Money losers of 2008: Most of Sheldon Adelson's fortune erased by Las Vegas Sands


This post is part of our feature on Money Losers of 2008. See all 20.

Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson's fortune has fallen $24 billion since the beginning of 2008 as shares of his Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) have dropped 95% during the year as cost-conscious consumers stay away from luxury casinos. (His fortune has dropped even further over the past two months.)

Adelson is a colorful character, who was a consulting client of mine in the 1980s. A brash guy from the streets of Dorchester -- a tough section of Boston -- Adelson first hit it big by creating Las Vegas-based COMDEX -- what was the biggest high-tech trade show around through much of the 1980s and 1990s.

Even though COMDEX faded from prominence since then, Adelson fell in love with Las Vegas and borrowed heavily to get into the casino business. Now his company holds $10.2 billion of debt on a $2.2 billion sliver of equity, and it lost $52 million over the first nine months of the year.

With the economy tanking and credit markets skittish, it could be hard for Adelson to recover. But he's been in tougher scrapes before.

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. Portfolio will publish his book about Boeing, You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing, on December 26, 2008. He has no financial interest in Las Vegas Sands securities.

Be sure to check out more Money Losers of 2008.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA+9.0512,893.00
NASDAQ+10.802,926.66
S&P 500+1.901,351.86

Last updated: February 09, 2012: 12:44 PM

Hot Stocks

General Electric

19.19-0.05(-0.26)

Alcoa

10.625-0.045(-0.42)

Apple Inc

495.00+18.32(+3.84)

Google Inc 'A'

610.08+0.23(+0.04)

Bank of America

8.21+0.08(+0.98)

Wal-Mart Stores

62.06+0.44(+0.71)

Exxon Mobil Corp

84.78-0.54(-0.63)

Ford

12.70-0.14(-1.09)

Citigroup

33.96-0.27(-0.79)

IBM

192.91-0.04(-0.02)

Yahoo

15.965+0.185(+1.17)

Starbucks

48.97+0.25(+0.51)

Microsoft

30.61-0.05(-0.16)

Home Depot

45.12-0.05(-0.11)

DailyFinance Headlines

Benzinga Headlines

TheFlyOnTheWall.com Headlines

BioHealth Investor Headlines

WalletPop Headlines

DailyFinance BlackBerry App

My Portfolios

Track your stocks here!

Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.

BloggingStocks Partners

More from AOL Money & Finance

BioHealth Investor Headlines

Page Loaded in 1328809491533 ms.