{"id":777019451,"date":"2024-09-27T10:51:22","date_gmt":"2024-09-27T13:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777019451"},"modified":"2026-04-22T05:42:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T08:42:21","slug":"morgan-stanley-upgrades-sands-china-rating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/morgan-stanley-upgrades-sands-china-rating","title":{"rendered":"Morgan Stanley upgrades Sands China rating"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The company is expected resume dividends in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Macau.- Morgan Stanley<\/strong> has upgraded Sands China\u2019s rating from equal-weight to overweight, citing several factors expected to boost the company\u2019s market share and earnings from Q1. It cited the reopening of key facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report, authored by Praveen K. Choudhary, Gareth Leung, and Stephen W. Grambling<\/strong> also highlights the resumption of dividends in 2025 as a major catalyst for Sands China\u2019s stock, which has underperformed by 31 per cent year-to-date (YTD). Before the pandemic, the company consistently paid annual dividends of HK$1.99 (US$0.26) per share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The casino firm\u2019s ratio of net debt to earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) declined from 5.7 times at end-2022 to 2.8 times at end of first-half 2024, and shareholder equity turned positive at the end of first-half 2024,\u201d the report notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It added that improvement in business conditions \u201cshould enable the company to resume HKD0.70 to HKD1.00 dividend-per-share in 2025, implying a 4.4 per cent to 6.3 per cent dividend yield” and identified Sands China as \u201cthe only company in Macau with identifiable catalysts<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See also:<\/strong> Sands China contributes 24.5% of Macau GGR in Q2, analysts say<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bank expects Sands China to achieve net revenue of US$7.04bn this year, down 0.7 per cent from its previous estimate. The institution\u2019s forecast for Sands China\u2019s EBITDA this year is down 2.2 per cent on the previous estimate, to just under US$2.14bn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The company is expected resume dividends in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":680,"featured_media":26755,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Morgan Stanley has upgraded Sands China's rating to overweight, citing expected market share gains and earnings growth from Q1, driven by facility reopenings. A key catalyst is the anticipated resumption of dividends in 2025, following significant improvements in the company's net debt to EBITDA ratio and shareholder equity. Despite a slight downward revision in net revenue and EBITDA forecasts for the current year, the bank identifies Sands China as having unique identifiable catalysts in Macau.","focusai_entities":"Morgan Stanley, Sands China, Praveen K. Choudhary, Gareth Leung, Stephen W. Grambling","focusai_location":"Macau","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.95), operator_casino (0.9), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.75), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Dividend Sustainability Outlook?","query":"Given the revised EBITDA forecast and debt reduction, what is the projected long-term sustainability and growth trajectory for Sands China's dividend payouts beyond the initial HKD0.70-HKD1.00 guidance for 2025?"},{"label":"Competitive Impact Macau?","query":"How might Sands China's identified catalysts and anticipated market share gains specifically impact the competitive landscape and capital allocation strategies of other Macau concessionaires in the near to medium term?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,163],"tags":[21680],"class_list":["post-777019451","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\/777019451","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\/680"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777019451"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777019451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777019459,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777019451\/revisions\/777019459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777019451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777019451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777019451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}