The company is working to manage its debt and leverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Macau.- <\/strong>Sands China has agreed to an 18-month extension of its dividend-restriction period as part of an amended facility agreement worth approximately US$2.49bn. The extension comes as a result of the company’s decision to exercise a commitments increase option, which previously restricted its ability to make any dividend payment or similar distribution if its total commitments exceeded US$2.00bn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The original agreement, signed in 2018, provided for a revolving unsecured credit facility of US$2.00bn, but Sands China exercised its option to increase the lenders’ total commitments by about US$494.0m <\/strong>in January 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The extended dividend-restriction period will now continue up to and including January 1, 2025, instead of its prior end date of July 31 of this year. The exception to the restriction is if Sands China’s sum of cash and cash equivalents and unused commitments is greater than US$2.00bn after payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the latest amendment, the lenders’ Hong Kong dollar-denominated commitments total over HKD17.6bn (US$2.25bn), while the U.S. dollar-denominated commitments total US$237m. The amended deal will come into effect on July 31 this year, while the termination date on the facility agreement will move to July 31, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The latest amendment also amends the definition of Sands China’s “consolidated total debt” as per the agreement so that it excludes any Sands China debt defined as “subordinated.” Sands China’s maximum permitted consolidated leverage ratio <\/strong>is to be managed downward, declining from 6.25 times for the quarter ending March 31, 2024, to 4.00 times for the quarter ending March 31, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Due to the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, Sands China’s parent company, Las Vegas Sands Corp, suspended its dividend program in April 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The company is working to manage its debt and leverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":12624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Sands China has secured an 18-month extension to its dividend-restriction period, now set until January 1, 2025, as part of an amended US$2.49bn facility agreement. This amendment, driven by an increase in lender commitments, also revises the definition of consolidated total debt and mandates a downward trajectory for the maximum permitted consolidated leverage ratio, reflecting ongoing debt management efforts post-pandemic.","focusai_entities":"Sands China, Las Vegas Sands Corp","focusai_location":"Macau, Hong Kong","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.95), regulator (0.75), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on future dividends?","query":"What are the projected implications of this extended dividend restriction and revised leverage covenants on Sands China's future capital allocation strategy and potential for shareholder distributions post-January 2025?"},{"label":"Leverage ratio trajectory?","query":"How does the mandated downward trajectory of Sands China's consolidated leverage ratio, from 6.25x to 4.00x by March 2025, align with broader industry debt management trends for integrated resorts?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,163],"tags":[21680],"class_list":["post-777005186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-finance-news","tag-sands-china"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777005186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777005186"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777005186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777005190,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777005186\/revisions\/777005190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777005186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777005186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777005186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}