Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS) reported first-quarter financial results on Wednesday. The transcript from the company’s first-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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The full earnings call is available at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/941358049
Summary
Las Vegas Sands reported a strong financial performance with EBITDA at Marina Bay Sands increasing by over 30% to $788 million, and Macau’s EBITDA growing by 18% to $633 million.
The company emphasized its strategic focus on enhancing customer experiences through investments in service, product, and people, particularly in Singapore and Macau.
Las Vegas Sands aims to reach $700 million in quarterly EBITDA in Macau by investing in luxury suites, service improvements, and leveraging its scale advantages.
The company repurchased $740 million of its stock and paid a recurring dividend, with plans for continued share buybacks to enhance shareholder returns.
Management expressed optimism about growth opportunities, citing favorable market conditions in Singapore and Macau, and the upcoming introduction of IR2 in Singapore to cater to high-end tourists.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Sands’ first quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. We will open the floor for your questions and comments following the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Daniel Briggs, senior vice president of investor relations at SANS. Sir, the floor is yours.
Daniel Briggs (Senior Vice President of Investor Relations)
Thank you. Joining the call today are Patrick Dumont, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Wilford Wong, Executive Vice Chairman of Sands China, and Grant Chung, CEO and President of Sands China and EVP of Asia Operations. Today’s conference call will contain forward looking statements. We will be making those statements under the safe harbor provision of Federal securities laws. The language on forward looking statements included in our press release also applies to our comments made on the call today. The company’s actual results may differ materially from the results reflected in those forward looking statements. In addition, we will discuss non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measure are included in our press release. We have posted an earnings presentation on our website. We will refer to that presentation during the call. Finally, for the Q&A session, we ask those with interest to please post one question and one follow up so we might allow everyone with interest the opportunity to participate. This presentation is being recorded. I’ll now turn the call over to Patrick.
Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks Dan. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining the call. As we look to the future, we couldn’t be more enthusiastic about the opportunities for our company. Our strategic priorities remain clear and consistent with the goals of investing with discipline and creating meaningful shareholder returns. Turning to our current quarter results, we once again delivered outstanding financial results at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. With EBITDA increasing over 30% to reach $788 million. Singapore is an ideal market for high value tourism spending and our focus on creating unique and memorable entertainment and hospitality experiences for our guests has been a tremendous success. The company’s fundamental operating strategy relies on three critical pillars, our people, our product and our service. When we get these three pillars optimized, we can create outstanding financial and operating performance. We are seeing that at Marina Bay Sands today and we couldn’t be more enthusiastic about our additional opportunities for growth in Singapore as we continue to enhance the customer experience for our guests in the years ahead. Turning to Macao, we delivered 633 million in EBITDA for the quarter, an increase of over 18%. Mass market revenue share reached 25.7% for this quarter, our strongest performance since the first quarter of 2024. As in Singapore, the operating pillars of people, product and service underpin our strategy to deliver growth in Macao. We believe we will deliver growth over time in Macao as we implement specific strategies to improve both our products and our service levels. We have a goal of reaching 700 million in quarterly EBITDA and beyond over time as we fully implement our investment and operating strategies and as the Macao market continues to grow. Today, the growth in the Macao market is primarily driven by the premium segment. The competition in that segment remains intense and luxurious suite product coupled with outstanding service levels are critical to success. We have the suite product to effectively compete in the premium segment at both Londoner and Grand Suites of the Four Seasons. We are singularly focused today on matching that suite and room product with the service levels at the most discerning and valuable customers and Macao increasingly demand we are making progress. We have meaningfully increased our gaming revenues, gaming volumes and premium customer patronage since implementing the recent changes to our reinvestment programs. Implementing meaningful improvements in the service pillar of our strategy in Macao will be critical to realizing additional growth and securing our long term success. We believe we have outstanding opportunities for growth in every segment as we implement our strategies. Accordingly, we will be making targeted investments and training and hiring of additional customer focused team members throughout the portfolio. Creating and delivering unique and memorable hospitality experiences is the centerpiece of our strategy and improving service levels in Macao is critical to the achievement of our long term financial and operating objectives. In addition, we plan to introduce refreshed and luxurious room and suite products throughout the portfolio as we further execute the pillar of our the product pillar of our strategy. We are focused on the highest return projects to increase cash flow over the next three years. We will begin with the Venetian or work is already in progress with refreshed room product beginning to come into service in the third quarter of 2026. Additional luxurious suite product and a total product refresh is targeted to be completed by the end of 2027. The meaningful patron growth we have seen in the Londoner and Grand Suites of the Four Seasons provides support for these investments. It’s important to note that the work we envision will not create significant disruption throughout the portfolio. The scale of our portfolio will allow us to serve customers in other properties and elsewhere in each resort while work is in progress. Nothing we are doing as we invest in the portfolio over the next several years will hinder our ability to use our scale advantages to outperform the non premium segment should spending in that segment accelerate in the future. We are confident in our strategy in Macao and we look forward to updating you on our progress as we execute our plans. Let’s move forward to provide some additional detail on our current quarter financial performance. Macao EBITDA was 633 million if we had held as expected in our rolling program, our EBITDA would have been lower by 15 million. When adjusted for higher than expected hold in the rolling segment, our EBITDA margin for the Macao portfolio of properties would have been 29.6% or down 200 basis points compared to the first quarter of 2025. Our principal focus in 2026 is to deliver revenue and cash flow growth across the portfolio. Our investments in improving service offerings will naturally increase expenses which will continue to negatively impact margins as we implement our strategy. We do expect margins to improve over time as we grow revenue in the lower end of the premium segment and and in the non premium segment where the scale of our hotel inventory gives us natural advantages as we improve our service levels and further refine our reinvestment strategies. Margin for the quarter at the Venetian was 33.5% while margin at the Londoner was 29.6%. We expect growth in EBITDA as revenues grow. We will use our scale and product advantages together with service level improvements and targeted incentives to effectively compete in every market segment in Singapore. Marina Bay Sands EBITDA for The quarter was 788 million at a margin of 53%. If we had held as expected in our rolling program, our EBITDA would have been higher by $6 million. The outstanding financial and operating results at MBS reflect the impact of high quality investment in market leading product, world class service and the growth in high value tourism. Turning to our program to return capital to shareholders, we repurchased 740 million of LVS stock during the quarter. We also paid our recurring quarterly dividend of $0.30 per share. We have now purchased 14.3% of the company’s outstanding shares over the last 10 quarters and we believe additional repurchases of LVS equity through our share repurchase program will be meaningfully accretive to the company and its shareholders over the long term. While we did not purchase any shares of SEL during the quarter, we do continue to see value in both the LVS and SEL names. The company’s ownership of sel remained at 74.8% as of March 31, 2026. Look forward to continuing to utilize the company’s share repurchase program to increase returns to shareholders. Thanks again for joining the call today and for your interest in the company. Now, let’s take some questions.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for questions. If you would like to enter the queue. To ask a question, please press star-1 on your telephone keypad. Now, if listening on speaker phone today, please pick up your handset to provide optimum sound quality. Also, we ask that each participant limit themselves to one question and one follow up. Please hold a moment, please, while we poll for questions. And the first question today is coming from Dan Pulitzer from J.P. Dan, your line is live.
Dan Pulitzer (Equity Analyst at J.P. Morgan)
Hey, good afternoon everyone and thanks for taking my questions. Singapore, it’s gone from strength to strength to strength. I think you had $18 billion of rolling chips in the quarter. I guess how do you think about what’s driving this? I mean it’s just kind of the astronomical levels here. And to what extent are you seeing any benefit from some of the things kind of evolving the geopolitical landscape that may be hitting other regions and possibly benefiting Singapore.
Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
So there’s a couple things about the Marina Bay sand growth story, which is really a story about investment. The more we invest in high quality asset, the better service levels we have, the more we’re going to differentiate the product that we have and the more high value visitation we’re going to get. Look, I think the VIP segment is just a very competitive segment across Asia. The fact that we’re able to see success here with these very high value patrons is really just an example of the execution there at the property. I will tell you that our main driver profitability at Marina Bay Sands is mass winning slots. VIP is a very volatile segment and it can be concentrated at times it’s high value customers and they can vary from quarter to quarter. What I will tell you is that with the introduction of IR 2, we will have more product to address this market and scale with it. But the one thing to note is that we had an outstanding quarter team, did a phenomenal job. But these quarters can be highly concentrated and can vary.
Dan Pulitzer (Equity Analyst at J.P. Morgan)
Thanks. And then just turning to Macau, you mentioned the goal to get back to that $700 million quarterly EBITDA level. Obviously it’s going to require a little bit more investment. But in terms of the market growth that you have to get there, at what level do you have to see the overall market or mass grow? Or is that something you can get to or achieve independent of the market really accelerating here.
Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Look, I think, I think we’re heading in the right direction in Macao. I think you see the growth this quarter and you see that our focus on service, improving our product, we have some work to do there. Across the portfolio, as we mentioned, is starting to show some progress. And so in our mind that’s a milestone that is achievable. Obviously it’s going to require some growth in the overall market, but more importantly, it’s going to require us to continue on the execution of hospitality and service that we’re showing. Greg, do you have anything else to add?
Greg
First of all, the market continues to grow. We had 14% growth year on year this quarter and it’s notable that we achieved significant revenue outperformance against each segment. So we gain share in every single segment both on a year, on year basis as well as sequentially. So we achieved the EBITDA growth as well as sequential margin improvement at the same time as we optimize our reinvestment levels.
Dan Pulitzer (Equity Analyst at J.P. Morgan)
Got it. Thanks so much.
OPERATOR
Thank you. The next question will be from Brandt Montour from Barclays. Brandt, your line is live.
Brandt Montour (Equity Analyst at Barclays)
Hi everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. So over in Singapore you have a slide that, you know, you show us the theoretical rolling hold and it, you know, I know that that’s just a, just sort of a pure statistical output from, from betting mix. But you know, you do, you kind of do show it kind of curling over and, and sort of reverting back lower. I just want to make sure like, do you, are you guys seeing a change in betting behavior or any type of reversion away from side bets or the, you know, sort of long odds bets that you’ve talked about?
Patrick Dumont (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, I appreciate the question. You know, the VIP business is very volatile and there’s, there’s an interesting occurrence in the way patrons play now, which is some customers who are high end VIP customers on rolling programs play traditional bets and they bet in a much more traditional, conservative way. And then we have other patrons who really enjoy the volatility and the side bets that we present. And so when you have like on page 12, if you look at 3Q25 where we hit the peak of 4.2 with $9.1 billion in rolling volume, we had patrons in the building who really love those side bets. And so it drove the theoretical higher. In the case of this quarter with $18 billion of rolling volume, it was …
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