Am 12.Juli übernimmt Prinz Albert offiziell die Regentschaft von Monaco. Das wäre dann wohl der nächste Termin, ab dem was Größeres passieren könnte. Meiner Ansicht nach herrscht bis dahin relative Ruhe Deshalb hier zum "Zeitvertreib mal ein Artikel über die Casino-Branche (Die Beteiligung an Wynn macht immerhin einen ordentlichen Teil vom Wert jeder SBM-Aktie aus) Grüße,
![](http://www.ariva.de/board/anonymize/attachment.m?aid=756&resize_x=600)
Casino Investors Pondering Whether To Hold or to Fold
By PETER SANDERS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL May 24, 2005; Page C1
(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)
Casino companies are winning big these days. So why aren't their stocks paying off?
The Nevada Gaming Control Board says casinos in the state won more than $1 billion from gamblers in March alone. Big casino operators like MGM Mirage and Harrah's Entertainment Inc. have posted strong profits, and Wynn Resorts Ltd. opened a glistening Vegas resort with publicity that helped the whole Strip. And there are new opportunities in Asia.
Yet casino stocks as a group are down sharply in recent months, including two big players, Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands Corp. Wynn has dropped 40% since mid-March, and Las Vegas Sands at one point had fallen almost 40% since it peaked in December, shortly after the company went public.
Other players, including Harrah's, which is expected to complete its acquisition of Caesars Entertainment Inc. by the end of June, and MGM Mirage have seen their stocks slip but do better than their rivals. As of 4 p.m. yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, Harrah's shares were at $70.51, down 2.9% from a 52-week high of $72.60 on April 13. MGM, which exercised a 2-for-1 split last week, traded at $36.24 on the Big Board, off a split-adjusted 8% since February.
Investors, it seems, are getting nervous about their cards. They are asking questions: How soon will the gambling jackpot in Asia hit, if ever? And when will that high-profile, $2.7 billion Wynn Las Vegas resort begin to show a profit?
A New York-based hedge-fund manager with casino investments says he has never seen the sector so jittery. " There's a lot of fast money chasing in and out," he said.
Wynn Resorts -- headed by Las Vegas legend Steve Wynn, mastermind behind the Mirage and Bellagio -- reported a wider loss for the first quarter because of costs for the new Vegas property. Meanwhile, Mr. Wynn is doubling down, pushing ahead with other major projects in Vegas, Macau and Singapore.
As of 4 p.m. yesterday in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading, Wynn traded at $46.19, down from its high of $76.45 on March 16, about a month before its casino opened on the north end of the Strip. Casino stocks often run up in the months before a big resort opens, then drop right before the debut as investors anticipate opening-day snafus. Sure enough, Wynn Resorts' new Strip casino has been retooling its big-ticket theatrical production, Le Reve.
There also are doubts from analysts about the company's plans in Macau, where Wynn is building an $845 million project, and a proposed resort in Singapore.
Wall Street also finally has realized that the Chinese government controls how many people can visit Macau, near Hong Kong. " Macau is a capacity-strained market at this point," says Jeffrey Logsdon, gambling and lodging analyst at Harris Nesbit in Boston. " And with Wynn, since the property just opened, you're essentially trying to value the company for what it will look like in 2009."
Wynn President Ron Kramer says investors are making " more of a trading call than a fundamental investment call." He worries that " people are missing the big picture on just how good casinos are at being cash generators and how strong our underlying real-estate assets are."
But Asian fears are addling Las Vegas Sands investors, too. Executives spent much of their first-quarter conference call defending weaker-than-expected results from the company's first casino in Macau, which opened last May, although overall quarterly results were strong.
The company's shares sank to $33.10 on Monday of last week, the lowest price since Las Vegas Sands made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange and off about 40% from a high of $53.98 in late December. At 4 p.m. yesterday, the stock traded at $37.20.
Asia is still where many Las Vegas Sands investors expect to see the most-explosive growth, however. The Sands Macao is the first casino run by a U.S. company to open in the only region of China where casino gambling is legal, but the company is figuring out how to capture customers there. Others are watching, including Mr. Wynn and MGM Mirage, which has entered into a joint venture with Pansy Ho, the daughter of Macau gambling mogul Stanley Ho.
" The concept of Macau is really an intermediate and longer-term idea," says William Weidner, president and chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands. " But certainly, when those kinds of valuations in the market change, it makes you scratch your head."
He defended the company's results thus far in Macau: " The first quarter's growth there was 17%. The market had been getting used to rates of 30% to 40%, so when they see this lowered rate, there's sort of a panic -- an overcorrection in modeling long-term value from a short-term wrinkle."
For Las Vegas Sands' billionaire founder and chief executive, Sheldon Adelson, the stock's tumble has erased more than $5 billion of the value of his shares.
But Mr. Weidner is undeterred. " Nothing about our fundamentals has changed," he says. " If anything, we are more bullish about what will happen in 2008 and 2009."
Write to Peter Sanders at peter.sanders@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications:
Wynn Resorts Ltd. is spending more than $1 billion to build a resort and casino in Macau. This column incorrectly said Wynn Resorts was spending $845 million on that project
|