|
楼主 |
发表于 2008-8-31 00:58
|
显示全部楼层
Las Vegas Sands Wants Casinos in India, Adelson Says (Update3)
By Kelvin Wong
Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Las Vegas Sands Corp., the operator of Asia's biggest gambling resort, will consider spending $12 billion to build a strip of casinos in India similar to its project in Macau, Chairman Sheldon Adelson said.
``We would like to build a Cotai Strip in India,'' Adelson told reporters in Macau today. ``We would be happy to spend $12 billion there'' if India invites the company, he said. India is the world's second most populous nation, behind China.
Adelson didn't give details of the potential investment, the announcement of which helped send the shares up 7.7 percent in New York trading. India now has only one legal casino in Goa, a state on the western Malabar Coast that was a Portuguese colony until 1961.
Las Vegas Sands is investing more than $15 billion building casinos in Singapore and in Macau, the only place in China where casinos are legal, as gambling revenue growth in its home market slows. The company and rival Wynn Resorts Ltd. are vying for the casino market in Asia, where economic growth is faster than in the U.S. and Europe.
The Cotai Strip, modeled on the Las Vegas Strip, is on reclaimed land between Macau's Coloane and Taipa Islands. Adelson plans to build as many as 14 hotels there by 2013, he said during the opening of the Four Seasons Macao, its second property in the district.
Las Vegas Sands climbed $3.29 to $45.85 at 4:04 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has tumbled 55 percent this year.
Hotel Complex
The Four Seasons will be part of a complex of hotels that will have more than 1 million square feet of gambling space, 3 million square feet of shops and almost 21,000 hotel rooms.
Adelson visited India and met the nation's ministers of tourism and trade before he arrived in Macau, he said today, without giving details of their discussions.
Macau's gambling revenue, which overtook Las Vegas Strip in 2006, may reach $15 billion this year and surpass the combined total between the two top U.S. gambling states, Adelson said.
``The gross revenue of the Las Vegas Strip and Atlantic City will be substantially exceeded by Macau this year,'' he said. ``And it might exceed that of the entire states of Nevada and New Jersey.''
Gambling revenue at Atlantic City, which had its first annual decline last year, fell 6.1 percent to $2.73 billion in the first seven months of 2008. Casino revenue at the Las Vegas Strip fell 5.2 percent to $3.2 billion for the six months through June, according to Nevada Gaming Control Board data.
Revenue for all of Nevada retreated 1.1 percent to $949.3 million in June, according to Nevada Gaming Control Board data. Macau has $7.3 billion in revenue in the first half.
Adelson opened Macau's first foreign-owned casino in 2004, ending billionaire Stanley Ho's 40-year monopoly of the city's gambling market. Adelson ranked 12th in Forbes magazine's list of the world's richest people this year, with a fortune of $26 billion. |
|