The Macau Connection

The macau connecTion REUTERS/BoBBy yip Las Vegas Sands faces a crimal investigation into alleged unsavory business practices By MaTT iSaacS BERKELEY, CaLif, MaRCh 10 When StevE JaCoBS joined Las Vegas Sands in 2009, the company was sinking. The Sands,... More

The macau connecTion REUTERS/BoBBy yip Las Vegas Sands faces a crimal investigation into alleged unsavory business practices By MaTT iSaacS BERKELEY, CaLif, MaRCh 10 When StevE JaCoBS joined Las Vegas Sands in 2009, the company was sinking. The Sands, which owns the Venetian resort, saw its stock price hit an alarming low, below $2 a share, around the time Jacobs, a 47-year-old harvard graduate with a boyish face and close-cropped silver hair, took a job heading Sands China, which runs the company’s Macau operations. But over the course of the next year, Sands mounted a remarkable recovery, thanks in large part to Jacobs’ leadership in Macau, a gambling boomtown bigger than Las Vegas and 16 time zones ahead of the Strip. “There is no question as to Steve’s performance,” Sands Coo Michael Leven told the company’s board of directors in early 2010, according to court records. “The Titanic hit the iceberg. (Jacobs) arrived and not only saved the passengers, he saved the ship. ” march Less