Looking ahead to the rebidding for Macau’s casino licenses a couple of years from now, the Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) has moved to bolster its ties with Beijing by adding a senior executive from Microsoft in China to the board of directors.
Global Vice President Xuan Yan has joined the board effective immediately, the Las Vegas-based resort giant said, providing no details other than noting the leadership positions he’s held previously in China with other global technology companies.
LVS is the parent company of Hong Kong-listed Sands China, which operates six gaming resorts in Macau and is currently involved in several expansion and refurbishment projects at its market-leading casino-hotel cluster in the Cotai resort district.
Sands China’s casino concession expires in 2022, along with those of Macau’s five other operators, and as an American company dependent on Macau for the majority of its gaming revenues, LVS’ position in the self-governing Chinese territory is seen by some observers as a sensitive one, especially since the Trump administration launched a trade war with China by imposing tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese imports.
Those tensions were clearly in evidence back in June when Xuan met with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.
As the council’s Chairman Gao Yan noted at the time, “Microsoft’s achievements in China are a good example of dividends that the close cooperation between China and the U.S. has brought to American companies, including Microsoft.”
He added, “The trade friction provoked by the U.S. will affect not only Chinese companies, but also the U.S. ones. I hope Microsoft and other well-known U.S. companies can spread their stories of successful development in China and work with CCPIT to promote the sound and stable development of China-U.S. economic and trade relations.”
