LV Sands Completes $600M Pre-IPO Financing

LAS VEGAS-The casino-resort company Las Vegas Sands Corp. on Tuesday said it completed the sale of $600 million in bonds in advance of an expected initial public offering for one of its Macau subsidiaries on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The bonds, which mature in 2014, are mandatorily exchangeable into the common stock the Macau unit after the IPO.

As part of the $600-million pre-IPO financing Las Vegas Sands Corp.’s wholly-owned subsidiary Venetian Venture Development Intermediate II, the issuer of the bonds, entered into a Trust Deed with Citicorp International Ltd. The interest rate on the bonds start out at 9% per annum, increase to 12% in 2010 and then increase again to 15% in 2014.

Las Vegas Sands, which operates two casinos in Macau, two on the Las Vegas Strip and one in Pennsylvania has been working to improve its liquidity and de-lever its balance sheet in the aftermath of the recession and broken credit markets that had it on the brink of loan defaults. It filed its application for a listing on the HKSE’s main board last month, shortly after negotiating a deal with Bank of Nova Scotia whereby it is now allowed to sell as much as a 49.9% stake in its Macau operations as long as a healthy chunk of the net proceeds are used to pay down its subsidiaries’ $3.3-billion credit facility with the bank. The allowance, from not being allowed to sell any stake in the operations, was part of an amended credit agreement that gives Sands a six-quarter breather from some of the requirements of its debt agreements.

“We will continue working to solidify our financial position while at the same time staying true to our long-term business strategy,” Adelson said recently. “Our company remains uniquely positioned to develop large scale integrated resorts and to monetize the various non-core assets of those developments, such as retail malls and residential units, when economic and capital market conditions are appropriate. This fundamental business strategy guides the planning and development of our current pipeline of projects and helps us evaluate future development opportunities as well.”

In the US, Las Vegas Sands owns and operates the adjoining Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino, Palazzo Resort-Hotel-Casino and Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas, as well as Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem(TM) in Eastern Pennsylvania. Internationally, it owns three Venetian and Sands branded resorts in Macao as well as Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, and is the master developer of the Cotai Strip, a Macau development that is slated to include 21,000 hotel rooms to be flown under various flags including St. Regis, Sheraton, Shangri-La, Traders, Hilton, Conrad, Fairmont, Raffles, Holiday Inn, and InterContinental.