{"id":9008,"date":"2020-08-13T22:46:53","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T22:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=9008"},"modified":"2026-04-24T02:46:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T05:46:59","slug":"fitch-sees-negative-outlook-for-mgm-and-sands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/fitch-sees-negative-outlook-for-mgm-and-sands","title":{"rendered":"Fitch sees negative outlook for MGM and Sands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lower visitations in Macau, Singapore and Las Vegas Casinos are injuring the financial position of the gaming giants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Macau.- Ratings multinational Fitch has reaffirmed the BBB- rating of Las Vegas Sands and its subsidiaries, Marina Bay Sands and Sands China, but revised its outlook from \u201cstable\u201d to \u201cnegative\u201d. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was due to lower visitation and continued travel restrictions in Macau, Singapore\u2019s business being almost entirely restricted to local visitors, low visits to casinos in Las Vegas and \u201cdim\u201d prospects for business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fitch noted the imminent return of the individual visit scheme (IVS) in mainland China, but warned the resumption of visa issuance was conditional on coronavirus in Macau and on mainland remaining under control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fitch also stated that it is confident Las Vegas Sands \u201cwill take proper measures to maintain adequate liquidity, and allow leverage levels to promptly return.\u201d Some of those measures involved pushing its Marina Bay Sands expansion back by about a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding MGM Resorts International and its MGM China Holdings subsidiary, Fitch affirmed its ‘BB-‘ rating and gave their unsecured debt a ‘BB-\/RR4’ rating, while their outlook was also classed as negative<\/a><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The firm believes the gaming giant has a \u201cstrong liquidity position to weather the challenging operating environment\u201d and estimated it will return to financial thresholds by 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Fitch believes gaming locations such as Las Vegas Strip and Macau will continue to show a \u201cchallenging recovery trajectory as the coronavirus pandemic continues to hinder international and domestic tourism\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fitch ratings said: \u201cThe company was in a favorable liquidity position heading into the pandemic, having recently monetized Bellagio and MGM Grand vis-\u00e0-vis sale leaseback transactions, but it also took proactive steps to increase cash as operations halted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe negative rating outlook continues to reflect the risks and uncertainty the global gaming industry is facing from the pandemic. Fitch could revise the rating outlook to stable when there is a greater degree of confidence in the gaming industry’s recovery trajectory and MGM’s ability to de-lever back to 6.0x adjusted gross leverage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lower visitations in Macau, Singapore and Las Vegas Casinos are injuring the financial position of the gaming giants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Fitch has revised the outlook for Las Vegas Sands and MGM Resorts International to \"negative\" while reaffirming their respective credit ratings, citing persistent low visitation and travel restrictions in Macau, Singapore, and Las Vegas. The ratings agency notes strong liquidity positions for both giants but warns of a challenging recovery trajectory for key gaming hubs, conditional on pandemic control and the resumption of schemes like China's IVS.","focusai_entities":"Fitch, Las Vegas Sands, Marina Bay Sands, Sands China, MGM Resorts International, MGM China Holdings, Bellagio, MGM Grand","focusai_location":"Macau, Singapore, Las Vegas, China","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (0.7), operator_casino (1.0), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on Capital Expenditure","query":"How will the \"negative\" outlook for Las Vegas Sands and MGM Resorts International influence their planned capital expenditure, particularly for non-essential integrated resort enhancements or new market entries?"},{"label":"De-leveraging Strategies","query":"What specific de-leveraging strategies, beyond asset monetization and project deferrals, are these gaming giants likely to implement to return to pre-pandemic adjusted gross leverage thresholds by 2023?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,163],"tags":[17703,1616],"class_list":["post-9008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-finance-news","tag-fitch-ratings","tag-mgm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9008","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9008"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9018,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9008\/revisions\/9018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}