J.P. Morgan has lowered its price target by $1 to $61 for Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Sands continues to rate as a Buy as the company is set to announce its fourth-quarter earnings on Jan. 29.
Sands, which closed at $43.42 on Thursday and is down nearly $8 in 2025, saw its stock price rise in early January, when Jefferies upgraded the stock to a Buy rating after previously calling it a Hold. Jefferies said the improving conditions in Macau will help earnings grow.
On Wednesday, J.P. Morgan analyst Joseph Greff sent a note to investors that the firm is lowering the aggregate Macau property-level EBITDA to $578 million, down from its prior $625 million, a decline of $47 million or 8%. That is underpinned by the assumption that Las Vegas Sands’s fourth-quarter gross gaming revenue market share was about 23%, down 120 basis points sequentially, with gaming revenue down 4% sequentially versus their prior up 6% estimate. That compares to sequential growth of 3% for the total market.
“Our assumptions in Macau reflect a greater-than-expected impact from President Xi’s visit in December, some lingering renovation impacts at the Londoner, which should largely abate through the first quarter, and what we think is likely below-normal VIP hold in Macau,” Greff said. “For 2025, we reduce our aggregate Macau property level EBITDA to $2.66 billion from our prior $2.8 billion (down 5%), representing levels that are hopefully ultimately conservative with the stock down in the mid-$40’s versus its mid-$50’s levels in December. We leave our estimates for Marina Bays Sands property level EBITDA largely unchanged for the fourth quarter through 2025 and view the Singapore market as relatively healthy.”
In 2026 estimates for Macau, Greff forecast property-level EBITDA of $2.84 billion, implying 7% year-over-year growth. Singapore’s forecast was for property-level EBITDA of $2.27 billion, which implies 5% year-over-year growth.
“We like shares of LVS following its recent pullback (down 16% over the past month versus the SPX’s +3%), and we reaffirm our overweight rating given lowered expectations and a very undemanding valuation with shares currently trading at 9.6x/8.7x our 2025/2026 (projected) EBITDA,” Greff said. “We remain confident/optimistic that in Macau, LVS’s Londoner renovation disruption will meaningfully abate from here, which should allow the company to achieve above-Macau-peer EBITDA growth in 2025, where we model Macau property-level EBITDA up 14% year-over-year and presently view buy-side expectations as reasonable.”
Greff highlighted an attractive Singapore market by modeling 10% year-over-year growth in 2025 following 13% growth in 2024) and projected longer-term growth coming from capex/expansion in their integrated resort No. 2 project.
“We think LVS has a reason for more positively inflecting fundamentals in Macau – lack of disruption and ensuing revenue and EBITDA growth from very soon to be entirely completed Londoner renovations – and solid momentum from Marina Bay Sands in Singapore,” Greff said. “We see the other Macau operators (WYNN and Melco Resorts & Entertainment) as lagging LVS’s 2025 growth. Our year-end 2025 price target goes to $61 (down $1), which is based on a 2026E (projected) EBITDA sum-of-the-parts approach.”
