Good day, everyone. My name is Amanda, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Las Vegas Sands third quarter 2017 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Daniel Briggs.
Thanks, Amanda. Thank you for joining us on the call today. Joining me on the call today are Sheldon Adelson, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Rob Goldstein, our President and Chief Operating Officer, and Patrick Dumont, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before I turn the call over to Mr. Adelson, please let me remind you that today's conference call will contain forward-looking statements that we are making under the safe harbor provision of federal securities laws. The company's actual results could differ materially from the anticipated results in those forward-looking statements. We may discuss non-GAAP measures. A definition and a reconciliation of each of these measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures is included in the press release. We also want to inform you that we have posted supplementary earnings slides on our investor relations website for your use.
We may refer to those slides during the Q&A portion of the call. Finally, for those who would like to participate in the Q&A session, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question so we might allow everyone with interest to participate. Please note that this presentation is being recorded. With that, let me please introduce our chairman, Sheldon Adelson.
Thank you, Dan. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Our company delivered another huge quarter. I'm very pleased with the strong financial results. Company-wide adjusted EBITDA reached $1.21 billion, an increase of 6% over the prior year and an increase of 10% on a whole normalized basis. I don't know what the percentage is over the consensus number, but it's over. Our Macao operations produced its best quarter since quarter four 2014, with adjusted EBITDA reaching $652 million. Whole normalized EBITDA grew by 11% year-on-year. We significantly outperformed the market in both rolling and non-rolling volume growth. We delivered strong growth metrics across every segment of the business, both gaming and non-gaming. During the quarter, we grew rolling volumes by 48%, that's whopping, non-rolling volumes by 19%, mass gaming revenue by 13%, occupied room nights by 24%, and retail sales by 18%.
That was a good quarter. Overall property visitations were up 26% over the prior year. At the same time, we have successfully established The Parisian Macao as the new landmark must-see destination resort. The Parisian Macao achieved a full EBITDA of $135 million. I'm pleased to report that it has now met our targeted 40% annualized rate of return within just one year of opening. That was good, too. During the quarter, we reached a major milestone, the 10th anniversary of The Venetian Macao. When it opened in August 2007, The Venetian stood alone on Cotai. Its opening marked the first step in my vision to create the Cotai Strip. The Venetian introduced large-scale, non-gaming amenities to Macao, such as retail malls, MICE, live entertainment, and arena. These attractions are now well-established in Macao and will continue to flourish and grow.
I cannot be more proud of the fact that today, after receiving more than 280 million visitors, The Venetian Macao stands as the most visited integrated resort in Asia, if not in the world. The addition of The Parisian to our Cotai Strip portfolio takes our critical mass and diversity of offering to another level. The Parisian, together with The Venetian, Four Seasons, and Sands Cotai Central, all interconnected, is the only MICE-based integrated resort complex of this scale in the world. I'm truly grateful to the Macao government and the local community for their great support over the years in enabling us to implement this vision and strategy. I was absolutely committed then, I remain as deeply committed today, to continuing to support Macao's economic diversification and its transformation into Asia's leading business and leisure tourism destination.
It is in that same spirit of deep commitment to Macao's future development that I announce today that we will be reinvesting in excess of $1 billion in Macao over the next several years, primarily through the complete renovation and expansion of the Sands Cotai Central property. We will also strategically increase our high-end suite accommodation through the full-scale development of The Grand Suites And Four Seasons Apartment Hotel Towers. I will say much more about these investment projects in a few moments. I've always said that in this competitive market, we would build themed integrated resorts. This has worked especially well in the Macao market with The Venetian and The Parisian. The connectivity between our Cotai Strip resorts gives us another unique competitive advantage.
The rapid development in digital and social media marketing in China has been instrumental in establishing The Parisian Macao, with its iconic Eiffel Tower, as a cornerstone attraction for Chinese travelers visiting Macao. The brand recognition we have generated for The Parisian Macao on these platforms has simply been incredible. Yes, incredible. With over 4.3 billion, that's a lot, impressions as of September 30th. With The Parisian's early success and momentum now clearly established, the time is right for us to create another landmark attraction on the Cotai Strip. I'm excited to announce today that we will create a third European destination by expanding, renovating, and retheming Sands Cotai Central into The Londoner. The Londoner will have tremendous potential as a third landmark must-see destination.
The scale of the current Sands Cotai Central assets are unmatched in Macao, including over 6,000 hotel keys, a 400,000 sq ft retail mall, a 1,700-seat theater, and over 300,000 sq ft of devoted MICE space. The Londoner renovation and expansion will completely revision the property, developing another 1.7 million sq ft of space, expanding and enhancing all our offerings, hotel suites, retail mall, F&B, entertainment, and MICE. Upon its completion, The Londoner will accommodate more overnight guests than The Venetian and The Parisian combined. The Londoner will offer great potential for visitation growth as a standalone integrated resort, but will also provide synergies with The Venetian Macao and The Parisian.
Having three iconic must-see European destination resorts with a broad range of amenities will strengthen our marketing and customer service capabilities and position us to grow faster than the Macao market in every segment, on both the top line and the bottom line in the years ahead. As part of The Londoner project, we intend to fully develop the St. Regis Apartment Hotel Tower, introducing 350 luxurious St. Regis tower suites. Year-to-date, our premium mass segment has grown by 28% over the prior year. Given the structural growth we foresee in this segment over the medium and long term, we will seize this opportunity by augmenting our inventory of high-end suites. In the process, we will also stay ahead of our competition on Cotai.
The St. Regis tower suites will cater to every segment of the luxury travel market, including families, and will complement The Londoner's offerings, which will directly target the mass, leisure, and MICE markets. Our strategy to again boost our investment in Macao is testimony to our unwavering belief in the secular growth trend there. We are laser-focused on being competitive across multiple segments by offering unique attractions and enhancing our current offerings to take full advantage of the growth in this dynamic market. I am confident that these projects will provide strategic benefits for our company, and we look forward to updating you with more specifics as we reach critical milestones. There is also tremendous potential to upgrade and expand the Plaza/Four Seasons property.
We are therefore excited to announce today that we will build out the suite inventory in the Four Seasons Apartment Hotel Tower and will open a new tower at the property, the Four Seasons Tower Suites. These 295 spacious and luxurious suites will nearly double our lodging capacity at the Four Seasons. Given its central location and easy connectivity to all of our Cotai properties, our conversion of the Four Seasons Apartment Hotel to the Four Seasons Tower Suites will not only enhance our ability to grow patronage at the Four Seasons/Plaza property, but will also support patron growth at The Venetian, The Parisian, and eventually The Londoner. These three products will significantly bolster our strategic position and competitiveness across multiple segments.
Both the St. Regis Tower Suites and the Four Seasons Tower Suites will directly appeal to longer-staying families visiting Macao, a valuable customer group that will expand greatly in the years ahead. At the same time, both the time to market and incremental return on capital for these projects should be much more favorable than a standalone greenfield project. We look forward to updating you on our progress across these important strategic developments. I also want to take this opportunity to express our sympathy for all those who were affected by Typhoon Hato in late August. This was the most severe typhoon in Macao in more than 50 years. Our deepest sympathies go to the families who lost loved ones during the typhoon. The damage this typhoon inflicted on the community was serious and widespread.
I'm very proud of the efforts made by the Sands China team to take care of our customers and employees during this tragic event and its immediate aftermath, as well as the aid our team members supported to the local community in the days and weeks following the typhoon. As I announced at the end of August, Sands China and the Adelson Family Foundation have pledged $65 million to assist with longer-term relief rebuilding efforts in Macao. Providing financial resources in support of those efforts is a commitment that Sands China and the Adelson family are proud to make. Sands China is a company rooted in Macao. We will continue to strongly support the community. Moreover, we remain as committed as ever to playing the pioneering role in Macao's transformation into Asia's leading business and leisure tourism development. Sorry, leisure tourism destination.
Our decision to reinvest and develop The Londoner Macao, the St. Regis Tower Suites, and the Four Seasons Tower Suites reflects that long-term commitment to Macao and our confidence in its future. We regard it as a privilege to contribute to Macao's success in realizing its objectives of diversifying its economy, supporting the growth of local businesses, and providing meaningful career development opportunities for its citizens, including through our Sands Academy, and reaching its full potential as Asia's leading business and leisure tourism destination. Back in Las Vegas, I would like to extend my deepest sympathy to the victims of the recent tragedy in. While we are greatly saddened by this tragedy and share in the grief of all those affected, Las Vegas is a very resilient place. We have every confidence that this town will bounce back as it is already doing today and will make a full recovery.
Vegas strong. We are very proud of the massive outpouring of support from within our community and around the world to the people impacted by this horrible event. Our team members have exhibited tremendous support to those affected. We are proud of the concerted efforts and the efforts of the entire community. Now moving on to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. We did another excellent quarter at Marina Bay Sands, with EBITDA of $442 million, an increase of 13% over the prior year. The quarter was marked by particularly strong performance in the VIP gaming segment, where rolling volumes grew by 30% year-over-year. Our retail model also continues to outperform the broader Singapore retail market, with strong tenant sales growth of 8% over the prior year.
Normalized EBITDA margin increased by more than four percentage points versus the prior year, reaching 54.4% for the third quarter, supported by solid revenue growth and cost control. At the same time, Marina Bay Sands continues to serve as a powerful reference site for emerging jurisdictions that are considering large-scale integrated resort developments. Our pioneering track record, unmatched development experience, financial strength puts us in the pole position to take advantage of new development opportunities on the horizon. Remember, my middle initial, G, doesn't stand for Gary, that my parents named me. It stands for growth. Let's move on to my favorite subject, the return of capital to shareholders. Yay, dividends, and yay, buybacks. Our recurring dividend program remains the cornerstone of our program to return capital to shareholders.
I'm pleased to announce that the Las Vegas Sands board of directors has approved an increase in our recurring dividend for the 2018 calendar year to $3.00 per share for the year, or $0.75 per quarter. After establishing our recurring dividend program in 2012 with a dividend per share of $1.00, this marks the sixth consecutive year that we've increased our recurring dividend to our shareholders. We remain deeply committed to our recurring dividend programs at both Las Vegas Sands and Sands China, and we look forward to increasing those recurring dividends in the future as our cash flows grow. At the same time, we will remain opportunistic in returning excess capital via a share repurchase program.
We repurchased $75 million of stock during the quarter, and we look forward to continuing to utilize the stock buyback program to return excess capital to shareholders and to enhance long-term shareholder returns in the future. Our industry-leading cash flows, geographic diversity, and balance sheet strength enable us to continue our recurring dividend and stock repurchase programs while retaining ample financial flexibility to reinvest in our existing properties and pursue new development opportunities. Our debt-to-EBITDA leverage ratio remains low at 2.1 times on a gross basis and only 1.6 times on a net basis. My view of our leverage levels is that we are comfortable with a debt-to-EBITDA ratio of between 2.0 times, 3.0 times on a gross basis before any additional debt related to development opportunities in new markets. As our EBITDA and cash flows grow, our leverage will naturally decline over time.
In conclusion, our cash flow generation continues to be strong and predictable. The structural advantage from our scale, critical mass, and product diversity remains evident in our strong financial results. The resurgence of growth in the Macao market has continued during the quarter, and we have grown faster than the market in both VIP and mass markets. We will continue to make significant investments in Macao because we have a long-term and unwavering commitment to Macao. The substantial capital that we will deploy to redevelop Sands Cotai Central into The Londoner Macao will add a third iconic must-see destination to our Cotai Strip development.
The full-scale development of Four Seasons and St. Regis apartment hotel tower comes at a strategically opportune time as we look to take advantage of the structural growth of Macao in coming years and stay ahead of the competition in terms of the quality and scale of our product and amenities. We look to the future with confidence. We have a strong organic growth outlook. We're in a great position to continue reinvesting in our existing assets and to pursue new development opportunities. We have both the intent and the financial strength to continue to return excess capital to shareholders. Thank you for joining us on the call today, and now we'll take questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you do have a question on the phone line, please press the star and the number one key on your touch-tone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. To prevent any background noise, we ask that you please place your line on mute once your question has been stated. Our first question is from the line of Stephen Grambling of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. Could you just talk a little bit more about the expected returns from the renovations and work you're doing at Sands Cotai and Four Seasons, and how those returns might compare to a new property, for example? Then as a related follow-up, when will the renovations get started, and how should we be thinking about any kind of near-term disruption? Thanks.
First of all, we expect the return to be huge.
Swapping?
To quote somebody that's popular nowadays. We are going to start the development and the renovation in the second quarter of 2018, and it will take about 18 to 24 months to complete. Am I saying that right?
You're correct. The way we look at this building, Stephen, is it's a well-executed thematic building. Locational advantage will create opportunities to grow in all segments, but especially from our perspective, the mass segment and the gaming side, as well as the retail segment. The SCC has performed very well in the premium mass segment because of 6,000 sleeping rooms, but we think it underperforms the base mass segment where the highest margins reside. Its location is particularly advantaged, being between the new MGM building and the Wynn building across from The Venetian. 6,000 sleeping rooms, great location. It's always been somewhat ambiguous from my perspective as far as the non-themed approach. We think it coincides nicely with our Parisian success and of course the landmark building, The Venetian.
Think about a building that right now runs about half the rents that The Venetian is running in the retail. We think we can bring those rents up to a Venetian type level. We believe we can grow base gaming. There's adequate capacity in that building for more gaming on the base mass side, obviously the highest margin business in Macao, and that's our particular advantage at both The Venetian and The Parisian. We're highly confident that this renovation can take us to a whole new level at Sands Cotai Central, and it's something we're very excited about. We spend a lot of time researching and thinking about it. It's been in the works for quite a while, and it's time to go into action. Sheldon Adelson, sometime late 2019, it should be open and ready for business and start performing.
It'll be open and ready for business during the period of time.
It will be.
Only some of the rooms that are going to be renovated, and the rooms that are completed will be put to immediate use.
Right. There will be disruption. We can't deny that. That's a fact of life in any building this large, and it's an ambitious renovation. It's more about the casino, the facade, and some of the sleeping rooms, but the majority of sleeping rooms remain intact. We're very pleased with most of the St. Regis building. We'll take the new St. Regis Suites and redo those, and we'll leave alone the Conrad and the Sheraton. We're going to redo the entire Holiday Inn facility and redo the facade of the building, and there'll be some unexpected surprises as part of the renovation.
That's very helpful.
I think the way that we think about returns is that these are existing assets, so it'll be quicker to market. They happen to be addressing our fastest-growing segment, which is the premium mass segment. If you go to page 16, the earnings deck that we provide, you'll see that that segment grew 17.7% year-over-year. We feel very confident in long-term growth of premium mass. It's a very high-value customer segment. We have a very deep database in this area, and we feel that these two buildings, once they become activated, will speak directly to that segment in a very powerful way, given the non-gaming amenities we have available adjacent to them and in those facilities. We think the returns will be very good.
Great. Thanks. Maybe one unrelated follow-up. Just the rolling chip drop at The Parisian was much, much better sequentially year-over-year. I guess, is there anything unusual in that, or how do you think about the right run rate for that property now that you're kind of lapping over the opening? Thanks.
Right. Well, first, we're very pleased. The Parisian has proven to be wildly successful. This quarter, I think, validates our approach there, the themed approach. The facade is exemplary. It attracts 40,000 people a day into the building. All segments seem to attract this building. Our new suite product comes on board starting with Chinese New Year's. We'll keep growing that segment. The high roll, I guess, is a concentration of demand, driven large volumes of business. It shows the acceptance of this product by the market. Is it sustainable? We never comment what's going to happen tomorrow in terms of any one segment. We've seen how that works in the past. We will say the building is getting great response from all segments, mass, premium mass, base mass, and obviously rolling.
We're delighted with the results, and it's a very strong quarter, and we hope it continues.
Thanks. Best of luck.
Thank you.
Thank you. We don't hope it continues. We expect it.
Oh, excuse me. My mistake.
It is your mistake.
Okay. We expect it to.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Thomas Allen of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Hey, good afternoon. Can you just give some more granularity about the drivers of the strength in Singapore? Thanks.
Sure. First of all, I think the numbers speak for themselves. It's another exemplary quarter and another $1.6-plus billion year, it appears. I think our focus on the cost side has been very helpful in the commissions. I think we've got a good approach there, the building's proven very resilient in terms of as we keep dropping commissions, customers keep coming, and we'll keep doing that until they stop coming. That's one positive. The other positive, you see the rolling volumes, which are significant. I would caution you, again, as we said in the Parisian call and we said in the past, these are concentrated segments, and it doesn't represent 10,000 customers. It's smaller than that. I think in the end, the only disappointing part about the MBS is the lack of growth in the non-rolling slot ETG segment.
It's kind of flattened out at four or five a day. I think it speaks to our team over there running this exemplary building that we've driven this kind of an EBITDA out of a market that's not really growing that much. Frankly, the hotel does well at 445, 446 ADR, 90-plus % occupancy, strong and sustainable retail. Again, all cylinders are working there. The one wish we had is the four or five a day. The one really big positive is larger rolling volumes and great commission structure against that rolling segment, producing greater margin. The margin has crept up into the 30s, and I think it speaks to what we've done over there to maximize that asset. That's my take on MBS.
Rob, is this strength coming from Chinese players coming back, or is it greater ASEAN?
I think it comes from people in the region. I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as Chinese-driven. We have a strong permanent resident base there. We have a strong base out of the surrounding countries. We do well in Indonesia, we do well in Malaysia, we do well out of Japan there. It's a mix of business. I wouldn't identify China as the primary driver. In fact, if anything, we're seeing it's stable in China, but not necessarily growing significantly.
Just to clarify one comment Rob made on the margin piece, he was talking about the VIP margins specifically being into the 30s, which is fantastic. For the property overall.
Right
We're effectively in the mid 50s at this point.
Thank you. Yeah, correction. We did mid 30s for the rolling segment, 54, 55 in the whole building. That's a long way from where it used to be. I think, again, our concentration on costs and commissions have paid off.
Helpful. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is on the line of Shaun Kelley of Bank of America. Your line is open.
Hi, good afternoon. Maybe to go back to the expansion plans a little bit as a sort of a new investment here. Could you just walk us through your intentions around the hotel brands? Has that strategy worked, or is your intention to terminate any of those contracts or relationships? In a similar vein, when we think about the disruption, is there a plan for how many hotel rooms will be out of service, maybe overall or be touched by the renovation, so we can just try and think about possible disruption and modeling that?
Sure. On the hotel side, we're not going to discuss which brands. At this point, the goal is to keep all the brands in play at SCC. There may be some changes and some rethink in how we do that. The intention, we're very happy with the quality of brands we have there. There is a strong intention to re-facade the building. When you drive by, we actually are going to Macao this evening. You drive by the Parisian as you arrive there. It's visually stunning. Same thing with the Venetian. It's very attractive to the eye and makes you want to go inside the building. We want to achieve that and more at the Londoner, something with all the iconic architectural look and feel of Big Ben, et cetera, Parliament buildings.
Something which you would see visually from the street and feel very much willing to come in and explore in the building. Secondly, there's both going to be an architectural treatment and a re-facade of some of the towers. Once you're in the building, again, very much a London feel, London style approach, all kinds of opportunities to street scene, to theme it. You think about London, it's iconic in so many ways, from the buses to the Beefeaters, and just so many opportunities there. Our team is having great fun playing with that. Inside, we'll re-theme the casino experience to be much more iconic, much more thematic. As I said, the hotel will mostly remain untouched. We're happy with our partners there, happy with what we're seeing there. There may be some rethinking of the decor pieces, but for the most part, remains untouched.
The goal is to be on both sides of the street, both facing the Cotai Strip and the rear as well towards MGM and Wynn. We want to make this place a place where base mass gravitate to. We want to elevate our rents to look more like The Venetian. We want to make a very themed retail experience. Our retail wizard, David Sylvester, has made it clear to us he thinks we can do a lot better in that building. We agree with him. It's meant to be both a base mass, a retail experience. I also believe an energized, exciting building will drive all kinds of other demand in the rolling segment and the premium mass segment, as evidenced by what you saw this time at The Parisian this quarter. This Parisian building is attracting all kinds of people.
I don't think any new building in Macao has done the kind of volumes and the kind of activity we're seeing in all segments, from base mass, slot machines, rolling segment. Across the board, Parisian is just showing some real strength and growing. Our new suite product comes on board. We want that kind of enthusiasm, that kind of visual experience from our Londoner. There will be disruption. We're not prepared to go into how much detail yet because we're working through those issues with our architectural team, our design team, and there will be disruption. You can't re-theme a building, spend a lot of money without having some disruption. I think the payoff pitch on this will be extraordinary for this company and real growth in a market we're very comfortable with.
We lead the market in every way in terms of EBITDA, in terms of what we've done there at The Venetian in Cotai. This is just another step forward in our Cotai plan. We're very enthused about it. We represent to you that we think it's going to be very impactful in a few years down the road. There will be some disruption, and we'll report back to you as we get further down the path in the renovation of the SCC into The Londoner.
Great. Thanks. Just maybe a follow-up, which is really just a kind of a clarification, but the $1,000,000,001 total investment, that's fully inclusive of the build-out of all the incremental hotel rooms. We know you obviously have a lot of that. At least the building's constructed, but that includes the fit out of everything in the rooms, right?
Yeah. The numbers that we show on our CapEx slide are inclusive. That's to complete the project, and that's our anticipated timing of spend.
Thanks, everyone.
Thanks, Shaun.
Thanks, Shaun.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Joseph Greff of JPMorgan Chase. Your line is open.
Good afternoon, guys. Just going through your earnings slide deck on slide 16, the base mass departmental profit margins, you took down 35%-45% from 40%-50%. What's driving that?
You want to take it?
I think it's a combination of factors. Part of it has to do with the rating of players and the fact that we have more rated play on the base mass floor than we have ever done before, which is helpful because it allows us to know our customers better and set them up for repeat visits. The problem is it is just not as profitable. As the market matures, as we get to know our customer base better in the base mass segment, we are going to have some margin changes that become rated. That is really the driver there. It just means that as the volumes go through, as the market becomes more competitive, remember, there are more people addressing the base mass segment in the Macaou market today.
We are going to do things to retain our customers and develop them, and there is going to be some margin reinvestment required for that.
It is a good long-term investment in retaining customers and loyalty.
To add some historical color, you have to go back five or six years to see a time when we had a 50% margin in base mass. Since the downturn of Macao, we have been pretty much right at close to 40%. Margins are steady in the base mass business right now, so we are right at the midpoint of that range today. They got a chance to go up over time as business matures.
Okay, great, guys. Thank you. I guess we'll find out at the end of earnings season what actually the mass segment grew in the 3Q, but your math in the slide deck in terms of the estimated mass growth is very similar to ours. To what extent do you think the level of deceleration in the mass and slot segment, both here in October and at the end of the 3Q, is a function of your lapping two new properties versus there's something else going on with mass players or the mass segment in terms of their ability to access cash in the same way they could earlier in the year? Whether it's EP or others.
Yeah. Obviously, it's hard. We're not going to speak to October at all, as it's fourth quarter. I think there's more competition. There's more people in that space. I think Galaxy's done a very good job. Look, everybody wants a piece of that business, and they should. It's the highest margin. It's the most profitable part of our portfolio, and something we want to be dominant in all segments, from base mass, premium mass, rolling, across the board. As Patrick referenced in our ratings situation, and as we see from competition, there's some very good products out there which we're competing against. We used to be alone on Cotai. We used to have 100% share of that. Now, that's changed, and I think that's going to continue to be an evolving process.
Part of the reason we are so excited about The Londoner is we can recover more of that business with The Londoner. The Venetian has been our base mass product that's been, all along, the most important, most successful part of our portfolio. We see very little of it at the Four Seasons Plaza. We saw a lot more of it come back to The Parisian. The Parisian taught us a lesson, that we go back to the drawing board and say, "We want to be in all segments to be successful." That's part of our plan and strategy for The Londoner and a go-forward basis. Our goal is to be successful, dominant in all of the major segments, including base mass, premium mass, rolling segment, all important to us. A lot of competition, a lot more people competing for that customer, that segment's dollar.
Joe, the other thing we want to point out is, if you look at page 13 in the deck as well, you've got mainland Chinese overnight visits, which is a super important statistic. That's up over 15% when you look at the third quarter. That's 3.23 million Chinese visitors. That's a record. The other two data points we provide on page 13 are the average length of stay, which is going up because of the hotel inventory, as well as the mass win per customer. That's also going up. This is a seasonal business, too. If you look at the mass win per customer on page 15, we've got an illustration for the last five years here.
The second quarter to the third quarter, this is the least amount of degradation we've seen in the win per customer between the second and the third quarters there as well. You've got a very nice premium mass business, more visitation. We don't have the bridge open yet. There's a lot of things to think to the future that give us a lot of confidence that the mass business is going to continue to grow at double-digit rates higher than the rates we're seeing today.
Dan, just to add to that, our mass drop, Joe, is up 19% year-on-year. Hotel room nights are up 24%. I think the key component, as we see more visitation from further away, obviously sleeping accommodations. We have all those keys in Macao, and clearly that's driving that base mass into our buildings and will continue to.
Thank you for the thoughts, guys.
I want to point out that you originally said that we were the only ones who had all of it. Now others have come in to take it, I think it's significant to point out that the entire market has grown.
Sure.
What we took in at the beginning, when we were alone, we've increased.
The pie has grown.
The pie has grown, and we've got a bigger share of the pie.
More people eating, but a much bigger pie.
Right.
Yeah. Next. Thanks, Joe.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Anil Daswani of Citigroup. Your line is open.
Okay, good morning, guys. My question's about the Venetian. The non-rolling chip win rate fell to 22.8%. That's the first time in six quarters that it's been below 25%. Was this a one-off, is something that we should expect to be modeling to rebound in maybe the premium mass segment?
Well, we hope so. You're right. You're absolutely. We fell 3% year-over-year. The nice part of the story is that we had 500 keys off the market, premium mass keys, which are coming back on the market. The second nice thing is we actually grew the volume. We had material growth and over double-digit growth in the mass segment coming out of that segment, which was very positive for us. It's unfortunate. If you actually applied the 2016 hold percentages to the 2017 volumes, we would've had one hell of a quarter. It doesn't work that way. You're absolutely right. We had nice. The Venetian had nice growth. Consider the fact it had all those rooms off the market, it just had a stellar quarter. Just unfortunately didn't hold volume like it did the year before.
Still within the range, three percentage points off on an awful lot of play. Can it return, do we hope so? Historically, The Venetian has been a very strong hold percentage building. Can we predict 25%, 26% sustainable? We cannot. Can we hope it returns where it's been historically? We can. 22 is in the range, 25 is better. What's really good, though, is the volumes of The Venetian continue to grow in that segment, and I think that's a great sign for the future. We will spend some money on The Venetian rooms, which we needed to. We're looking at some casino renovations. We're doing all the junk rooms there with our partners. Our partners are working with us on the design, and we're going to spend some time this next couple of days with them.
We're very keen to see The Venetian get back to a higher run rate because it's just a great place to visit and, again, has that wonderful curbside appeal we want to emulate across the street at The Londoner.
Fantastic. As a follow-up, could you give us a progress report on the renovation program at both The Venetian? When do you expect the entire room product to be renovated? Also at The Parisian, you're going to upgrade some of those to a suite product. Is there a timeline yet as to when all that will be complete?
Yeah. On The Parisian rooms, the renovation into the premium suites, it begins to come online Q2. Actually, during Chinese New Year's, I should say Q1. We'll see some of the suites come back. It continues throughout the entire year. It doesn't finish really until the end of 2018. 600 keys becoming 300 suites. At The Venetian, it's in early 2018, so sometime around Q1. That's 1,000 upgraded rooms, stellar rooms, by the way, that will compete very well with any product. Very large Venetian-style suites, completely renovated bathrooms, all FF&E. I think it puts The Venetian back in a very strong position for that premium mass customer.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Robin Farley of UBS. Your line is open.
Thanks. Two questions. One is, I know Vegas is a smaller part of your EBITDA. I wonder if you could just give us a sense about how occupancy has been trending over the last few weeks in terms of kind of rate of recovery or when you expect occupancy levels there may get back to kind of previous levels. My other question is Macao related, which is, trying to think about that $1.1 billion, kind of how much of that is sort of maintenance CapEx versus you're adding the 645 rooms so obviously, a lot of the cost is going to kind of the retheming rather than adding new supply to your hotel base.
Can you give us a sense of how much is going to add the 645 hotel rooms as opposed to just kind of maybe more refreshing existing product, if we think of it as kind of maintenance versus growth CapEx?
Sure, Robin. I'll take the Las Vegas question and ask Patrick to take the second question. Las Vegas is recovering. The group business had expressed some concerns about, obviously, the tragedy. The horrible truth is these events keep happening. We've become a lot more resilient in the world to these tragedies. What used to be 10, 15 years ago would have altered the course for months and months, it seems like people now accept these horrible situations. Truth be told, we feel Vegas is recovering rather quickly. Anecdotally, we hear that across the town. We see it in our building. I hate to say what a few weeks ago seemed like might be a real difficult event, the town appears to be bouncing back. The hockey game was filled the other night. Bookings are strong. Our place looks very busy.
I think Las Vegas is recovering well and quicker than I would've imagined when it first happened. As for the CapEx issue, I think I'm going to turn it to Patrick or Dan or both of us.
If you turn to page 22 on our earnings deck, you can actually see the split in what we consider maintenance capital and the investments in the projects that the chairman described earlier regarding The Londoner, The St. Regis completion of the tower suites, and the completion of The Four Seasons tower suites. That's all there on page 22. Actually, maintenance CapEx, we've been running in the $400 million context, we always try to show that it'll be about $500 million. As you know, we like to reinvest in our buildings to make sure they're leading in terms of their design, in terms of their amenity, in terms of their offerings to our customers, in terms of their finish. We're going to continue doing that to ensure that we can market to the best, most profitable customers.
That being said, these projects do address the premium mass segment, which is one that is a larger suite product. It's not our standard room. These will be a very impressive product, great renovation. What was mentioned in the script, if you look on page 22, you can actually see the amount being spent for each of the renovations. The split between maintenance CapEx for the entire property portfolio in Macao as well as each of the individual projects described is actually there.
I see the maintenance CapEx not changing too much each year. I guess I was thinking about maybe some of the rebranding to The Londoner, kind of the split between rebranding and actually adding new hotel rooms.
Sure.
Robin, everything that Rob has been describing about re-envisioning and Sheldon had been describing about re-envisioning, that's about $700 million of budget right now. The St. Regis apart hotel is about $275 million of budget, and the Four Seasons is about $250 million of budget. The $275 and the $250 are a lot less than they would be if we were building brand-new towers because these towers have existed for an extended period of time. The core and shell's been there for a long time, and this is a small investment for hopefully a big impact in opportunity.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Robin, also we've referenced the Four Seasons apartments. These things will be almost 290 residential feel type apartments that can be deployed for The Parisian premium mass, for the Four Seasons premium mass, or for The Venetian. I think they're going to be very impactful for that customer who plays large, wants a family stay, wants to bring his children, et cetera. I think that building is very well-situated. It's been dormant. It's going to be reactivated. I think it'll be very powerful as far as an EBITDA generator down the road. It's expensive, but it's well worth the investment. Along with the St. Regis London, it's a big part of our CapEx plan for 2018, 2019.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is on the line of Felicia Hendrix of Barclays. Your line is open.
Hi, thank you. Just in Macao, I was just wondering if you could talk about how to think about flow-through in the near term. In your second quarter, you grew EBITDA margin sequentially 80 basis points, adjusting for a hold in this quarter. Seasonally, you tend to grow EBITDA margin sequentially. You were just flat to slightly down, adjusted for holds. In our quick calculations, it shows it might be mix. I'm wondering if it's mix or something else.
Well, you're absolutely right. Our portfolio was strong across all segments. Our Q3 premium mass grew 18% year-on-year. That's five consecutive quarters of year-on-year growth. Our premium mass drop increased 30% year-on-year and was impacted again by lower than average hold. Our rolling segment, at 48%, it was extraordinary year-on-year. As you know, the margin is partially dictated by the segment mix and each segment's contribution from the mix. In this quarter, we experienced strong rolling volume, up 48% year-on-year for the portfolio. However, the flow-through in this segment as you know, is much less than base mass or premium mass. While we're very pleased with our rolling volumes, the profitability will always reside for us in the mass, premium mass, and we have had the highest margins in Macao as a result.
Again, the third quarter, while it was a victory in terms of lots of growth and lots of volume, we didn't translate well into the hold percentage. Again, the mix situation hurt us there. Of course, year-on-year also, we had the cost issue in Q3 of 2016, which is always confusing, somewhat ambiguous. I think long story short, we're over that now. We move into Q4. We hope we can continue to experience these high growth in all these segments. We'll hold better in the hold percentage portion of our business, and it will translate to, again, higher margins. I would emphasize that our margins continue to highest in Macao. Our Parisian property had an exemplary quarter. The only disappointing part from my perspective is we could've held a bit better, and the mix certainly impacted our overall margin.
Okay. I just wanted to be clear, but what I was asking was on hold adjusted, right? That would just mainly be, the issue is mainly mix then.
When we present, Felicia, when we present our hold normalized, we're only normalizing for the VIP-
Right
rolling, we're not normalizing for the 300 basis points of light hold at Venetian and in premium mass. We don't actually normalize for that in the presentation that we're giving you.
Gotcha. Okay. Then just as my follow-up, if we could just talk about Japan for a second. Now that the election is behind us, I was just wondering if you could walk us through the timeline you see for the Diet to consider and vote on the implementation legislation. I'm just wondering how the snap elections might have set the process back, if at all.
This is Sheldon. If I were to give you an answer on that, I'd be reading it from a crystal ball.
I have one.
No.
It's in one of the closets.
No, that's the other one.
Oh, that's the other crystal ball.
In the other room.
I forgot.
That's where I get my ideas from. There are a lot of people speculating about it. I read this morning that he's got a super majority. Nobody said he had. He's got a super majority with the Komeito Party. He could do whatever he wants, as long as he can get the Komeito Party to go along with it. The press said that there are two things. One is to set up his defense forces again, that were prohibited since World War II. The other thing is he wants his economic program, including IRs with casinos, implemented. It's tough to read a crystal ball as to what's going to happen there. Different people are saying different things.
They say that by November 1st he could open, which is in a few days, he could open an extra session of the Diet and not the regular session. People who are speculating are saying that he could pass the Gambling Act and then the Integrated Resort Act still within this year. Nobody knows for sure. We don't know for sure. We're hoping. We've been optimistic for many years about that. Now it looks better than ever that we'll get the implementation bill. Who knows when.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Felicia.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Carlo Santarelli of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Hey, guys. I have two questions. I appreciate you taking my questions. Really quickly on the first one, Dan, you're probably best suited to help me on this. It looks to me, unless I have something wrong here, it looks to me like it was a 2.9% VIP hold in Macao in the period, which reduced your revenue by $18 million, then it looks like there was $28 million of expense. Despite the fact that hold optically wasn't high, your EBITDA was down $10 million. Does that just relate to holding a lot higher on the direct side?
That's exactly it. That was it.
That's it.
That's it.
Okay, great. Thank you. Rob, when you think about everything, as we look at the outlook, obviously the work that's being done at Sands Cotai Central, clearly, the grind mass, as Patrick referenced, kind of doing a little bit more with recognizing the customers and having them in the database, as well as the mix of revenue growth on a go-forward basis, with VIP kind of currently outpacing the rate of growth in mass, both for you guys and for the market. When you think about 2018, putting all that stuff together, directionally, do you guys believe there's an opportunity to grow margins next year?
We'd like to believe there is, as revenues continue to grow. We've taken over $310 million of run rate cost out of the business, basically in effect last year, as we talked about on prior calls. We're very confident to be able to manage costs in the business. Really what we need now is revenue growth. If you want to see margin expansion in Macao, we need to grow revenue. Fortunately, the market is growing, fortunately, we believe we have the best asset portfolio there to take advantage of the most valuable segments that are continuing to grow the fastest. We're very confident in our ability to expand margins over time, we need revenue growth in order to do so.
Great. Guys, just a quick one on Vegas. Rob, I believe you mentioned Las Vegas is recovering well. The RevPAR in the quarter and kind of the mix that you guys had between occupancy and rate, clearly not at all impacted by what happened on October 1st. When you think about your Q3, is there anything discernible in there, just based on the fact that the LVCVA data through August looked pretty solid market-wide? I'm assuming there were some larger conventions that were out of September, but is there any color you guys could provide on kind of Vegas for the Q3?
In terms of RevPAR, no, I don't think there is. I think that we're comfortable with our numbers. We're disappointed in some of our gaming numbers. We want to see some more growth there, we're very happy with the lodging numbers. RevPAR holding up well. Vegas is holding up well. It's morphed into a lodging market primarily, we feel very good about where we're at in the market. No more color than that. Yeah.
Okay, great. Thank you, guys.
Thanks, Carlo.
Thank you. That does conclude today's Q&A session.
That's it. Yeah.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.