Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands, owner of Singapore's MBS, takes leave for cancer treatment

New York

SHELDON Adelson, the chairman, CEO and majority shareholder of Las Vegas Sands, which owns Singapore's Marina Bay Sands (MBS), is taking a leave of absence after resuming treatment for cancer.

Mr Adelson had retained his executive role since the company revealed in 2019 that he had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

President Robert Goldstein will take up Mr Adelson's duties as acting chairman and acting CEO, according to a statement on Thursday.

Mr Adelson, 87, is the company's majority shareholder and one of the world's biggest gambling moguls, overseeing operations from the Las Vegas Strip to Macau and Singapore. He is a prominent donor to Republican politics in the US, having backed outgoing President Donald Trump.

The appointment is unlikely to cause changes in the group's strategic direction or operations at its Sands China arm, which is run by a local management team, according to DS Kim, a gaming analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

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The impact on Sands' relations with Macau and Beijing "may be open for debate, but we similarly see no negative impact on its positioning in the market", Mr Kim wrote in a research note on Thursday.

He said Mr Goldstein has long been in the position as "the next man up" and is widely respected by investors, casino peers, employees and the Adelson family.

Macau, the world's biggest gambling market, generated 63 per cent of Sands' US$13.7 billion in revenue in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic struck. Singapore was the second biggest contributor, with 22 per cent.

The son of a taxi driver from Boston, Mr Adelson is the world's 37th-richest man, according to Bloomberg data. BLOOMBERG