Republican casino tycoon and megadonor, Sheldon Adelson, is moving away from his Las Vegas Sands Corp. for cancer treatment, leaving his company amid economic uncertainty in the global gambling industry due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mr. Adelson, 87, founded the Las Vegas Sands and continued to lead the company after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, announced by the company in March 2019. The billionaire is on sick leave to resume cancer treatment.
Mr. Adelson, whose family is the majority owner of the company, said his succession plan is for the current executive team, including Sands veteran Robert Goldstein, and Adelson’s son-in-law, Patrick Dumont, to lead the company, according to a person familiar with the conversations.
Goldstein, who most recently was chief operating officer and president, was appointed by the Sands board of directors as chief executive and president during Adelson’s sick leave, the company said on Thursday. Mr. Dumont joined the company in 2010 and is a chief financial officer and executive vice president.
Las Vegas Sands operates casino-resorts on the Las Vegas Strip, in the Chinese territory of Macau and in Singapore. When Covid-19 first swept the world last year, the closure of casinos and restrictions on the pandemic wiped out revenues from gambling companies. Las Vegas Sands revenue plunged 82% in the third quarter of last year compared to the same quarter last year.