Las Vegas Sands shares jump on special dividend

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Nov. 26, 2012, 6:28 p.m. EST 

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By Wallace Witkowski, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Shares of Las Vegas Sands Corp. jumped in after-hours activity Monday after the casino operator declared a special dividend in advance of the looming fiscal cliff in the United States.

Shares rose 4.7% to $46.09. Las Vegas Sands LVS -0.34%  joined a growing number of companies that are either issuing a special dividend or an early one, with dividend taxes set to rise nearly threefold in the new year unless Congress acts.

The board approved a $2.75 a share special cash dividend to be paid Dec. 18 to shareholders of record as of Dec. 10. That follows a hike to the company’s regular dividend for 2013 that was disclosed earlier in the month.

Equity Residential EQR -0.06%  and AvalonBay Communities Inc. AVB +0.32%  shares fell under pressure when the two disclosed late Monday that they were buying a portfolio of apartment properties from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Shares of Equity Residential fell 2.6% at $53 and AvalonBay’s declined 1.5% at $127 after the firms said they would buy Archstone Enterprise LP for $6.5 billion in cash and stock, and assume about $9.5 billion of the limited partnership’s debt. Read more on Equity Residential, AvalonBay.

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Shares of Dollar General Corp. DG -0.20%  rose 3.4% in heavy volume after Standard & Poor’s said it would add the discount retailer to the S&P 500 Index SPX -0.20% .

Shanda Games Ltd. GAME -2.14%  shares were unchanged after the Chinese game developer reported earnings of 17 cents a share on revenue of $170.4 million.

Shanda was expected to post quarterly earnings of 17 cents a share on revenue of $170.8 million. U.S. shares closed down 2.1%.

Hillenbrand Inc. HI -0.75% shares were down 0.3% on light volume as the casket and funeral-products company reported quarterly earnings of 40 cents a share on revenue of $253.5 million. That was well below the Wall Street forecast of 44 cents a share on revenue of $259 million. Shares closed down 0.8%.

Wallace Witkowski is a MarketWatch news editor in San Francisco. Follow him on Twitter @wmwitkowski.