And grab a seat if you would. The 2016 Annual Meeting of the Stockholders Las Vegas Sands Corp will please come to order. My name is Rob Goldstein, I'm the President and Chief Operating Officer of LVS. I'd like to welcome all of you and thank you for your interest in our company. As President of the company, I'll preside at this meeting.
The agenda for this morning includes all formal business days and the proxy statement. Following this meeting, we will conduct a question and answer session. Please note that this meeting will be webcast on our Investor Relations website, which can be accessed at www.sands.com. Also present at the meeting this morning are Sheldon G. Allison to my left, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer other members of our Board of Directors, including Jason Ader, Irwin Chaffetz, Micheline Chao, Charles Forman, Steven Gerrard, George Jamieson, Charles Koppelman and David Levy, Eira Rafelson, our Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel and Patrick Dumont, our Executive Vice President and CFO are also here today.
Mr. Raphelsen will actively serve as Secretary of the meeting. Each of you is given the rules of conduct when you entered the meeting this morning. Additional copies are available in the registration area. It is our intention to conduct this meeting in accordance with the agenda and rules of conduct.
Please remember that an opportunity will be provided immediately following the meeting
or the formal portion of
the meeting for question and discussion. So let's move on to Part 2, formal business as stated in the proxy statement. Let us now proceed with the Form of Business of the meeting, namely, 1, to elect 4 directors to the Board, each for a 3 year term 2, to consider and ratify the selection of Deloitte and Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ended December 31, 2016 to consider and act upon a non binding advisory proposal on the compensation of named executive officers and finally to transact such other business as may probably come before this meeting or any adjournment thereof. Part 3, notice and stockholders list. Will the secretary please report on the mailing and notice of this meeting to all stockholders and the availability of the stockholders list?
Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Chairman,
I have an affidavit of mailing of
the notice of Internet availability of the proxy materials to each stockholder of record as of the close of business on April 11, 2016. I also present an alphabetical list showing all persons who are holders of record of the company's common stock at the close of business on April 11, 2016. The date the Board of Directors fixed is the date for determining stockholders entitled to notice of and to vote at this meeting. The list has been duly certified by the American Stock Transfer and Trust Company, the transfer agent of the company's shares. This list has been available for inspection for the 10 days prior to the meeting at the company's headquarters and is available for examination to any stockholder of the company for any purpose germane to this meeting at any time during the meeting.
Will the secretary please file the list of stockholders do affidavit mailing in copies of the notice of Internet availability of proxy materials transmitted to stockholders with the records of the meeting?
Yes, Mr. President.
Okay. Part 4, Don Asbo of American Stock Transfer and Trust Company has been named to act as Inspector of Election at this meeting. Ms. Asbro is present and has submitted an oath of office, which will be filed within minutes of this meeting. I now ask that all those present with proxies who have not already done so, please file their proxies within respect at this time.
If there are any stockholders present in person who did not register the door and have not filed a proxy, please provide your names and the number of shares owned to the attendants at the door at this time. With the Inspector now report whether a quorum is present.
The shares outstanding at the record date, which are entitled to vote at this meeting, consist of 794,718,776 shares of common stock. From the count of the stockholders present in person or by proxy, a majority of those shares are represented at this meeting either in person or by proxy, and a quorum is present.
Thank you. On the basis of the report of the inspector, I declare a quorum present and the meeting duly convened and confident to proceed with the transaction of business. The purpose of this stockholders' meeting is for our stockholders to vote on the matters listed in the proxy statement I described a few minutes ago. The votes will be taken on those matters after all nominations and proposals have been introduced. Thereafter, the Inspector of Election will make a report on the outcome of the votes.
Let's proceed to Part 5, formal business. Welcome. We'll now proceed with the formal business of the meeting. Please note that after each of matters to be considered has been formally proposed, we will circulate written ballots so that stockholders who have not already voted by proxy may vote on these matters. The first order of business is a nomination of 4 individuals to stand for election to the Board.
All the company's nominees are present here today. I'd like to introduce them to you at this time. They are Sheldon J. Alston to my left, Erwin Chaffetz is in front of me Charles A. Kaufman, Rebecca Erwin and myself, Rob Goldstein.
All the nominees are current members of our Board. Is there a motion on the proposed election of the 4 nominees?
Yes, Mr. President, Mr. Chairman, I nominate Mr. Sheldon G. Adelson, Mr.
Irwin Chaffetz, Mr. Robert G. Goldstein and Mr. Charles A. Koppelman for election to serve as directors for a 3 year term and until their successors have been duly elected and qualified.
I second the motion.
Are there any questions or comments with respect to the proposal for the nomination of directors? Okay. If not, if there are no further nominations, a motion to close the nominations is in order.
I move that the nominations be closed. I second the motion.
It has been moved and seconded that the nominations be closed. We will collect and tabulate the votes later in the meeting. The next order of business is the consideration and ratification of the independent registered public accounting firm selected by the Audit Committee on the Board to audit the books and records of the company for the year ended December 31, 2016. The Audit Committee of the Board has selected Dwight and Touche LLP. I am pleased to note the presence at the meeting today of Ed Ricks from Dwight and Touche.
Mr. Ricks is available to answer any questions that stockholders may care to ask. Any questions, Mr. Ricks? I'll now entertain a resolution to ratify the selection of Royton Touche LLP to audit the books and records of the company for the year ended December 31, 2016.
Mr. President, Mr. Chairman, I move that the following resolution be adopted: resolved that the selection of Deloitte and Touche LLP to audit the books and records of the company for the year ended December 31, 2016, be confirmed, ratified and approved. I second the motion. The motion has moved and then seconded.
We will collect and tab it debuts later in the meeting.
I will now entertain a resolution to act upon a non binding advisory proposal on executive compensation.
Mr. President, Mr. Chairman, I move that following resolution be adopted, resolved that the stockholders approve the compensation of the named executive officers as disclosed pursuant to the compensation disclosure rules of the SEC, which disclosure shall include the compensation discussion and analysis, the compensation tables and any related material disclosed in the proxy statement. I second the motion.
The motion has moved and seconded. We will collect and tabulate the votes later in the meeting. I now declare the polls open for voting by ballot. All those who wish to vote by ballot should obtain a ballot from the attendant and arrear. If you've already filed your proxy, it would be simplified to count if you had not filed a ballot unless you wish to change your vote.
Has everyone voted who wishes to vote? Apparently, everyone has. I therefore declare the polls closed and ask the inspector to their report on the voting. While the inspector is counting the ballots, I'd like to take an opportunity this time to give Sheldon Adelson, our Chairman of the Board, our Founder and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands, an opportunity to say a few words about the company. Mr.
Adelson?
Thanks, Rob, and thanks to all of you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report to you, our shareholders, that 2015 was another successful year for the company. We continue to execute our operating strategies and fortify our position as the preeminent worldwide developer and operator of convention based integrated resource. For the full year 2015, we generated company wide EBITDA of 4,200,000,000 dollars against the backdrop of a 34% decline in Macao's gross gaming revenues. This industry leading cash generation reflects both the strength of our business model and the geographic diversity of our cash flows and underpins our balance sheet strength.
Accordingly, we can continue to return excess cash to shareholders while maintaining our ability to invest in new development opportunities. While the Macau market is experiencing some headwinds today, I remain as confident now as I have ever been. In the long term opportunities for growth for our company both in Macau and the wider Asian region. We still stay disciplined and continue growth strategy. 1st, we will maximize cash flow from our existing property portfolio while investing for future growth.
2nd, we will nurture new integrated resort development opportunities in new markets. And third, we will pay generous recurring dividends, which we have every intention of maintaining and growing in the future as the business and cash flows grow. In addition, we will return excess capital to shareholders opportunistically to our stock repurchase program. We believe that successful execution of these strategies will enable us to deliver strong growth and outstanding returns to shareholders in the years ahead. I will discuss all three areas in a bit more detail.
But starting with the last one, which is an important one for all shareholders and a personal favorite of mine, the return of capital to shareholders. Since we initiated our capital return program in 2012, we have returned nearly 11 $1,000,000,000 of capital to shareholders of Las Vegas Sands. Thank you, Sidney. $11,000,000,000 That's a lot of money. In the form of dividends and share repurchases.
In the Q4 of 2015, we announced that the Las Vegas Sands recurring dividend would increase by 11% to $2.88 per share or $0.72 per quarter for the 2016 calendar year. So I can safely say that we have been executing on our commitment to increase the return of capital to shareholders. Yay dividends. As I mentioned on our earnings conference call in April, we do see stabilization in gaming revenue trends in the mass segment and Macau and particularly in the base mass segment. In the March quarter, we experienced our first sequential increase in mass gaming revenues in Macau since quarter 1 of 2014.
Our Macau portfolio wide mass revenue per day was up 5% sequentially and at Venetian Macau most table mass table revenue per day was up 10%, which is no small feat considering the arrival of new competition. Additionally, our share of EBITDA in the 6 operated Macau market has continued to increase to around 37% in 2015, up from 35% in 2014. Despite the entrance of new competition into the market. In Singapore, our share of normalized EBITDA in the duopoly market increased to 68% in 2015, up from 58% in 2014. Because of our industry leading investments in both Macau and Singapore, we are unique in the absolute scale of our cash flow.
Scale, diversity of offerings and critical mass allow us to outperform our competitors. We're very proud that Marina Bay Sands in Singapore and the Venetian Macau and the Cotai Strip are the 2 most successful and profitable integrated resorts in the world. The Venetian Macau is today the iconic, must see destination resort must see integrated resort destination in Macau, welcoming over 30,000,000 visitors annually. The Venetian Macau produced US1.1 billion dollars of EBITDA for the year and was the only Macau property to exceed US1 $1,000,000,000 in EBITDA for the year and was the only Macau property to exceed $1,000,000,000 in EBITDA despite all the headwinds and challenges of 2,050. Indeed, the only other integrated resort property in the world that earned more than $1,000,000,000 in EBITDA for 2015 was our Marina Bay Sands.
Macau, we are very well positioned for future growth. We have the diversity of product offering, the scale and critical mass to cater to every type of business and leisure visitor. Our integrated resort business model and unmatched investments clearly position the company well as travelers from China and in Asia more broadly increase their business and leisure travel and expenditures in the years ahead. I've not a shadow of a doubt that the Parisian, which is targeted to open in mid September, not very long from now, will replicate the success of The Venetian as another themed iconic and must see integrated resort destination for Macau's visitors. I believe the position here at the Parisian Macau as the theme destination integrated resort caters well to both the current Macau market conditions and the long term growth trends in Chinese upon tourism.
Our existing portfolio has clearly enabled us to hold our own amidst new competition And I'm extremely confident that Parisian will help drive growth in Macau in the future. With the opening of the Paris in Macau, we will have invested in excess of US13 $1,000,000,000 to deliver on our promise to help Macau in its economic diversification and its continued evolution into the world's leading business and leisure tourism destination. Our industry leading investments will feature nearly 13,000 hotel rooms, 2,000,000 square feet of retail mall offerings, and that's net, and nearly 2,000,000 square feet of MICE capacity. Importantly, the benefits of our integrated resort business model will always extend far beyond our own financial success. The company's properties and service offerings featuring worldwide dining, shopping, convention, group meeting and entertainment experiences enhance the appeal of our host countries as business and leisure tourism destination, while helping to diversify their economies, attract outside investment, increase employment and provide meaningful career development opportunities for our host communities.
We are confident our integrated resort business model could provide meaningful economic benefits in additional countries in Asia and particularly in Japan and Korea. We believe our unmatched track record of successful convention based integrated resort development, coupled with our industry leading financial strength, positions us exceedingly well to secure and capitalize on the most promising global integrated resort development opportunities. In reviewing press accounts from the Bernstein efforts earlier this week, it seems some of my remarks about Singapore, while they are taken out of context or misspoken by me. Let me quickly clarify some points. First, we have been honored to be part of the dramatic tourism expansion in Singapore that our iconic Marina Bay Sands has helped develop.
As we look to expand upon the success of our relationship with the Singapore government, we propose to build an iconic venue for entertainment and another hotel tower. This was and is our proposal to the government for land use that we are seeking and that's something they asked us to do. Our discussions are preliminary and confidential, but I will clarify that we have had no timetable on pricing discussions to this point. I apologize if there's been any confusion on these points. The government of Singapore speaks for itself and they have not expressed a view on this proposal.
Thank you once again for your support and for the confidence you continue to show in our company. I would also like to take a moment to thank our nearly 50,000 team members worldwide for the hard work over the past over the last year and congratulate them on a job well done. We look forward to sharing with you the ongoing success of the company in the years ahead, and we look forward to addressing your questions in just a few minutes.
Thank you, Mr. Allison. Let us now proceed with the voting results. Is the inspector ready to report?
The results of the balloting are as follows. In the election of directors, Sheldon G. Adelson, Owen Chaffetz, Robert G. Goldstein and Charles A. Koppelman have been elected directors of the company by the affirmative vote of a plurality of the votes cast at the meeting.
With respect to the ratification of the selection of Deloitte and Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ended December 31, 2016, the proxies and ballots representing a majority of the votes cast by stockholders present in person or by proxy and entitled to vote at the meeting were voted in favor of the resolution. And therefore the selection of Deloitte and Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ended December 31, 2016 has been ratified. With respect to the non binding advisory proposal on the compensation of the named executive officers, the proxies and ballots representing a majority of the votes cast by stockholders present in person or by proxy and entitled to vote at the meeting were voted in favor of the resolution and therefore, the proposal has been approved. Thank you.
On the basis of the report of the Inspector, I declare that the resolution is covering election of 4 directors to the Board of Directors, the ratification of the selection of Deloitte and Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016, and the non binding advisory proposal and the compensation of the named executive officers have all been approved. I now request the inspector please prepare a written record to be filed with the records of the meeting. If there are no other business to come before the meeting, a motion is in order that the meeting be adjourned.
Mr. President, Mr. Chairman, I move that the meeting be adjourned.
I second the motion.
It has been moved and seconded that the meeting be adjourned. All those stockholders in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye, thanks. Those stockholders opposed, please say no. If you oppose?
The motion is carried and the meeting is adjourned. At this point, we're happy to answer any and all questions about the company. If there are questions, please rise and identify yourself So, we may provide a complete record of the meeting. Please note that the question and answer period is being webcast on our Investor Relations website. Please, any questions we can ask or answer, feel free.
We've been that spectacular, that one question.
On the item.
Good morning. My name is Mike Zelman. I've been a shareholder since 2007. I'm also happy to say that I tripled down in 2,008 and 2,009 based upon the strength and clarity and consistency of your leadership. I thank you for that.
I consider Las Vegas Sands to be one of my core holdings that I'll pass on to my heirs 30 years from now because I believe in the consistency of cash generation, the stability and growth opportunity. With that perspective as a long term shareholder, then I have two questions. First, most of the cash used to pay the dividend is generated ex U. S. Will there become a point in time where the cash flow is definitely reduced to cover taxes associated with repatriation to cover the dividends?
And the second question is, how do you think or how should I think as a long term shareholder about the risk of not getting a licensing extension in Macau in 2022 given that the government can repatriate the assets with no compensation to the company. Thank you.
In regards to your first question, by the way, thank you very much for your being a shareholder. We really appreciate it and your confidence in us. In regards to your first question, because of the assets that the Chairman designed and built and that the company owns today, we have a diversity of cash flows. So actually there's no majority place where the earnings from the dividends actually come into the U. S.
To pay. So we're pretty evenly split. So we take some money up from Singapore. We take some money up from Sands China. As you know, there's a dividend paid to public shareholders there as well.
And some of that comes up to parent. And then we also have operations in the U. S. To generate cash flow. So the dividend is actually geographically diversified.
The second question is about what do we feel about the renewal of the concession when ours expires in 1922. That's 6 years from now. They have not given us any the government has not given us any indication, but they've said publicly, they're looking favorably upon those companies that are leaders and pioneers in the development of non gaming activities that will attract other forms of tourism beside tourists for gaming. They have not made any statement on the basis. They haven't identified the basis of their thinking for the renewal.
But since we have been recognized by the government and by most people, almost everybody who knows anything about Macau is truly being the pioneer in the development of non gaming activity. We have particularly in this in the field of MICE, that's meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions. We are the undisputed leader and this is what they want. Nobody has said to us that we've developed or intend to develop anything that they don't want. Everything that we do is pursuant to what they want.
It's coincidental with our fundamental business model which is MICE based And that's our specialty based upon my experience with what people think of as the Comdex period of time and I call it our trade show activity that I sold in 1995. It was not related to LBS. It was a separate company. We did have mostly common shareholders. So although we'd like to have an answer for you, we'd like to answer ourselves, there are no answers out there.
Only what they say they're going to make the decisions on. And if that's the case, we should get a static ovation from everybody concerned that we are doing the right thing to further attract and make a meaningful experience to both the leisure visitor and the vice versa. Ma'am, did you have a question? I answered it? Smart guy.
My name is Howard Levine. I'm a long time stockholder also, successfully invested in Las Vegas. My question is the suit that was brought against Las Vegas Sands by a former officer of the corporation. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the meeting last year. It was in Las Vegas, but I attended all the previous years in New York.
And as I remember clearly, the position of Las Vegas Sands was that the man was a fraud and you would litigate it to the point that it will go to trial and you would be successful. In the last couple of days, I've read that a settlement has been made with the gentleman or reported, I don't know, of course, reported $70,000,000 I just wondered why
$7,000,000,000
$70,000,000 Yes. $70,000,000 dollars I just wondered why that such a stand, a definitive stand was taken by Las Vegas Sands and then not pursued.
And not what? Pursued. Not pursued. I was the 1st and last person to want to pursue the case, because there was no development. He blew the whistle to the SEC and the DOJ, that's the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice.
After over a 5 year investigation, there hasn't been one of his hundreds of allegations that were validated. Everything he said was in our right line. The settlement was not based upon any recognition that what he said was true. As is the case in all settlements of disputes, the agreement underlying the settlement prohibits us from talking about the detail, the amount of money. The only thing I can tell you is that the decision was made not having any recognition whatsoever of any of his allegations.
He was an employee only for 9 months. There was a technical from my standpoint, this is not easy for me, because I was personally the subject of his accusations. The man only worked for the company for 9 months, 9 months. And the other man who brought him in kept certain things away from me, the Chairman and the Board of Directors that are here and so we didn't learn about some of those things until later. And to continue the case at this time, had a great likelihood of having a lot of the company's irrelevant issues and statutorily privileged information would have been disclosed and spread out all over the newspapers throughout the world.
So as tough a bullet as it was for me to bite and believe me, it was really tough to bite, we had to settle it.
Any other questions?
My name is Arnold Cohen. I attended the LVS.
Excuse me, I forgot to say one thing. Many, many years ago in the 1950s, I went to school here. I was stationed in the Army on Governors Island, this little island 3,000 miles out of San Francisco, called Governors Island in New York Harbor. And
Let's come back to that.
He doesn't know. He doesn't know that.
It was a great stake, Otis Avenue.
It was a good stake, Kevin. Come
back to it.
I'll come back to it.
So your question is open.
I got it. I'm there. Here we go. We are back. I went while I was stationed in the army, I went to school at night.
And I went to a school called CCNY, which was then the Bernadette School of Business Administration at the City College of New York. Now it's a city university. First thing I learned, first sentence wasn't good evening, it wasn't hello everybody, welcome to the class. It was remember, there is nothing as dead as yesterday's newspaper. What you asked about the Jacobs news, I hope we will forget about it, because the interest in that subject is as dead as yesterday's newspaper.
We're thrilled to move on.
Sir? My name is Arnold Cohen. I attended the Las Vegas meeting a couple of years ago. I also am a long term shareholder and I appreciate the dividend very much. It's very important for my grandchildren to send them to college.
My grandchildren do. Okay.
And my question is, you had mentioned in previous years the involvement in trying to expand into Japan and into Korea and possibly places in Europe, I heard I believe you say one time. Where do we stand with Japan and where do we stand with Korea at this moment?
Japan Prime Minister Abe embraced the concept of an integrated resort to stimulate the growth of their tourism activity. And I'm not going to talk about governments, I got in trouble the last time I did it. But They set up an interparty gaming commission and that interparty gaming commission studied the subject matter of legalizing casino gaming. Now they have a lot of gaming in Japan, probably the largest number and diversity of gaming opportunities such as the Pachinko parlors, which they don't consider gambling. Because the 'nineteen, 'twenty Olympics is coming to Tokyo, that was the impetus for them to plan for and accomplish the development of 1 or more integrated resorts.
But because of their scheduling for their diet, their parliament, the parliamentary schedule. They take everything into great detailed consideration. So the time to take to debate that was caught up by sales tax increase considerations, by the considerations on getting the 1920 Olympics built, the facilities for that. And recently the Interparty Gaming Commission was dissolved. I suspect that Prime Minister Abe wants to reinstate the subject matter, but he has not made the statement with the same passion and strength that he had before.
In Korea, South Korea, there are 17 casinos, 16 of them are foreigners only. Only one called Kangwon Land, kangwon Land. It's approximately 3 hours drive from the biggest city, Seoul and they make it sort of difficult to get there. But it's the only one that brings in Korean nationals and they do as much business with limitations. You can only bet so much and so many people can only go in and I've never been there, but people who have say, there are lines constantly and they do very well.
That was by a special act to rejuvenate a panned out mining district. So the experience they had with that wasn't that good. From my standpoint, you don't push, you only put a casino in a place where people can afford to interact with the casino. Retired miners showed us an opportunity to make a lot of money and so they lost. We are pursuing the possibility of a special act of the legislature to open a casino in the city of Pusan.
Those of you who are my age or close, remember the names of Seoul and Incheon in Koosan or Busan in the Korean which I am a veteran, I am a Korean war veteran in YouTube. And I remember the name Poussin very well. I met with the Mayor more than once and they are now the mayor changed and I met with the new mayor and there is the possibility they will look for a special act of legislature to allow a gaming facility. We made a proposal for a cluster of 3 integrated resorts comprising over 8,000 sleeping rooms and one of
the most
beautiful iconic buildings ever designed. We call it the Pearl Building. It's circular and there is a hole in the middle that originally started out like a donut and I moved the whole lot and I call it the handbag building, because it looks like a women's handbag and with a all gold with a silver sphere in the middle, which hence the name the Pearl. If we can get that on the former 1988 Olympic site, it would be undoubtedly the most iconic complex in the world. But we don't know.
I've met with many members of the parliament. I've not met yet with the President of South Korea, but that will change anyway in 2017. I do have a close personal friend who is very close to the President and we have not been able to get a final answer. We're looking at Vietnam. We're looking at Thailand.
Vietnam is allowing foreigners owning casinos, but they're all in the boonies. That's an American term, not only Americans seem to understand. It's not in the highly populated area. And our business model of a nice based destination resort, we need fundamental and strong tourism infrastructure to bring conventions to any place. So our next step there is to meet with the party secretary of Ho Chi Minh City known as Saigon And by the way, a lot of people in Vietnam still go in Saigon.
And we'll see whether or not he will allow it and recommend it. So I've met with the President, past President. I've met with the past Prime Minister and about 2 or 3 weeks ago I met with the Minister of Planning and Investment. I am a very persistent guy and if I see a possibility, I am not going to let it go. And so I continue to go there.
Our Head of Development for Asia, Dror Stonasevich based in Marina Bay Sands, He is constantly looking to integrate our desires and our wishes with what they want to accomplish in their own country. And the last thing else is that we are now looking at Brazil, because there was a group of parliamentarians from Brazil came up to Vegas. I personally met with them in our boardroom at The Venetian and they were very impressed after we took them around and showed them what an integrated resort looks like. Our complex, there are 3 towers. There is the Venezia Tower above the garage, the original Venetian Las Vegas Tower and then there is the Palazzo Tower.
That is the largest building combined in the world. It's 18,500,000 Square Feet, 3 times the size of the Pentagon, which is widely perceived to be the world's largest building. It's not it's only 6,000,000. So we have 18,500,000 square feet and it's a business model. If we can if Brazil legalizes casino gaming, we will look to build in Sao Paulo and in Rio de Janeiro.
We keep sending our government relations guy down there and we are going to pursue that. I just talked to one of our directors who thought there was another European outside of Europe possibility, but it's just a thought and there's nothing really to say about it. We are looking very hard to find an opportunity for development of a full sized iconic integrated resort opportunity. Did I answer your question?
Thank you. Yes, ma'am. My name is Tippi Ben Heim, and I'm a very happy shareholder. Actually, these are the only stocks I have in IQ. I heard you mention something about career development in Macau and anywhere else that you are.
How and it sounds great, especially because so many companies are looking now into civic responsibility and so on. How much is this point stressed when you're going to develop new opportunities, new resorts, new convention centers? What's Career development
and civil opportunities. Well, we developed the Venetian Macau. We put in what we call the Adelson Academy, which is a series of classrooms and we put through tens of thousands of our employees to learn new subjects that we teach them, to move from whatever department they are in to look at other opportunities for individual personal growth within the company to develop their careers. Our policy always has been and will continue to be that we go to hire local people first and foremost and then somebody from the next town or the next country after that. So career development is something that we really practice.
Now most countries don't think of that as the first thing. They think first about the potential for employment and the potential for both business that is convention based and leisure travel. Those are the things they want. There is no country in the world that doesn't want the mice business. No country in the world.
There is nobody else in our industry that could potentially compete with us. Thank you. There's no country in the world that doesn't want my specialties. So that happens to be one of my specialties. And everybody knows it.
And we in Macau for many years had the largest exhibition center outside of the Canton Business, Canton Fairgrounds. And we had larger than either Beijing or Shanghai. Now they have built much larger facilities. The convention portion of it that is meeting rooms and ballrooms, Our smallest meeting room is not much smaller than this one we are sitting in today. And we have in Las Vegas the largest complex, namely 330 meeting rooms like this.
There is no place in the world that could accommodate meetings like that. So career development is not the first words on the lips of the investment and economic development people in various countries just bring us more conventions and bring us more tourism. Then later they talk about when we're successful about career development for their own employees.
John Mascot. 2 years ago in Jersey, you mentioned the high dollar gamblers flying them into the various casinos and that there were some restrictions on that as well as smoking in the casino, which is cut into the gaming income. Could you comment on that?
Well, smoking in our business is prevalent, as you well know, and all of our jurisdictions have smoking to various degree. And Macau has been and Singapore have been restrictive in terms of how much smoking we have in certain areas. Recently, the government in Macau relaxed the proposed smoking room ban, and they've now reinstituted the fact that we'd have smoking areas in the casino, which is great for the business because whether you're pro or anti smoking, the fact is a lot of gamblers in Asia do smoke. So we're relieved recently that the government of the house relaxed regulation as of the last 10 days, very positive for us. So smoking is part of our world.
It may not be a good health decision by the smoker, but that's freedom of what you want to do with your life. So we have smoking in all of our casinos, and the cattle remain an element of smoking, very positive. Your reference to high rollers and flying them in, as you well know, all over the world today, anti money laundering restrictions and other things have happened to make it more restrictive, more difficult, not just our business, but here in Fifth Avenue, buying things if you're a mainland resident or outside the country, it's more difficult to move money. And the government of China has made various restrictions on the ability to move money. So that's been an impediment to our business in the U.
S. And Macau and Singapore. It's a fact of life. Our competitors face that. The world is changing and we embrace the regulatory climate we live in.
It makes it more difficult for us to do the high end business. It's somewhat a big change from half a dozen years ago, but that's the world we live in. We accept it. We embrace it. I think we've led of any gaming company, we've been most compliant and want to be compliant in all the jurisdictions we operate.
It's critical. It's part of the world today. And we accept it, embrace it and act accordingly. We're very compliant in our approach to all of our jurisdictions. And so that's part of our world.
Well, it impacts all countries we work in, except for maybe any place we operate, Las Vegas here in Bethlehem, a couple of hours away, an hour and a half away, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, obviously, Singapore and Macau. It's a negative for the gaming industry, including our company. Whenever there's restrictions on the ability for a customer to smoke or to move money and pay debts, etcetera, it makes it more restrictive. And it's negative. There's no question about it.
It's impacted Macao significantly in the last couple of years, the entire market. The very high end of the market, the so called junket and rolling chip business has been down meaningfully, almost 50% in the last couple of years and probably will continue. The nice thing about what our Chairman put together a decade ago was a mass based strategy for lots of sleeping rooms, lots of retail lodging and lots of gaming capacity. And that's our trade today. It's more mass.
It's more stable. It's more sustainable. And I think it's a great approach we're taking in Macao is for our income. Our income in Macao has gone down significantly in the last couple of years due to a lot of reasons and one of which is the money movement and the junket restrictions. But we're an even playing field.
Our competitors and us all to accept that policy, and it's a negative thing for the industry. There's no question about it. The same way that here in New York, if you want to buy an expensive piece of jewelry or a piece of art, there's all kinds of restrictions on how you move money. If you want to buy a house here in New York, you can almost explain where the money came from. As part of the world economy today, It's not going to change.
It's going to continue that way forever. And it's not just the gaming world, but all businesses that traffic in large amounts of money. So it's a negative, but it is what it is.
I want to tell you that when I heard 2 years ago in 2014 that we were conducting what's called phone betting or proxy betting. Somebody would sit at a table with a cell phone and get instructions from somebody on the other end of the cell phone. I thought it was morally and ethically wrong and I cut it out within minutes. And I told my then new friend Steve Wynn that he should do the same thing, which he did for a couple of months, but he went back into phone bedding. And it's been in the last month or 2 that the Macau government has outlawed the phone betting completely.
And I'm very happy that we took the stand and we're the first one to recognize its ills and we cut it out.
Sheldon is referencing the Cow Government Band totally. And it took his approach and banned it totally. So, no more foam betting in the Cow, which again, it's a negative for the industry, but that's the world we live in and we have to accept that.
We don't see the convention business as a major source of income comparable to the gaming, particularly in Asia. But we do see it as fulfilling our obligation to be the expert in attracting the mice business and to the government. And we have large parties of sales people to bring in conventions and exhibitions. It's our specialty.
Questions?
Hi, I'm Isaac Dimitrovsky, a shareholder. I just had a couple of quick questions about the U. S. Operations. One of them is the reports about a couple of reports about stadiums in Las Vegas, first the music stadium and then the reports about possibly bringing an NFL team to Las Vegas.
Could you talk a little bit about what opportunity you see there? And the other question is about Bethlehem, which seems to be doing well and what future plans you might have for that?
Well, there are 2. I'll talk about the arena on the stadium and Rob will answer the other question. There are 2 gatherings. 1 is an arena, which is being planned in a joint venture between us and Madison Square Garden Company, a fellow by the name of Dolan and we have an excess piece of land that's adequate for an arena, not necessarily adequate to add more sleeping rooms. We could fill up or they could fill up as many as 85 events during the course of the year, some very high demand about an 18,000 seat arena, specifically designed in a U shaped for entertainment.
It's not designed for either basketball or for hockey or for boxing, but I suppose you can have boxing mentioned there. That is we have made a deal that we get so many seats of whichever seats we want that has quality and we will package them with rooms in our hotel that will give us a significant increase in our average daily rate, our ADR. The fellow that we hired at the beginning of this year from the Atlantis in the Bahamas was formally in charge of rooms at Caesars Palace when the showroom for Celine Dion was built and he is an expert at packaging the rooms and the tickets for the entertainment. So we are optimistic that that will the 365 days a year and the 85 events might cover only 85 nights, but it might cover double that, 170 nights. So that's a technique or a tactic to increase the average daily rate.
Our occupancy is okay and we see that supporting the 2 weakest periods of the year, the summer and November, December. We are not going to operate it. Somebody else who are experts in artist promotion will be operating it and bringing in the artist. On the arena, sorry, on the stadium, seats stadium, we need and want an NFL team and we've had negotiations with the Oakland Raiders that seem to have a broader attendance base around the United States than all the other NFL teams. And they don't have a stadium in Oakland and the municipality which usually is a base of tax revenue to finance the stadium.
We believe that we can get about half the cost of the stadium, which will be between $1,250,000,000 excuse me, and we are 2 experts in this field of about 2 months. So I am a 2 month expert in this field and I am getting smarter by the day, not in quantum leaps, but a little bit each day. And 1, the stadium makes no money. If you are successful stadium, you make $30,000,000 a year. We make that in our company in 1 or 2 nights.
So it's not something that the Board of Directors had said can move the needle on the value of our company. However, beside 10 NFL games, 8 season games and 2 exhibition games, we can put in depending upon who you talk to an additional 45 to 55 events. Those events we would have the selection of the 50 yard line seats, let's say. We sell off options to fans of football, NFL football, but on concerts, on mixed martial arts, on boxing, wrestling and various entertainment tractor pulls and who knows what for those 6 pack and that too will put the pressure on, particularly the stadium, because one of our 2 slow periods in occupancy and ADR is the busiest period for the football game. And it's on the either weekday or weekend, we can have call it football, which can be brought in as an attraction by the boxing promoters or other promoters.
So we could take a week period in occupancy and ADR, namely November, December and turn that into the busiest periods. That incremental increase over and above what I call a nut cracking stage, meaning the fixed expenses will add substantial amounts of money in room occupancy and room average daily rate above what we experienced. The 2nd biggest, we do have occupancy, but we don't have big spenders in the summer time. So we are talking about either Major League Soccer or what they call friendly games with the English and European Premier League. So like Manchester United will bring in exhibition games every weekend and say in a month and we could then bring in Real Madrid, who will do the same for another month and maybe Barcelona or Chelsea or Arsenal or one of those kind of teams, it looks very good.
Now it's not an activity that will move the profitability needle to the company. But being a resident of Las Vegas and caring about our community, I and my family are willing to take over the development of the stadium just for the good of the community, just as a community effort. So I will I volunteer to do this. It's a risk, Could cost me a lot of money, a few $100,000,000 But if it helps out the city, of course, I am not going to do it if I am going to lose money, but I still got to get it done. And so that's the arena and the stadium.
On that plan, just we opened that property half a dozen years ago. We've been thrilled with
the results because most of our money has been returned already. It makes roughly $35,000,000 plus a quarter. What we're looking, we probably would expand it, but that's contingent upon seeing what happens with legislation here in New Jersey. The pending legislation from what I'm hearing is close in terms of the North Jersey Casino Casino possibility. That would put a damper on our expansion plans because a lot of our business does come out of New York area and we're concerned how it impact our business.
So it's a very solid, wonderful return, which we can get that in more jurisdictions. But if New Jersey happened, we might not we're looking at the possibility of adding more lodging, more keys and also expand the casino, add more retail. But that's wait and see how the fall turns out in New Jersey before making that decision. And so Bethlehem, a great little property for us, not in the big scheme of things, dollars 150,000,000 a year, not going to drive significant value to shareholders, but a nice investment and wait and see if we want to expand upon it. Thank you.
Mike, Korean War Comrade.
Fortunately, I was in Germany at that time.
But fortunately, I was in Germany.
Many of my friends in basic training went the other way. However, being a sports fan, I know Las Vegas, baseball hierarchy, I'll put it that way, will not permit baseball brought into Las Vegas. They've tried and because of gambling, etcetera, etcetera, how we get a franchise from the NFL to bring in a football team because this has been talked about many times, whether it's baseball or football and the onus of gambling, the I. E. Reputation, etcetera, that's always been rejected.
There's 28 states that have legalized commercial gaming, either regular commercial like riverboats or Indian Native American gaming, plenty of casinos. There is no longer Las Vegas being the only place in the world in the United States to wager on games. Because my different one of our directors Mr. Schaeffer says, everybody has 2 favorite things, a Chinese restaurant and the bookmaker. So ever since I was a kid, people have been betting, including me, betting on football games out of my home in suburban Boston.
I mean, it's a reality. Being in Vegas doesn't stimulate any more gambling. Now from us, our race in sports book, we sold off. We no longer have we may have a royalty or something. But the race and sports book is not a significant needle mover for profitability in a casino.
It's only there as an accommodation, so we could attract high rollers, medium rollers and they want to bet on a race or an athletic contest, no problem. It's not a big deal for us And if somebody said to me, all right, would you cut out sports betting, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Let me ask the question, please, sir. I understand. Can I help you with a question? Let me ask you, please.
The thinking is not like what it used to be.
Yes. I heard you. I get it. So let me answer your question. I heard you clearly.
So you're absolutely right. The NFL has been adamantly opposed to gambling in Las Vegas, putting a team there. But I think what Sheldon's referencing, the world does change. There was a time when there wouldn't be game. I grew up in the business when there was 2 jurisdictions in the whole country.
Today, you drive by the stadium in Baltimore or by Cleveland or by Chicago, you got to pass the casino to get there. The NFL owners have to make that consideration if Las Vegas is acceptable. So far, our informal feedback from some owners has been, if you read the press reports, Mr. Jones owns the Cowboys, Mr. Kraft that owns the Patriots, indicated it's a possibility they're thinking they're open minded.
The commissioner of sales said we would consider it. No one is saying it's a done deal. Let's be clear, we don't have NFL approval. What we have is people at the NFL who have communicated to the press and the press clippings are out there saying, we're open to Las Vegas. The world is changing.
So if you read Mr. Johnson's comments here in New York, who owns the Jets, there's been owners publicly stating last 3 months that NFL has changed its thinking, would consider Las Vegas. And that's what we're encouraged by. There's no reason to believe that it's a done deal. There's reason to believe it's possible that they'll rethink it.
So like all things in life, 35 years ago when I worked in Atlantic City, people never dreamed they'll be gambling in virtually every state. But today in the U. S. Is gambling virtually. I went to Baltimore to get to the stadium.
I had to pass the casino. A delight, I said, what's that? He said, that's a huge casino in Chicago, in Cleveland. Everywhere you go, gambling is prevalent. So the world does change and perhaps the NFL will rethink it.
We have no guarantees. What Mr. Allison is operating on is the assumption that we would first get approval of the stadium, then submit the NFL. If they turn this down, we're done.
It's okay. I'm not desperate to do this. I mean, it's not a must do for the company. The company doesn't want to do it because it's not a profit making entity. We will be able to package good tickets and with room rates and package multi minimum number of nights.
It's a good thing for business and to push hotel rooms. I mean, I could live with it, I could live without it.
John? Have you given any consideration to the New York State opening up of gambling casino? Is there any interest on LVS' spot?
Do you want me to add?
The upstate is now There is
We are not interested in the upstate casinos. They will be too small. Our Bethlehem is probably the biggest profit making non urban casino in the country. So to go up to Albany or some other town in the mountains up there, it's not going to help it. If New York does come into the New York City area, we'd be aggressively interested.
And the same thing if New Jersey allows because of Northern New Jersey or New York City allows gaming, it's going to have an impact on Bethlehem and why should we not go after it? We'll go after
it. I'll take one more question. Ma'am, in the back.
Naval Inc. Las Vegas Sands has a huge portfolio in Asia with the projected economy slowing down in China and market conditions in Asia getting challenging. Do you anticipate that to affect the bottom line of Las Vegas Sands? 2nd question, do you see that the $12,000,000,000 return to shareholder value last year repeatable?
And so I didn't understand the second part. You do that.
It was $12,000,000,000 not last year, but in the last several years. That's not last year only. That was over a period of years. That's not just which was for last year, but no, we weren't that good. But I think Mr.
Allison addressed what's happening in Asia and the slowdown in the economy.
I've been in business for 70 years and I've created successfully dozens of businesses. What I've learned about that is that everything in life is cyclical. Nothing is straight up, nothing is straight down. And if business is going good and then it slows down, it's going to come back. There's nothing in the world that goes straight down, nothing in the world that goes straight down, but there is a pizza bellies.
And so yes, the economy they are talking about in China is not so good. But look at it from the standpoint of the U. S, we are running at less than 2% GDP growth. They are running at 7%, 7.5%, 6.5%, if they drop from 7.5% to 6.5%, the press covers it as though it's a disaster. Look at it from our standpoint, if we went from 1.75 P2P Growth to 6.5 we would consider it a miracle.
So from the standpoint of from our standpoint, I think it's completely it's cyclical. It was good before. It will be good again. Just add
one thing on that issue, but as much as Macao has had a difficult couple of years, it's still by far, by a multiple of 6 or 7, the most important gaming market in the world. The Las Vegas Strip does $6,000,000,000 Macau will do close to $30,000,000 It's an amazing place to operate. It's got huge potential to grow. There's all the Chinese people, obviously, in the mainland as well as the yuan. So I think it's a little early to say that things aren't going to be great in China in the future.
And Singapore is truly an iconic piece of property that has made a lot of money for this company, for shareholders, provide a lot of that $12,000,000,000 came out of Singapore. So we're delighted to be there. And to Sheldon's early reference about Asia, Asia with 4,000,000,000 people in the room is still the most important place in the world for this company to grow and prosper, and we have a lot of confidence in China, Singapore and other jurisdictions. So we'll be there very happy if someplace else happens for us. And a couple of bad years in Macau, still pretty good.
We still make 1,000,000,000 of dollars in the last couple of years in Macau. Still
Borgata Hotel, if that's correct? Yes. Okay. And your business of running hotels in Las Vegas for many, many years, if I'm not mistaken, you wouldn't have allowed Donald Trump to come into Vegas, is that correct?
No, anybody. He's there.
At one time, he couldn't get in. Is that right? No.
Las Vegas has the Gaming Control Board and that evaluates property, how good people are, But I've never heard of and then they have the Gaming Commission, which is the parent regulatory agency over the Gaming Control Board, the GCB. I've never heard that Mr. Trump applied for a licensure in Las Vegas nor that he was ever turned down. I've not heard anything. And I've been there, I've been licensed for almost 25 years.
As smart as you are, and the last 4 or 5 years, my health has gone down, but your health looks better since I last saw you in the last 4 or 5 years. You look as wise as an owl. Can you tell me how you could support Donald Trump?
I'll say, my guys don't want me to say anything. This is not a federal form, sir. I'll say one sentence. Right. I am a Republican.
Right. I got to support any Republican that receives the nomination. It's very simple. And because I have information about the opposite, about Clinton, And I would never vote for Clinton.
Thank you very much. Okay. I appreciate your comments, questions and more importantly, your support and thank you for coming today. Thank you.