Earnings Labs

Full House Resorts, Inc. (FLL)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 10, 2015

$2.41

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Full House Resorts’ Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Lewis Fanger, Chief Financial Officer of Full House Resorts. Please go ahead.

Lewis Fanger

Management

Thank you. Welcome everyone to our earnings call. We may make forward-looking statements on this call relating to our estimated future results and other market, business, and property trends and information. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements that are made today. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement as a result of certain risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to those noted in our earnings release, our periodic reports and our other filings with the SEC. During our call today we may make reference to non-GAAP financial measures. For a reconciliation of historic non-GAAP to GAAP financial measures, please refer to our earnings release and our Form 8-K furnished to the SEC today. Both of those are available under the Investors section of our website at fullhouseresorts.com and I’ll point out two other websites for you we have www.americanplace.us for our American place proposal in Indianapolis and www.thechristmascasino.com for our rebranded Rising Star Casino. With that, I’ll turn it over to Dan.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Yes. I think, the press release largely speaks for itself, but it was a good quarter, pretty much across the board, Silver Slipper was up 23% revenues and 39% income, it was up in prior quarters pretty nicely as well really revamping the marketing that we revamped early in the year and so it was on an upper trend already. Now we got a little bit lucky when New Orleans ban smoking within the city of New Orleans, which affected a couple of our competitors, but about the same time, one of the biggest competitors at a big hotel tower which was the Island View. And then in May through September we got a hotel finally opened with a 129 rooms including nine luxury suites and obviously with the hotel he property is doing real well. Now this property used to make 10 million a year sometimes 11 million a year for quite a few years before we purchased it; it had slipped to 7.5 million last year, I think we got it back on track to where it was, and then we got the hotel opened, which takes it above where it was and that will play out the next few quarters. So that's the Silver Slipper, John Fugazy and his team had done a great job down there. I think at last count where we had served over 200 tons of Dungeness crab this year, and so it's a doing well on many different levels and that's our biggest property. At Rising Star in Rising Sun, Indiana their property had trended down for many, many years as new competition opened. I think we have bottomed and have started to come back. It helped that the last of the new competition opened in September of last year and that…

Lewis Fanger

Management

George is New York and Mike is in LA.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Mike Harper is in LA, but our goal is to refinance our $70 million of debt plus raised $30 million to close on the Cripple Creek acquisition and hope to get it done later this year or early next year, but should be attract hopefully later this year. And we did spend about $730,000 on project development and the bulk of that is actually the legal costs and due-diligence on Bronco Billy's. again its a little bit strange accounting, I would have thought it would be part of the acquisition across Bronco Billy's, but that’s not the way it’s done these days. And the rest was on our proposal for American place. American place the airport authority has told us they expect to make a decision on their request for proposals by year-end. And if we chosen and we’ll keep working on it. We’ll eventually need legislative approval which would come in the first half of 2017, but we would have an awful lot of work to do between now and then and we’re cautiously optimistic on the process for the airport. I think the fact that we’re offering 4,000 jobs and $85 million a year state and local taxes. We don’t know precisely what other proposals they have, but we’ve been asked numerous times what government financing do we need or government backing of the debt, and the answer is we don’t need anything, we’re is simply asking to relocate half of our committed gaining capacity from Rising Sun and so that's a pretty powerful argument. It’s hard to imagine having something else on that land that would generate $85 million of state local taxes without having some sort of government incentives and the question really is whether they are willing to kind of join us for years to see if we can get - legislature and so that's where American place is. And I mentioned the refinancing, I guess that's kind of it, I'm happy to take any questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we will take our first question from Chad Beynon with Macquarie.

Chad Beynon

Analyst

Hi great thanks for taking my question guys. Just wanted to ask one on the Bronco Billy's acquisition, it looks like you are able to acquire this property at a nice price and I know there are some walk away language that you released if EBITDA slips. Could you just talk generally about the market, we’ve seen very strong growth in Cripple Creek, I guess since March from a revenue perspective. But could you kind of just frame out some of the dynamics in the market what the management team is seeing and maybe just some more color in terms of why this was such a - kind of perfect set fit to round out your assets? Thanks.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Yes actually, we refer to as a perfect fit in our collective portfolio, but the Colorado legalized gaming about 20 years and its only legalized in three small towns that were on the edge of becoming ghost towns, little gold mining towns up in the mountains. Two of those are west of Denver and that's a Black Hawk and Central City and this is west of Colorado Springs. Now Colorado Springs is state’s second largest city its about 700,000 people. And it’s been growing just like Denver, it grows about 3.5% a year, so it's a nicely growing city and there is really no other casinos that would be considered competitive. Colorado Springs is pretty much the dead center of the state and so there is casinos in Oklahoma but they are long way away, there is Indiana Casino in New Mexico, they are long ways away. There have been efforts in Colorado to legalize other casinos like the racetrack and Denver pushed pretty hard back in 2014 and all those efforts have been turned down by voters by pretty white margin. So it's a pretty nice market without threat of competing state or competing Indiana tribe and relying on a city that showing nice growth, so you would ordinarily think with a city growing 3.5% a year and then at inflation this market should go 4% or 5% a year. And now when it first legalized, there were a lot of little casinos went in there, it’s an historical town, so everything is like 50 feet wide, and little store fronts. And what’s happen over the years is the better operators have come to kind of dominate it and Bronco Billy’s is one of those, it started out as 50 feet wide and I think its now 300 feet…

Chad Beynon

Analyst

Okay, that’s great. Thank you for that color. And then just with that mind, so given that you are cleaning up to capital structure in the next couple of quarters. What is the appropriate amount of leverage Lewis that you guys are thinking about in the medium-term?

Lewis Fanger

Management

Well, the thing to keep in mind is this company isn’t a $10.5 million EBITDA, company like we posted in 2014, it’s much bigger than that. And so you throw on top of that growth, you throw on top of that Bronco Billy’s as well. And so what we’re aiming for is kind of pro forma five times and then seeing that decline as the years goes on.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

We probably, when we refinance all of our debt and acquired Bronco Billy’s, we end up with about $100 million of debt and our EBITDA with a full year of the hotel in New Orleans and Bronco Billy’s is going to be somewhere in the $20 million area. So we think we’re about five times and Bronco Billy’s was pretty important to us also in providing diversity. So at this point if you got wacked by Hurricane in Mississippi, which happens sometimes, Bronco Billy’s and the other properties would be enough to surface our debt, so until Mississippi backup again. So it brings very important diversity, so it was important. So we’re not the biggest company around, but we’re also not the most leveraged company around and we’re more diverse than you might think.

Chad Beynon

Analyst

Okay, great. Congrats on this and the operational improvements. And looking forward to seeing the Rising Star new branding. Thanks.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

And I think your question also - but five times would be nice to a little less leveraged than that but fits of the ballpark four to five times, if you are much under four you are not using the leverage you should use and if you are much about five you are probably dance into close to the line.

Chad Beynon

Analyst

Great. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we will go to [indiscernible].

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Hi gentlemen. Congratulations on the nice quarter. It seems you have touched upon weather conditions and Hurricanes and everything. Could you maybe share with us what type of insurance [indiscernible] that can be potentially vulnerable to the Claire and whether you view them as sufficient? That would be helpful. Thank you.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Well obviously we have both the property insurance and business interruption insurance. [indiscernible] do you recall the amount of property insurance we have on several, I don’t recall it off the top of my head.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

I don’t recall off the top of my hear, sorry.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

But I think we have enough to rebuild that if it got wacked by hurricane, I don’t recall the number off the top of my head, but the plan was that if you - and recognize when I ran identical we had Pinnacle we had casino get destroyed in Biloxi and we have another one that took full head on hit in Lake Charles. And the property insurance, we have plenty of, we have quite a bit of liability insurance, I don’t have a number off the top of my head. And I just know from experience the problem on these is the business interruption insurance and collecting on it. And you don’t want to be in a position where you are relaying on getting it today to make interesting, it’s because the insurance companies will perceive that as a negotiating opportunity and they will squeeze you until you give them a settlements that’s more favorable for their terms. And so having the diversity we have puts us in a position to be able to fight for the proper insurance that we paid for and like at Pinnacle when we had a complete loss of a casino in Biloxi, it actually ended up being good for us, because the insurance is based on replacement cost not the value. So for example, if the Ohio river flooded and destroyed Rising Star, it would actually be a very good thing for us, because the replacement cost of Rising Star is way more than what it’s really worth, replacement costs probably a couple of $100 million and the value of property today probably isn’t even 10% of that. So it’s not like it would be on your car where your car is totaled and they just give you the fair market value of the car, it is what would it cost to replace the building. And no, we are not actually hoping for the Ohio river to flood or we don't really want a hurricane. those are terrible things, but I will tell you with the purchase of Bronco Billy’s one of the things that I did wake at night worrying was what happen of something happen at the Silver Slipper, because we were so reliant on it. Bronco Billy gives us some diversity away from that and frankly the people running Bronco Billy’s they had to worry in the past about what if a forest fires went through Cripple Creek or something that avalanche shut down the road or something and having the diversity is good for them too. so I think we’re now getting to the point where we are relatively diverse and everything seems to be working well.

Lewis Fanger

Management

Yes, we really scrubbed over those contracts back when they came up in the middle what it was - may be April of this year, and may have the share we really scrubbed them with our team network which is a Pinnacle after Katrina and Rita happened. So we do feel pretty good, there are two pieces, there is obviously the replacement cost and then there is the business interruption, insurance piece as well that kicks in after a few days. So we feel like we did improve those tremendously from what we used to have.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Yes, and I would contrast that at pinnacle we were actually okay and it was just a big negotiation that get paid from the insurance companies with the orders, but there was a small casino, the Hard Rock casino on block C that was hit by the same hurricane and it was a single property company and they were in a really tough spot, because they didn’t have any source of income and the insurance companies didn’t pay them and they were really had their back to the wall, they didn’t know what to do. And eventually the equity there got kind of cramped down, and I’m confident that we’re pass that here and we would be okay even if we took a head on hurricane in the Silver Slipper, but not hoping for it, I just know that once in a great while it happens. I think Katrina was a once in 500 year storm, so hopefully we have another 490 years to go.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Got it. Thank you. I appreciate the commentary.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

If you want to check back, we’ll look up the number, I don't recall it off the off the top of my head and I don’t want to give a number that might be wrong on the call, but there is no secret about it, we’ll give you the number if you call us later when we had chance to look it up.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Well thanks you Dan.

Lewis Fanger

Management

You know…

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Do you think you have it?

Lewis Fanger

Management

Yes, its correct me if I’m wrong [indiscernible] it looks like it’s in the ballpark of $100 million?

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Yes.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

I think that's right. For the Silver Slipper?

Daniel R. Lee

Management

For Silver Slipper only yes that right.

Lewis Fanger

Management

And we got a hotel was just built for 20 and I guess the casino next to it which [indiscernible] hedge of original purchase price was [indiscernible].

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Sorry about that. We’ll go on to the next one.

Operator

Operator

I will take our next question from [indiscernible] Barclays Capital.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Hey guys thanks for all that color that you guys put up and everything sounds great. Dan I was wondering maybe you could talk about what your longer term vision for Full House is, like you said, next year once we get refinancing and about $100 million in debt with Bronco Billy and what you see for the company like three to five years like what would you like to happen?

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Well, my first goal, I come to work every day try not to screw it up and you just try to make decisions that are going in the right way and you know we’re only talking about big things, these are is little things, if we change the logo of the Silver Slipper. I used to have this kind of western theme looking S and it didn’t make sense on Mississippi Gulf Coast which has this French characters and now there is a different S, literally just a different font, but it looks much more in keeping with the property. And most people pay wouldn’t even notice it necessarily over the short-term, but you start doing those little things, long-term they add up and taking care of the employees. One of the important things we did was we made a management change in [indiscernible] and when we realized that the employee turnover had run 80% a year for two years in a row, which is this crazy. I mean the turnover tends to be high in this industry, but higher like 25% or 30% not 80% and when that’s 80, there is something wrong. So it takes time to get the right employees in place, make them feel comfortable, getting them to focus on the customer, let the customer notice that you have friendlier employees and gradually the market responds to it and we are coming up on a year since we had made the changes here and those little things is starting to add up and I think it’s actually reassuring, but not very surprising that the properties are all doing well, because we’ve just implemented good management. In most cases we had good managers that’s already doing a great job, we just let them do their jobs, in…

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Great, I appreciate all the color. That was a great, it makes me feel more confident as a shareholder. Best of luck.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Okay. Thank you. And also if there is one more.

Operator

Operator

And we’ll now go to [indiscernible] Private Investor.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Great.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Good afternoon, gentlemen. Do you have any target interest rate you’re looking through the $100 million refinance that?

Daniel R. Lee

Management

No. Our existing debt including the upfront fees that were paid [indiscernible] across the capital but I think 10.2. I think we’ll be comfortably under of that but remember we have a two debt tiers now one is at 14 and a quarter, and the other one is at LIBOR plus 450 I recall.

Lewis Fanger

Management

The LIBOR plus three quarters three quarter, 1% floating rate.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Three and three quarters right floating rate and but all of that debt comes due in the next 18 months. And I think given that we’ve got something filed and Barclays is out there working out, and I probably shouldn’t give a number, but I hope it will be less than 14 a quarter for sure. And I think it’s probably going to be less - it would be less than the 10.2 and even including network fees and it’s probably quite a bit less than that.

Lewis Fanger

Management

I’ll tell you this Steven, we feel I think tremendously better about this company and the status of this refinancing than we ever would have – having launched this six months ago or nine months ago. If you look at the past three quarters, all the improvements that we made throughout the properties, we think have been pretty big and we still think there is room to go. So if you flash flashback to when we joined at the very beginning of the year, for us to run out to investors, debt investors and say look at what we can do, a lot of that was really us pontificating on things, but with really no results to point you. The great news now is we've got nine months results that we can actually point to with this quarter being another great quarter. a lot of the things that we said we would do whether it be resolving the property tax of share of Rising Star, whether it be opening a hotel and saying that get up to speed, fixing things up in northern Nevada there is a long list of things, but the good news is we are going into this refinancing feeling pretty darn good.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Yes, if you look at other companies with five times leverage in industry, you can get a pretty good range that - some where we have layers on this line which is freak-out if I gave you number.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Understood, congratulations on a very good job.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Okay.

Lewis Fanger

Management

Thank you.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Welcome.

Lewis Fanger

Management

I think that is Dan, let’s let you conclude.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

Well that’s it and I then we are just throwing our best to represent shareholders and do the right thing, and I think the next thing is get this refinancing done and get licensed in Colorado and close the acquisition and celebrate Christmas and just keep doing all the things we've been doing and obviously we are trying to -. I will mention one of the thing, our existing debt has very stiff amortization like $1.5 million a quarter, the new debt would be a $1million a year, which frees up some free cash flow to do things like adding a restaurant here, meeting rooms there and so on, buying some new slot machines here and there and all of which I think get pretty high ROI. And so the refinancing not only moves out the maturities to a five year term and puts all in one trench which is frankly easier to manage, but also frees up some free cash that can be reinvested into be existing properties in smart ways and we are trying to figure out the right way to do that. So I guess that’s is it, thank you everybody. And I guess we will…

Lewis Fanger

Management

Talk to you in a quarter.

Daniel R. Lee

Management

In quarter, in the New Year. Take care.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen this does conclude today’s conference. We thank you for your participation.