LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas Sands Corp., the upscale flagship resort and casino company founded by the late Sheldon Adelson, has reached a deal to sell its Vegas properties — including the Venetian Resort — and operations to Apollo Global and Vici Properties for $6.25 billion.
Apollo Global Management and Vici Properties are partnering to buy the Venetian, a 7,000-room resort property on the Las Vegas Strip, and the nearby Sands Expo and Convention Center. Apollo is paying $2.25 billion for Venetian’s operating company and Vici is buying the land and real estate assets for the remaining $4 billion.
According to CNN, Apollo, a private equity firm, said the purchase is a major bet on Las Vegas, which has experienced a drastic decline in tourism numbers and conference business over the last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “We are absolutely thrilled to enhance our portfolio of market-leading experiential assets with the iconic Venetian Resort complex. We have long admired the incomparable size, scale and quality of the Venetian Resort and are proud to opportunistically acquire the asset at an attractive, accretive cap rate for shareholders. Additionally, we are confident Apollo’s vision will greatly benefit the property’s operations for years to come,” said John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer of VICI Properties.
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Of particular interest to trade show executives is that The Venetian Resort Las Vegas deal includes The Venetian Tower, a 35-story luxury hotel tower with 3,015 suites; the adjoining 1,013-suite, 12-story Venezia Tower; and the Palazzo Tower, which has 3,064 suites located in a 50-story lavish hotel tower directly connected to The Venetian Tower and Sands Expo Center. The Sands is one of the largest overall trade show and convention facilities in the country, with approximately 1.2 million gross square feet of exhibit and meeting space.
The Venetian Resort also offers approximately 1.1 million-gross-square-foot meeting and conference facility that links Sands Expo Center to The Venetian Resort Las Vegas. Combined with the Sands Expo Center, the facilities offer approximately 2.3 million gross square feet of state-of-the-art flexible exhibition and meeting facilities to accommodate everything from smaller events to large-scale multimedia events and trade shows.
Reach John Payne at (646) 949 4631.
