what's happened is the numbers from Macau come out I guess every week or so. We haven't seen any impact whatsoever on any of the noise about the government. I think visitation is public.
The amount of money that each person is spending seems to be more. The rooms have helped us. I think the Cotai strip has helped everybody. So there's been no negative impact that we've seen so far this year. And I don't see what the government's been saying that has really impacted us at all.
Rob may have other details on that, but we have a big spread of market in all of our properties from the low limit to the high limit and they all seem to be getting their appropriate share of the marketplace. John, it's Rob. I think the numbers speak to themselves in terms of VIP demand or lack of demand in the marketplace. You can see that for yourself. I think our strength resides in the mass and the spot ETG market and I think those segments are growing like crazy and that coupled with the infrastructure is a very, very strong story for us.
So as we have a 1,000 tables open and 5,000 slot ETG units, I think our growth is tied for sure to the mass demand and that mass demand is staggering. As for VIP, time will tell and we'll wait and see how it plays out. But our opportunity I think is in the mass and slight EPG market short term and we'll ride the wave and see how the what the government how that works out. But we're very, very pleased with our growth in the most important segments for us in profitability.
Great. That's helpful. And if I could just ask a follow-up on Singapore. So we've seen 2 sequential quarters now where rolling chip, I believe, is above $16,000,000,000 But I can't help but noticing that it's been 4 quarters in a row where you've been holding light in Singapore. Could you give us some sense of what's actually going on in the VIP space?
Are we going to be experiencing less volatility in rolling chip? And should we at some point expect some normalization of whole? I know it's a very theoretical question, but 4 quarters in a row, what's actually happening in there?
Customers keep winning. That's our deep analysis. Now, very candidly, it's frustrating for us because the volumes are terrific. It's a mathematically driven model, isn't it? And in the end, we let people bet $1,000,000 at hand.
Some nights they get lucky, some nights we get lucky. But it's been disappointing because you normalize it and we fully believe they'll normalize. Our team has looked at it every which way you can over there. And one of these quarters or probably one of these years will hold 3.2%, 3.3%. We have absolutely no concern about that whatsoever.
We've been through this before. Last year in Las Vegas, we held abysmally during the Chinese New Year's. People said, oh my God, the Chinese people are winning and there's some capital to the games. Then we held something like 45% next quarter. So we're very pleased about our growth in Singapore.
Again, it's a very concentrated market. 1 quarter shouldn't be a predictor of the next quarter, but we're very happy with getting $18,200,000,000 is our best quarter ever. So we're very pleased about that. And we're also a complete believer in the mathematical indications in the game. So no trepidation concern whatsoever.
It will normalize and be where it should be by the end of the year.
I don't know John. This is Sheldon. I don't know whether or not our overall strategic approach to the Singapore market has an effect on it. Maybe you could figure it out. We take bets up to $1,000,000,000
Immediately. We're crazy. $1,000,000,000 No $1,000,000 Singapore
dollars Okay. The guys who have change of $1,000,000,000 we'll take that too. We that's what I say to everybody when I get solicitation calls for charities. I say, have you got change of opinion? If you do, I'll contribute.
The point is, I don't know, since nobody has ever done this Q4, nobody has ever figured out the mathematics. If we take a $1,000,000 bet, a lot of $1,000,000 bets, now certainly not everybody does it and not every better will better mean in every hand. But it may have a direct impact on the percentage. Nobody's figured that out yet.
World and 262 lifetime, John, and I think when it's all said and done, it will be over 2.8 at the end of this year or next. It's going to turn around, some always does. Las Vegas has been doing this for a long time. Las Vegas, we've been doing it for about 13 years. We hope about 25%, 26% on the high end baccarat.
I assume it's going to normalize and we'll be just fine in Singapore.
It is the most profitable building in the history of the buildings. Nobody it's not even the permits have made more money.
There was a 10 day guide they can take hold inside the tool. Anything else John?
All right. That's great. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks, Tom.
The next question will come from Felicia Hendrix with Barclays. Hi, good afternoon. Just staying on Singapore for a moment. On the VIP side, is there any way to tell what percentage of that strong role was generated by newly acquired players? And also just wondering where they're from, are they still mainly Chinese?
The majority of the business comes out of Singaporean Chinese or mainland Chinese, yes. The majority over probably 70% is mainland or Chinese people who bought a second home or PRs in Singapore. However, we're getting a lot of play out of Indonesia, some very strong business out of Indonesia and some great business out of Malaysia as well. So it's still predominantly mainland coupled with PRs out of Singapore, Felicia. Fleet.
It's where the people are, Chad.
No, I recognize that. I just know that you've been on a program to obviously grow that base of players. So just wondering if you're seeing some
loan segment. The biggest growth of new customers has been in non rolling segment. We have seen new business out of Indonesia and Mainland for sure. But again, I caution you, it's still a very concentrated market in the rolling segment. The diversification and growth as a new customer is primarily resides in the non rolling segment.
Okay. And so I guess that gets to the predictability question of just going forward in terms of still being concentrated number on the VIP side, correct?
Yes. It remains concentrated. And again, I always caution that 2018 this quarter doesn't mean 22. We did that couple of years ago and won't do it again because it's not an easy predictor. I think it's we could see a $19,000,000 quarter, but also we have $13,000,000 So Chinese New Year's Q1 always is pretty strong.
I think that's as much we can say about that.
Okay. Thanks. And then just switching gears quickly to Macau, Your growth in the mass table win yields has been impressive. And I'm sure we're going to see that continue to grow as you reconfigure the 4 seasons, you had space in San Croix. Just wondering how competitive is the market right now on the mass table side?
Are you seeing any of your competitors getting more aggressive?
I think it's competitive, obviously, in 3 segments there. Our strength resides in the pure mass, which is we have because of our table size and capacity, I think we dominate that segment. The premium mass and super premium mass are obviously very competitive. I don't think it's become unreasonable or overly incented to the point where we find it. There's still a very high margin, 38%, 39% margin business for us.
So I don't think it's unreasonable. Anytime you see a business growing like that business is growing with those ridiculous year on year comparisons, you're going to see competitive nature, very smart people in Macau working very hard. I think the Melco people, especially in Galaxy and WAN and MGM, all competing for that segment. However, we've not seen unreasonable incenting and we've not seen we still I think everyone is making a lot of money in that segment. And let's be clear, it is the growth engine in the calendar that's making large EBITDA.
So our goal is to resegment the Four Seasons getting more I mean we did $14,200 per table in the Four Seasons. We want to resegment that, get a lot more aggressive than that mass table market or I should say premium mass table market. We want to grow our business, especially the SEC. We're thrilled with the business out of Venetian, the number of tables. I mean, we could see we could want $1,000,000,000 in the future out of the amassed tables alone in The Venetian, it's extraordinary.
So and also we're pleased downtown, The Sands, we take a new approach downtown and I think to make $100,000,000 in a place that's approaching its 10th anniversary is pretty extraordinary too. But there's work ahead of us. We're not we're as happy as $10,200 per table appears to be. I believe there's material upside to this company and years ahead in Macau and the mass table segment.
Great. Thanks guys.
Sure.
The next question will come from Carlo Santarelli with Deutsche Bank.
Hey guys, good afternoon. Sheldon, obviously you outlined a couple of strategies for capital deployments in your remarks earlier, but the one thing you didn't mention and as I look through your release and for a couple of quarters in a row now, you guys have done a nice job breaking out the details of some of your Macau, obviously, the retail opportunities, etcetera. Has there been a lot of thought put into maybe some strategic decision making around them as a source of capital?
Yes, there has been. We don't fail to look at opportunities. The problem with that is we keep growing more than what we expect. We really haven't yet stabilized because we continue to enjoy robust growth. And we certainly don't want to sell if we can get 30% to 35% growth potential or what we expect to the following year.
It's just doing very well. And I'm not sure that we could ever stabilize and slow down the growth to the point where it stabilizes until we open all the retail that's there. So we have the Parisian retail. We have the Tropical Garden retail. That's Manuela Mall, which the government is very excited about because they want non gaming development is almost 3 times the size of the Parisian Mall.
So we'll have quite a bit of retail connected without leaving an air conditioned space. We just opened up, I don't know, I heard 60 more retail shops on multiple levels in Sands Cotai Central. It's still there. We can convert that almost any day that we want, but there's no reason to sell it. 1, if we don't need the money.
And 2, it continues to grow at a much greater rate than what we could expect in the shorter term after paying taxes and reinvest in the money. So we I think this I haven't added up lately, but there was $8,000,000,000 to $10,000,000,000 of profit coming out of the sale of the malls. That is a very, very, very strong corroboration of the original business model that wrapped up a long time ago. The problem with some of our competitors is somebody at Mandalay Bay tried to copy our business model on the convention based market, but they never got the retail offer now. The retail and the apartments, the retail itself could really pay the cost of our core assets of our hotel casino and convention space and entertainment.
So, no use selling when we continue to grow more than what we can reinvest the money for. That's very helpful. Thank you. You're welcome.
The next question will come from Steve Kent with Goldman Sachs.
Hi, good afternoon. I'm just looking at your slide on 18 of 41 where it says our focus in Singapore, increasing visitation to Singapore, which will drive growth at MBS and then identifying high value customers through the region and bringing them to MBS. I just want to be clear on the first point. Increasing visitation to Singapore, is that just a broad tourism initiative that you're going to embrace? And especially on the mass side, where are you seeing those customers coming from?
And are you putting your sales force into some of the East Asian countries to get that traction? But I'm just trying to understand sort of what those that focus in Singapore, what you're really trying to do? Is it mass? Is it a broad tourism push? Is it sending your own people out into some of the Southeast Asian countries to get people into your casinos?
Well, Steve, from the gaming side, it's clearly a very clear focus on the premium mass gaming customer. The goal here from our perspective is to build a team and we're building that team every day. People that went to JB, Malaysia, Indonesia, Jakarta, Tokyo, Thailand, Vietnam and find the better premium customers and bring them to MBS to gamble. It's pretty black and white. The same way that we saw that business grow terrifically from the opening of Singapore and then it fell off as the as it's been restrained by the government.
So our goal is to build that business back up and that's why we're at 4,600,000 a day and our goal is to get back to even a higher run rate. So clearly we want to go to the tourist side as opposed to the Koreans gambling and I think it's going to pay off. We hit a decent number for the quarter. We think this is growth opportunity. Our goal is to build a big sales team, which is not focused on the growing direct, but rather premium customer.
So that's definitely the direction.
The next question will come from Robin Farley with UBS. Thanks. Can you quantify the Venetian that with the PISA renovations kind of what percent of your VIP tables are kind of out of service in Q1 and maybe also in Q2 just to get a sense of that? And is that what you attribute, I guess, the spot decline to Venetia as well? Do you think that was tied into the Plaza renovations?
Ryan, can you repeat the last the second part that we lost to the second part of that question?
Sure. Just the do you think it was the disruption from the paiza renovations that also impacted things on the slot side at The Venetian as well, the declines there?
Obviously, anytime you have renovations, it doesn't help. But I still think on the Venetian even on Venetian Macau, for the quarter, we still did 3 20 win per unit per day, which I think is acceptable from our perspective. It's not we were at 3 57 the previous quarter, but we held a bit later. So we're pleased overall where the spots are at in ETGs and our entire mass table mix as well. So we're happy with that.
As far as VIP tables, obviously, we traded down a bit there in the volume. There was a disruption in terms of the renovation. To some extent, yes, but still $38,000 win per tail per day. We're happy with that. Very happy with our normalized profit, which was very, very strong.
And again, overall take on The Venetian is anytime you have renovation, there's some disruption in visitation. But overall, we just think The Venetian, again VIP tables, the rolling volume was excellent, I mean, at 38,000 win per day. Our mass tables incredibly strong with a lot of tables on the floor. The land was very good. And I think we're very pleased with the Venetian's heading.
I think Venetian's a $1,400,000,000,000 property where it's going. So yes, some disruption, but overall not material.
Okay, great. And I don't think you guys have commented about the auditor change that was announced. I wonder if you could just sort of give any color on how quickly you think you'll have onboard as a new auditor?
Yes. It's Ken. There's really not much to talk about there. It's pretty straightforward. As talked about before, no disagreements, no reportable events.
It's behind us and we're very engaged in the process of selecting a new firm. And I would think within the next 30 days or so we should be able to announce a new firm. And so
you said in the next 30 days?
Approximately.
Okay. Great. And then just lastly, is this the first write offs that you had in Singapore? I just I don't recall a previous one. I just want to add color on that.
Yes.
Okay. Any color around that or?
No. I think as we go through the kind of the typical aging in the collection process, we get to the point where some of them are uncollectible either as a bankruptcy situations or players being deceased and such. And so when we get to the end of the road where there's actually no possibility of pursuit of collection for those reasons, we end up just writing off the balance.
So was this sort of a cumulative or was it primarily just driven by one write off?
No. It would be we go through all of the accounts. And so it wouldn't have been one. It would have just been those that got to that point where we felt that there was actually no possibility. And so we just charge that amount against the reserve.
It's pretty typical in any market theme in Las Vegas, same in Macao, at some point people pass away or bankrupt and they're not going to pay you, we write that often. And I don't think it's atypical. As Singapore matures, you have more of
And those who are following along, this is on page 28 of the deck that's on our website and the number is $11,000,000 that was written off.
Right. That's the $11,000,000 I was asking. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached the end of the allotted time for the Q and A portion of today's call. Thank you for your participation.
You may now disconnect.