拉斯維加斯金沙集團 (LVS) 2015 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon.

My name is Chris and I will be your conference operator today.

At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Las Vegas Sands Corporation's fourth-quarter 2015 earnings conference call led by Mr. Daniel Briggs, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.

You may begin your conference, sir.

Thank you, Chris.

Joining me today on the call are Sheldon Adelson, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Rob Goldstein, our President and Chief Operating Officer; and Patrick Dumont, our Senior Vice President of Finance and Strategy.

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 provisions of federal securities laws.

The Company's actual results could differ materially from the anticipated results in those forward-looking statements.

Please see today's press release under the caption forward-looking statements for a discussion of risks that may affect our results.

In addition, we may discuss adjusted net income and hold-normalized adjusted net income, adjusted dilutive EPS and hold-adjusted dilutive EPS, and property EBITDA and hold-normalized adjusted property EBITDA, and constant currency results, all of which are 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.

Please note that this presentation is being recorded.

We also want to inform you that we have posted supplementary earnings slides in our Investor Relations website for you to 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 please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question so we might allow everyone with interest to participate.

With that, let me please introduce our Chairman, Sheldon Adelson.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today.

Thank you for the introduction.

I'm pleased we continued to execute our strategic objectives during the quarter, despite the continuing challenges in the Macao market.

We again delivered a strong set of financial results with Company-wide hold-normalized EBITDA reaching $1.07 billion.

For full year 2015 and against a backdrop of 34% decline in Macao's gross gaming revenue, we generated Company-wide EBITDA of $4.2 billion.

This industry-leading cash generation reflects both the strength of our business model and the graphic 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.

Our unique MICE-based integrated resort business model positively differentiates us from our competitors in terms of both financial performance and economic contribution to our host jurisdictions.

In Macao, our adjusted property EBITDA was up 7% quarter on quarter, enabling us to finish 2015 with our best quarterly EBITDA for the year, despite the arrival of new competition.

Our quarter-four EBITDA margin in Macao improved both during year on year and quarter on quarter.

In Singapore, Marina Bay Sands delivered another strong result on a constant currency basis and excluding the property tax refund.

In the fourth quarter of 2014, Marina Bay Sands hold-normalized EBITDA was up 12%.

Its mass win per day was up 6% and reached another quarterly record when measured in Singapore dollars.

The Venetian Macau is today the iconic, must-see integrated resort destination in Macau, welcoming over 30 million visitors annually and when we calculate all the visitation to all our properties, we have an average of two to one visitations from 30 million visitors.

We last year welcomed 30 -- sorry, 61 million or 62 million visitors.

That's an average of two visits to any one of our properties per each visit tour.

Despite all the headwinds and challenges of 2015, the Venetian Macau produced $1.1 billion of EBITDA for the year and was the only Macau property to exceed $1 million in EBITDA -- sorry, $1 billion-plus in EBITDA.

Indeed, the only other integrated resort property in the world that earned more than $1 billion in EBITDA to 2015 is at our Marina Bay Sands.

I've not a shadow of doubt that the Parisian, which is to open later this year, will replicate the success of the Venetian as another themed, iconic, must-see (inaudible) destination for Macao's visitors.

In Macao, our share of EBITDA in the six operator market has continued to increase to around 37% in the first nine months of 2015, up from 34% in 2014.

In fact, in quarter three, our EBITDA share climbed to 38%.

In Singapore, our share of EBITDA in the duopoly market increased to 68% in the first nine months of 2015, up from 65% in 2014.

Because of industry-leading investments in both Macao and Singapore, we are unique in the absolute scale of our cash flow as well as our dominant share of the industry's cash flow.

Scale, diversity, and critical mass allow us to outperform our competitors.

This was my plan when I conceived of the Cotai Strip.

There was in one of the clippings I read this week, said that the visitation, or the GGR in Cotai, which is my baby, was 60% in the Peninsula's 40, when it used to be virtually 100% for the Peninsula.

Our retail mall portfolio (technical difficulty) is another unique differentiator.

For 2015, the operating profit of our malls in Macau and Singapore reached $0.5 billion.

I'm pleased to highlight, that despite the downturn in luxury retail in greater China, Macau mall revenues still grew by 4% in 2015.

We're also clearly differentiated by the strength of our balance sheet.

The balance sheet strength at 1.7 times net debt to EBITDA at year end, allows us to stay fully committed to our development plans while continuing to return excess capital share holders.

Again, this is unique in our industry.

Let me give you some additional highlights of our results in Macao for the quarter.

The quarter-four Sands China EBITDA was $581 million, up 7% over the prior quarter.

On a hold-normalized basis, EBITDA was $555 million, up 3% over the prior quarter.

We do see stabilization in gaming revenue trends.

In the mass gaming segment, our non-rolling drop was down just 1% over the prior quarter despite new competition that is predominately focused on the mass market.

Our VIP rolling volumes were actually up 5% over the prior quarter, out performing the 2% sequentially increase in the Macau market.

We continue to benefit from the scale of our hotel room inventory.

In a market with peak periods the weekends and holidays matter more than ever before and where mass-market customers will generate the lion share of future revenue and profit growth.

We believe our capacity advantage will be further amplified.

Weekends and public holidays, which represent about one-third of calendar days, generate almost half of our EBITDA.

I was in Macau in mid-December to officiate at the opening of the St.

Regis Hotel.

Despite adding 400 keys to our portfolio, our hotels were running at virtually full occupancy during the entire Christmas and Western New Year period.

More importantly, the impact on our premium mass gaming revenues in the Himalaya casino at Sands Cotai Central has been very positive.

Our win per unit is in Dragon's Palace.

The high-limit area in Himalaya is running at about $16,000 since the St.

Regis opening, an increase of over 60% when compared to the two months prior to the hotel opening.

We will continue to make investments in Sands Cotai Central.

In addition to the opening of the St.

Regis Hotel, we will also be expanding the retail model in the northwest corner of Sands Cotai Central and will open both Planet J and the Monkey King theater show during the course of 2016.

When Planet J is launched, it will be a one-of-a-kind attraction, drawing families from across the region and beyond.

We're also planning to connect the Parisian to Sands Cotai Central with an air-conditioned walkover bridge equipped with airport style moving sidewalks.

In respect to cost efficiencies, we achieved approximately $250 million of savings in 2015, well in excess of our $200 million goal.

Hold-normalized EBITDA margin in Macao improved by 130 basis points to 34.7%, primarily reflecting cost efficiencies.

I am pleased that since quarter one of 2015 we've been able to maintain high levels of market share despite new competition while controlling costs and increasing labor productivity.

We believe margin can continue to expand in the future and in particular as the Parisian opens.

Rob will elaborate further in the discussion later.

With the completion of the Parisian, we will have almost 13,000 hotel rooms in 4 interconnected hotels, over 840 stores across 4 shopping malls, with the potential to add several hundred more stores in future department phases, subject to government approval, 2 million square feet of meeting and exhibition space, and 4 performance and event venues, including our Venetian Cotai Arena, which can be utilized either for our MICE business or major entertainment.

Business and leisure visitor to Macao will be able to enjoy all of this and more under one roof, in one destination.

In order to go to 13,000 hotel rooms, all these retail malls, all the individual stores, you won't have to leave the building.

You'll be connected with air-conditioned pedestrian walkways, a one-of-a-kind in the world.

I believe this will help to increase the length of stay for Macau as well as reduce overcrowding issues in the traditional tourism hot spots in Macau.

I'm encouraged that based on the latest government statistics, average length of stay for overnight visitors to Macau actually increased in 2015 from1.9 nights to 2.1 nights.

I believe this will further increase as we complete the next stage of our development on the Cotai Strip.

We remain fully committed to playing the pioneering role in Macau's transformation into Asia's leading business and leisure tours of destination.

Our track record in being transformative pioneers in MICE, retail, and entertainment speak for itself.

No less important is the decade-long effect -- effort we have made in developing the promoting of the local talent that is necessary to operate and grow our business over the long-term.

In 2004, only 7% of our 900 or so managerial staff were locals.

Today, 86% of our 2,700 or so managerial staff are locals.

In summary, we regard it as a privilege to contribute to Macau's success in realizing the subjectives of diversifying its economy, supporting the growth of local businesses, providing meaningful career elements opportunities for its citizens, and reaching its full potential as Asia's leading business and leisure tours of destination.

We have steadfast confidence in both our and Macau's future success.

Moving on to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, we delivered another strong quarter at Marina Bay's Sands, which despite the impact of the stronger US dollar, generated hold-normalized EBITDA of $375 million.

As I mentioned earlier, on a constant currency basis and including the property tax refund we received in last year's fourth quarter, our hold-normalized EBITDA increased 12%.

Mass win per day was $4.6 million.

When adjusted to the currency effect, our mass win per day was up by 6% year on year, resulting in our best ever quarter in mass gaming revenues when measured in Singapore dollars.

That strong performance was principally driven by the successful execution of our strategy to bring foreign premium mass customers to Singapore.

Now on to my favorite subject, the return of capital to shareholders.

Yay, dividends.

We announced last quarter that the Las Vegas Sands Board of Directors has approved a 10.8% increase in our recurring dividend program for the 2016 calendar year to $2.88 for the year, or $0.72 per quarter.

We remain committed to maintaining our recurring dividend programs at both Las Vegas Sands and Sands China and we remain committed to increasing those recurring dividends in the future as our cash flows grow.

At the same time, we remain optimistic in returning excess capital via a share repurchase (technical difficulty).

We bought back $60 million of stock in the most recent quarter.

We look forward to continuing to utilize this stock buyback program to return excess capital to shareholders and to enhance long-term shareholder returns.

Our industry-leading cash flows, geographic diversity, and balance sheet strength enable us to continue these recurring dividends and stock repurchase programs while retaining ample financial flexibility to invest for future growth and pursue new development opportunities.

Thanks again for joining us on the call today and now we'll take questions.

(Operator Instructions)

Joe Greff, JPMorgan.

Sheldon, in your prepared remarks you referenced that you do see stabilization in the mass segment.

Can you talk about how you define stabilization, how you're looking at or what specifically you are looking at to gauge whether there's stabilization or not in the fourth quarter and in the 1Q?

And then I have a quick follow-up.

Thank you.

If you -- look, it's just 70 years of experience that I have in business.

After I made that verbal prognostication, which very hard to do prognostications, particularly about the future, and I said to the inquirer, the person who was -- not to the newspapers, but to the person who was asking questions of me, that I thought we would either hit bottom in the mass market or we were bottoming out.

Ever since I've said that, I have been reading the issues, I've been reading from analyst reports, and from other Sands China reports that I get daily, the clippings, that people are saying to believe that and some of the numbers put out and experienced through December and January indicate to me that that is the case.

It's not the case with every operator, every one of the six.

It is the case with us.

Okay, great.

Rob, can you talk about your outlook for Las Vegas.

I know it means, obviously, less to you than Singapore or Macau, but our view on Las Vegas right now, it's a pretty good environment for room RevPAR growth in non-gaming spend.

Can you share with us what you're seeing with the gaming side, particular given some of the recent turmoil in the equity markets?

I think Las Vegas, Joe, is -- I agree with you.

The direction is positive.

It's an ADR RevPAR story more than a gaming story.

We have 7,100 keys right now in this environment and we think we can do over $400 million a year annually if markets hold up.

All the segments are performing well, FIT, group, wholesale.

I think it's been a strong year for the lodging side.

Gaming is a mixed bag.

We are very pleased with our mass slot and table business in the last quarter.

We're seeing softness in the high end, the premium, because it emanates from China and from Asia.

I agree with you that the market in Las Vegas feels good.

It feels favorable.

It's a RevPAR ADR lodging story more than anything else and visitation keeps climbing.

I think Vegas has been on sale for too long and perhaps the market is responding favorably to the price movements, the right direction are good for everybody and we're certainly participating.

We're in line with you on that, we agree.

Thank.

Good job.

Felicia Hendrix, Barclays.

Rob, on the Parisian, you've now seen two properties open in the market.

Neither have moved the needle in terms of the impact to the market and you are obviously excited about the opening of your property.

I'm wondering, as you have observed the performance of both properties, what learnings, if any, can you apply to Parisian?

Also, I think there has been recent headlines that WinPalace might be delayed past June.

Wonder if that could have any impact on your opening date for the Parisian?

I've answered this question in previous earnings calls that I don't want to tell people what mistakes they made because in case they expand, I don't want them -- I don't my competitors to correct it.

All I can say is, we think we're doing it right.

If they are not going to expand like we will, then maybe they know something we don't know.

Or maybe they don't know something that we do know.

Maybe I can rephrase.

In your prepared remarks, you said Rob was going to touch more upon some of the exciting things that you were thinking about the Parisian.

Maybe Rob could touch on that.

Was it something I said?

(Laughter)

You did.

In your prepared remarks you said -- you were talking about the Parisian and then you said Rob will have more to touch upon that later.

I said that.

We see it pretty simple.

I was there last week and without commenting on other properties, the Parisian is unique.

It emulates the theme approach of the Venetian which, as Shel alluded to, is a $1 billion property.

The Venetian might be the most -- the greatest return on invested capital in this industry.

The fact is, we think being on Cotai as a mass product with the kind of elements and attractions that I think will appeal to mass Chinese visitors, I think it is unique.

I think when you walk on the floor as I did and you see the room product and the mass product we create there, it is pretty special.

I'd be really surprised if the Parisian doesn't do very, very well out of the gate.

It's also on Cotai, which is another big positive.

As the migration moves from the Peninsula to Cotai, it's got that built-in advantage of having that.

I just think we have the ability with a theme product, with our margin focus, with our ability to be on Cotai, with -- we'll be 13,000 sleeping rooms on Cotai, the Parisian is part of a family of success on Cotai that I think will be very strong.

Again, I think the physical product, when you walk through and you see that Parisian look and feel, it feels a lot like another version of Venetian, which I think is an inherent advantage that can't be copied.

So we feel very bullish about it.

With the opening of Win and Parisian next year, that migration of revenue from Peninsula to Cotai continues.

So yes, we feel very good about it and that's our pull.

You also mentioned possible Win delay.

I don't know any more than you do about the timing of WinPalace.

I think you have to ask the folks at Win about that.

I don't know anymore than I have read in the clippings.

It sounds like they are still shooting for a summer opening, but I don't know --

No, I was wondering if that -- if they were delayed if it would effect your opening timing.

No.

We want to open as soon as we can.

We believe the product will do very well.

The sooner the better and it won't delay our opening at all.

No, we plan to be open as soon as we can.

If that's September, October, whenever it is, we'll open the doors.

Okay.

You saved more than you expected this year, or last year in 2015.

How should we think about cost savings in 2016?

We'll keep trying, but the bulk of the cost savings are there for you to see.

I'm not sure where else we can -- we can continue to be judicious about spend, we can look at all the areas from marketing, entertainment, payroll, gaming reinvestment OpEx, non-gaming OpEx.

Obviously, everything is on the table but we did $250 million all in this year.

We just want to keep moving that direction, but we are hoping for a growth in gaming revenues to make it less challenging on the cost side.

We felt very good what the teams achieve this year and we'll keep looking for more, but again, the lion's share is there.

Okay, great.

Thanks so much.

Chris Jones.

Thank you for taking my question.

First, it's been about the 10-year mark on Marina Bay Sands.

I was wondering if you could comment about what your plans are for the Marina Bay Sands mall at this point?

You're ahead of us, Chris.

We open in 2010 so it's been about -- we're on our sixth-year operation there.

You're talking about 10 years from time the license was granted?

Right, precisely.

We're six into the operation I think the mall numbers keep getting better.

We're very, very pleased with how it is performed.

On a currency adjusted basis, it is up again about 7% both in profits and sales.

I feel really bullish about it.

I was there last week and the mall has been remerchandised by our retail team in a very favorable way.

I think there's some softness in the Singapore retail market, but we are not feeling it.

Both our luxury and our mass sales are up and feel very good about it.

It keeps getting better.

That is our take on Singapore retail.

My quick follow-up, as it relates to development, given that Japan is delayed a little bit, or we're sort of in a question mark, what are you thinking about other development beyond that, whether it be South America, Brazil, or back in the United States in New Jersey?

Any comments there?

Can I finish on what Rob said?

Orchard Road, according to the clippings, was down across the board and Marina Bay Sands, the shops at Marina Bay Sands was up.

We're 100% rented.

Notwithstanding that the most popular street in all of Asia, Orchard Road in Singapore, went down, the shops at Marina Bay Sands went up.

Thank you.

As it relates to development opportunities outside of Macau?

Any other opportunities perhaps in Asia or the rest of the world?

We continue to lobby in five -- in four countries, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand.

The newly elected either President or Prime Minister of Taiwan does not offer a lot of optimism for changing the previously approved Taiwan Strait legalizing gaming, enabling gaming in the Taiwanese Strait, to the mainland, which there was discussion of before.

The currents head of the government said, I don't know which, Prime Minister our President, said that -- at least the clippings say she is anti-gaming and not pro-gaming.

So we'll cross off Taiwan as a potential for the time being.

The Asians don't move very fast.

We are watching it.

We have people in various places representing us and as soon as something happens there, we'll be right there paying attention to it.

We are interested in northern New Jersey, but right now, we don't have, nor am I interested in buying out, a casino in Atlantic City.

It looks like Atlantic City operators will have the first option to apply within 60 days with a $1 billion-plus program to open in northern New Jersey.

If that doesn't work out or they don't provide the components that non-Atlantic City operators can provide, could be that the government will reach out outside of the Atlantic City operators.

We feel that with a MICE-focused, a convention-focused marketing theme and development theme, our business model, that we would be a prime candidate.

You mentioned Brazil.

We haven't gone to Brazil, but we are contemplating doing that.

We are in touch with somebody down there who's got a business going, some Americans, have been going for many years.

We're going to look at that.

We have some concerns about inflation and about the currency and about the economy there.

We think it's potentially a very good opportunity.

Outside of that, we are interested in Atlanta and I read a clipping recently, last week, that the state of Texas is interested in getting rid of the eight liners, whatever they call them, of which there tens if not hundreds of thousands of slots.

They are everywhere.

The possibility, if that exists, that we would be a candidate for one of the main cities, maybe Dallas and Fort Worth or Houston, which would be the leading candidates for us.

Where ever there's an opportunity, we are looking at everything.

We don't miss one.

One follow-up comment to Sheldon about New Jersey.

We'd be very much interested if they want real multi-billion dollars awards to create bona fide tourism MICE opportunities and not just simply overtaxed slot barns; we don't do that.

But if that opportunity is there, we would be keenly interested.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Is that the English phrase, keen?

Keen.

Excited.

Shaun Kelley, Bank of America.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Maybe a little bit more of a theoretical question.

I think a lot of the economists out there currently are pretty focused on what's going on in the currency markets.

I'm curious to get your thoughts a little bit on where do you see the impact of a weakening RMB being both on the fundamentals that you have gone through so far in Macao.

More importantly, I think, if we're to see a more material devaluation in the future, what you think some of these fallout or potential implications for Macau and Singapore could be?

I will leave that up to Patrick to answer.

It's a very interesting discussion.

I think the hardest part about it that we've seen in the last quarter is the change in our purchasing power of Sing dollars.

As you notice in our financials, we show currency adjusted results for Marina Bay Sands.

That is the near-term impact from the changing of the RMB and the devaluation.

I think long-term it's really hard to call.

I think it's hard for anyone to figure out exactly what the impact will be and how the currency may continue to devalue.

The only thing is we are looking at hedging programs.

We're speaking to economists and doing our best to evaluate in the impact to the business.

In terms of long-term impact on our customers, it's hard to say.

A devaluation of the currency could impact manufacturing economy there and driver further growth in their economy.

There are other people who have different views.

For right now, we are just studying it and hopefully we will continue to grow our business in the face of any currency changes that may occur.

That's helpful, Patrick.

Maybe just one follow-up on it.

Do you think you saw any impact to the typical mass consumer due to a weaker RMB in the fourth quarter?

Putting it differently, do you think actually numbers could have been a stronger if you hadn't had an RMB headwind, or is it too difficult to tell?

Shaun, it's Rob.

My sense, we can't discern that at this point.

Our fourth quarter, our mass revenues are fine.

Our retail spend was pretty good relative to the market.

I think it's early to tell.

I think it's more -- my personal belief is more it's economic concerns.

If the people who gamble in Macau felt more comfortable or felt that they're going to do well financially, it's like any place in the world.

You gamble based on what you expect your earning ability to be.

I think it's too early to make a decision about RMB and customers.

I think we are seeing Macau get stronger but I think it's really the key thing most our customers is, how -- what I heard from our people the last week is how is my job, how is my business, how is economy doing?

That seems to be the focal point.

When the mass market comes into Macau, they don't know about the currency exchange.

They transfer the RMB and it's not an issue with the mass market.

They're not foreign exchange fixated.

Yes, the people who deal with it internationally are fixated with foreign exchange, but those guys are in the VIP category.

But the mass market, they earned so many RMB, it's the same rate of about eight to the US dollar and they can buy, they can buy MOP, the Macau currency or they can buy the Hong Kong currency and play with that.

So, I don't think that it has a big impact on the mass market.

Thank you all very much.

Carlo Santarelli, Deutsche Bank.

Sheldon, bigger picture, if you think about your balance sheet and your capital needs going forward, which obviously after the opening of the Parisian will lessen and you try and conceptual that with some of the development that you mentioned and the likelihood of them coming, what is a net leverage level that you feel capital running the business, and, obviously, delivering the capital returns that you have?

And we expect you to continue to?

Is higher than what it is today.

If we are in 1.7, you've got to understand, coming from a poor family that I come from, to have tens of billions of dollars property with debt, which I am fundamentally debt adverse, at 1.7 times, it's like a fantasy to me.

If I were younger, I could have dreamt, if I knew that I would ever achieve this, I could have dreamt about that.

I never dreamt I could be down at 1.7 and some of our debt is at sub 2%.

I think the highest of our debt is of our first lien properties is 2.5%.

Something like that.

So I'm extremely happy.

I think we are far away -- I would be comfortable in my minimum level of comfort, which is still large, is somewhere between 2.5% and 3%.

But I'm going to listen to the Board of Directors.

Great.

Thank you.

One follow-up, maybe Rob --

Even though they don't listen to me (laughter).

Rob, and I think Sheldon mentioned in the prepared remarks, you had already achieved $215 million.

I think on the prior call you mentioned $175 million with upside to maybe $230 million or so.

If you think about that $215 million and the buckets where it's come from, could you talk a little bit about you have parsed through that, if we are predominately labor, et cetera?

The biggest number is payroll, Carlo, and the second biggest number would be market and entertainment costs.

The third biggest number would be non-gaming OpEx, about 20%.

The smallest would be gaming reinvestment OpEx.

It's evenly divided among those four categories.

As a referenced to Felicia, I don't know if we have a whole lot more room to grow in those cost areas.

At some point you start cutting into the muscle instead of the fat.

But we're comfortable we can maintain it and we'll continue to probe for more opportunities.

A lot of people have taken on the entertainment and other issues.

We used to run first in Macao we are happy to cede control of those areas and be a ticket buyer versus a entertainment purchaser.

We are little more conservative.

I think we -- again, the majority is out of the business now, so I wouldn't look for a whole lot more growth as far as cost cutting.

Also, I should reference the fact we are carrying an awful lot of people in dollars being spent on payroll as we move into the Parisian.

That'll shift -- that'll be a big shift away from the operating side, the overhead SCL, once Parisian opens up in the fall.

We already got rid of the guy who used to have multi-million dollar losses on entertainment for major performers.

We already got rid of him because he called those brand builders.

We already have brand, so we don't do -- we don't make those mistakes anymore.

Understood.

Thank you both very much.

Robin Farley, UBS.

I have two questions.

One is with Chinese New Year approaching, do you have any observations about whether you feel like there is sufficient liquidity in the junket system to keep the number of junkets that are active there through that period?

And then I have a question about the Parisian as well.

Robin, I was there with a number of the junket groups last week.

I do think there is sufficient liquidity and I do think we've got sufficient gaming capacity, because we are going to increase our -- I saw the accounts this morning.

We feel like it's a good run up as far as room bookings and reservations, lodging and casino, for Chinese New Years.

We do think the junkets, the ones that are still standing and we met with some of the top people there last week, we feel they're actually in pretty good shape and there is sufficient liquidity.

Obviously, some have folded.

I think more will fold later this year.

The people we are doing business with, we are very comfortable with and those who have stopped doing business are paying their bills and performing admirably, so I feel good about that.

Okay, great.

Thanks.

On the Parisian, I know you said you hope to open as soon as possible, but can you just maybe clarify, at this point, are there any permits or anything, any gating issues that are not in your control where it's some kind of government approval or permit that could keep you from opening if you were -- the day that you're ready to open, whatever that may be?

Are there other things outside the progress of your construction?

Instead of listing all of those, we can list the handful of things that are in our control.

I believe the government wants us to open as soon as we can.

That's the indication.

That's the indication that we're getting.

I think we will open.

Look, I haven't discussed it at length with my staff but I'm personally thinking about the possibility of an early opening, a partial opening.

We just turned over 1,000 rooms to operations from the construction department to start installing furniture, fixtures and equipment, FF&E.

It's amazing that eight months before a scheduled opening, which we are scheduling for September, that we're turning rooms over to operations to provide the finishes and install the FF&E.

It's a never happened before, I don't think on any property.

Our tower and the rooms are going very well.

If we can finish a lot of those, maybe if the opportunity presents itself, maybe we can do a partial opening.

The summertime, but our scheduled opening is mid-September.

Now, that could change because of weather, or foreign labor or the government.

There's nothing -- there's no indication that there's any major obstacle that the government is interested in putting in our place to prevent our opening.

I'll just tell you that the reason we are successful is because we build something different and interesting.

Beyond that, I won't give in because I once saw a movie about Houdini that said he didn't disclose his secrets.

So I'm taking a hint out of there.

Okay.

Thanks very much.

Is that it?

No further questions?

No further questions at this time, sir.

Pardon me?

We can either stop or give you answers without questions.

Thank you very much for your time.

This concludes today's conference call.

You may now disconnect.