A maiden HK$4.67 billion dividend payout by Sands China may point the way to more distributions by other cashed-up Macau casino companies, say analysts.
Sands China, 70.3 per cent owned by gaming magnate Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Sands, said yesterday it would pay a HK 58 cents-per-share interim dividend to shareholders of record as of February 20.
The payout makes Sands China the third of the six Hong Kong-listed Macau casino operators, after SJM and Wynn Macau, to pay a dividend, and analysts expect burgeoning cash flows at Galaxy Entertainment may allow that firm to follow.
'Benefiting from the robust gaming demand from mainland China, Macau's gaming operators have generated superior investment returns from their casinos, and this has enabled them to pay down most of their debts over the past few years,' Goldman Sachs analysts Simon Cheung and Janet Lu wrote this week in a research note.