Casino Earnings Duel: Wynn vs Las Vegas Sands (WYNN, LVS)

We have two very pertinent earnings this week for casino and resort investors from rivals Wynn Resorts, Limited (NASDAQ: WYNN) and Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS).

Wynn will release results for the June 30 quarter on Thursday followed by a conference call at 12:00 PM EST (9:00 AM Pacific).  Las Vegas Sands Corp. will release its second quarter results after the close on Thursday as well, with a conference call at 4:30 PM EST.  Below is the formal data for this round of earnings along with estimates, performance, chart data, options analysis, and more.

First and foremost, both companies are in the process of trying to do an IPO for their Macau assets to raise capital.  We recently asked “how much was Macau worth?” when this came out for Las Vegas Sands.  Then Wynn followed it with an IPO filing in Hong Kong for its Macau assets.

Wynn Resorts has consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters of -$0.01 EPS on revenues of $739.35 million.  Estimates for the next quarter are $-$0.04 EPS and $721.5 million in revenues.  Wynn’s Encore is now open, and the trends in Vegas have not exactly been recession-proof by any means.

At the end of last quarter, Wynn had over $1.7 billion in cash and short-term securities, its long-term debt was listed as $4.75+ billion and total liabilities including that long-term debt was $5.49 billion. Shares of  Wynn have more than doubled since its March-lows, yet its recovery has been a fraction of rival Las Vegas Sands.  Wynn’s chart is also well above key support levels for longer-term investors.  The July rally took it way up to $46.50 late today after almost challenging $50.00 yesterday, and the 50-day moving is $37.43 and the 200-day moving average is $36.28.

Las Vegas Sands  has a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters of -$0.01 EPS and $1.09 billion in revenues.  For next quarter, those estimates are -$0.01 EPS and $1.14 billion.  The biggest wild card here for this earnings will go above and beyond the earnings report.  What will be the focus is how much cash the company has on hand, how much cash it realistically can expect to generate  in the next quarter or two, and how much capital it needs to maintain its current standings.  Another issue of importance will be how much the company can realistically raise from the sale of non-core assets.

Las Vegas Sands had more than $2.86 billion in cash at the end of last quarter, while its long-term debt was over $10.2 billion and total liabilities after that long-term debt were listed as $12.6 billion.  Perhaps above and beyond all issues, Las Vegas Sands shares went south of $2.00 at the March lows.  They now sit over $10.00.  Whether they should have gone under $2.00 is one thing, but a 400% and higher gain is something else to consider in less than five months.  Las Vegas Sands is well above key moving averages as its 50-day moving average is $8.87 and the 200-day moving average is $6.66.

While times are still tough, we have had a hard time finding the same deals that were even available last month.  At the level packages were being offered then, we opined that Vegas was giving itself away for traffic.

JON C. OGG
JULY 28, 2009