Las Vegas Sands ends agreement with hotel company in Macau

The Macau subsidiary of Las Vegas Sands Corp. canceled a hotel-management agreement with the Shangri-La hotel chain on a Cotai Strip project.

The company told the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Thursday that it had begun talks with another unnamed international hotel brand with a "comparable sales and marketing network and customer base."

The Shangri-La project is part of several Cotai Strip hotel-casino developments the company restarted last year. Las Vegas Sands halted construction in November 2008 when the company ran into financial trouble.

In a statement to the stock exchange, Sands China didn't say why the agreement with Shangri-La was terminated. Sands said the companies agreed upon the termination and that it had been resolved in an amicable manner.

Several hotel brands, including Sheraton, are part of the Cotai Strip development.

Las Vegas Sands has said the project's completion date is uncertain given the inadequate amount of construction workers, though it said it "remains committed" to opening an initial phase of the project by the end of this year. Analysts have said they expect the first two phases of the project to begin operations in mid-2012.