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Red Rock Resorts, Inc. (RRR)

Q4 2016 Earnings Call· Tue, Mar 7, 2017

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to Red Rock Resorts’ Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2016 Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Daniel Foley, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Daniel Foley

President

Thank you, Brian. Good afternoon and welcome to Red Rock Resorts’ year-end 2016 and fourth quarter earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today from Red Rock Resorts are Frank Fertitta, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Rich Haskins, President; and Marc Falcone, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Our call today will include forward-looking statements under the Safe Harbor provisions of the federal securities laws. Developments and results may differ from those projected. The risks and uncertainties related to these statements are detailed in our filings with the SEC. During this call, we will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures. For definitions and complete reconciliation of these figures to GAAP, please refer to the financial tables in our earnings press release and Form 8-K, which were filed this afternoon prior to the call. Also please note that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Marc Falcone.

Marc Falcone

Management

Thank you, Dan, and good afternoon. I’m pleased to welcome everyone to our fourth quarter and year-end 2016 earnings call. 2016 was truly a transformational year for Red Rock Resorts with a number of significant highlights. To recap, in May, we successfully completed initial public offering of the company, reentering the public markets for the first time since 2007. And in June, we refinanced our $2.4 billion credit facility, resulting in significant interest expense savings and greater flexibility for us to pursue potential high return growth projects. As a first example of this flexibility, in October, we acquired the Palms Casino Resort, which marked our 20th property in the growing Las Vegas market. We broke ground that same month on a major upgrade and expansion of Palace Station, our original flagship property. In addition, we announced several innovative investments in our core business, which include a significant upgrade to our slot technology and enhancements to our industry-leading Boarding Pass program, both of which we believe will lay the foundation for the future of guest marketing and communication. From a financial standpoint, we also achieved our highest annual adjusted EBITDA since 2007. We are proud of these accomplishments and even more excited about a number of initiatives we believe will drive the next phase of growth for the company. Before I touch upon these initiatives, I would like to spend a moment reviewing our fourth quarter and full-year 2016 financial performance. For the full-year 2016, consolidated net revenues including the Palms increased 7.4% to $1.5 billion, consolidated EBITDA increased 7.3% to $484.4 million, and our consolidated EBITDA margin of 33.4%. In Las Vegas, total revenues, including the Palms increased 6.2% to $1.34 billion, adjusted EBITDA increased 3.3% to $424 million, and the adjusted EBITDA margin declined 250 basis points to 31.7%.…

Operator

Operator

Thank you, sir. [Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from line of Joe Greff with – from JPMorgan. Please proceed.

Joe Greff

Analyst

Good afternoon, guys. Marc, can you just talk about how you view market share on a same-store basis in the locals market? What trends you’ve seen? Do you think you’ve lost market share?

Marc Falcone

Management

Hey, Joe, good afternoon. No, I don’t think we’ve lost market share by any means. So I think, the overall market grew in line with expectations in 2016 in the 2% to 3% range. We continue to be very confident in our market share position overall in Las Vegas, particularly given our significant size and scale in the marketplace.

Joe Greff

Analyst

How do you measure the impact that the Palace Station renovation will have on you? Maybe this is a good time to kind of talk about either from a revenue, or EBITDA, or percentage of the portfolio basis just so that numbers are in line with maybe how you guys are thinking about that renovation and disruption impact?

Marc Falcone

Management

Yes, and I think, we clearly indicated on our third quarter call, we expect a significant disruption as a result of this expansion and renovation. That was clearly the case in the fourth quarter, I think, we expect that will be a similar case as to the balance of this year and it’s likely to get worse in the next several quarters. Our best guess today and we can’t hold us to this, because it’s a very fluid situation. But we anticipate roughly a $10 million to $15 million impact from the Palace Station renovation. However, after we complete that renovation and expansion, we’re extremely excited about what that repositioning of that property does for Palace Station. As we indicated, the property is located in a very highly traffic quarter. The property has – not had significant capital investment in nearly 15 to 20 years. And I think we feel quite excited about what’s going on in that particular part of town and what we’re seeing overall in Las Vegas is that, once that this short-term disruption is complete, the asset should be extremely well-positioned to benefit from the strong fundamentals in the Las Vegas market.

Joe Greff

Analyst

Got it. And just my final clarification question, $10 million to $15 million EBITDA impact?

Marc Falcone

Management

Correct.

Joe Greff

Analyst

Got it. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from the line of Carlo Santarelli with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed.

Marc Falcone

Management

Hi.

Carlo Santarelli

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

Hey, thanks, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Marc, you touched on it a little bit with some of the the top line metrics on the same-store. And obviously, that the – there were a couple of one timers in there, including Palace Station. If you kind of look at the rest of the portfolio and leaving in the F&B drag, Ex-Palms, Ex-Palace Station margins on the balance of the Las Vegas portfolio, were they up year-over-year, could you just talk maybe a little bit about the non-impacted stuff?

Marc Falcone

Management

Yes, I think, Carlo, the sports alone for us was 5 percentage points of growth, almost half of the overall total impact. So that clearly is a particularly big drag on the overall margins. And the other thing I would point out too is that, as we pointed out in our prepared comments, Palace, I mean, Palms on an overall basis, the negative drag related to the Palm is also a significant impact on that margin decline, which we articulated for the quarter. So I think that creates a great opportunity though for the Palms as we continue to refine operations there. We put in our systems. We start to leverage our systems. We should start to see some margin improvement there, which should balance out the overall negative impact on the Las Vegas portfolio. And I think, the biggest impact like you said is continue to be the drag on food and beverage, but also sports was a particularly big impact in the fourth quarter on same-store margins.

Carlo Santarelli

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

Okay, great. And then if I could on the CapEx, I’m assuming the $175 million to $200 million that you talked about for next year, obviously, inclusive of $70 million for Palace Station? Could you maybe clarify what if anything was spent on Palace Station? I know some money was spent on Palace Station, but in the fourth quarter of this year, and then also if what in the 2017 budget is related to possibly some work at the Palms?

Marc Falcone

Management

Yes, I think, currently right now in the fourth quarter is a very small amount of money at Palace Station. So it’s kind of insignificant overall for the 2016 numbers. The majority of the spend you will see at Palace will occur in 2017 and 2018, so with some diminish amount spend in the fourth quarter. And the $175 million to $200 million guidance for 2017, there’s a small amount of capital in there for the Palms, particularly related to the renovation of the café and the buffet, which we talked about. Those should be completed by the, call it, the early fourth quarter of 2017. And as I said, we will discuss in the next 90 days, what the broader repositioning plan is for that property.

Carlo Santarelli

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

Great, Marc. And then just if I could going back to the sports book, obviously, $5 million EBITDA impact is not insignificant. Could you kind of maybe just talk a little bit about it like, are you seeing it across a number of sports? Was it one event related, where you guys were just kind of on the unlucky side of something, or maybe kind of give us a little sense for what’s going on since obviously this is the second kind of sports book issue and we’ve heard it from other operators as well for this particular fourth quarter?

Marc Falcone

Management

Yes, I think, listen, we’re one of the largest sports book operators in the entire Las Vegas market. So we’re going to have a larger impact to the trends generally been experiencing. But majority of the impact is from the NFL. You had a lot of favorites win every weekends winning in and out. And so that contributed to a majority of the impact on sports. So a little bit on college, but a majority on NFL was the impact in the fourth quarter for us.

Carlo Santarelli

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from the line of Shaun Kelley with Bank of America. Please proceed.

Barry Jonas

Analyst · Bank of America. Please proceed

Hey, guys. This is Barry Jonas in for Shaun. So, Marc, just to clarify the $5 million is out of the $12 million impact for the entire quarter. And if that is the case of the remaining $7 million, what would you say is, I guess, the non-recurring element, maybe the integration at Palms? I just want to understand what – how to think about the – what’s going to bleed into the rest of the year?

Marc Falcone

Management

I think we said, listen, you’re going to expect ongoing disruption for Palace for the balance of the year, the drag on food and beverage, the anniversary at the end of the third quarter of this year. The holiday, I think, has been well documented by other guys. So, you can position that as sometime, maybe one-time in nature. And sports, listen, sports is, obviously, by the law of averages, that should come back at some point. So – but I think the magnitude that sports decline was one of the worst fourth quarters and one of the worst NFL seasons from a sports book perspective that Las Vegas has experienced in a long time. So, you can choose to look at that $5 million, we look at as one-time in nature and how we would calculate our same-store performance in the quarter.

Barry Jonas

Analyst · Bank of America. Please proceed

Okay, sure. And then just thinking about the Palace, once that’s completed there are other properties, where you think we could potentially see more, say, deferred CapEx projects down the road?

Marc Falcone

Management

No, I think, listen, we invested over $450 million in our portfolio over the last five or six years of significant amount obviously in our flagship properties, Red Rock and Green Valley, but we’ve also invested considerable amount of capital across the entire portfolio. I mentioned room renovation upgrades at Green Valley, at Sun – Sunset, at Fiesta Henderson, all the properties are really pretty fresh and capital. Palace is – was a unique situation. And we spent time over the last 10, 15 years building out the portfolio throughout the Valley, investing in those assets, building out those locations, and we’re circling back to where really kind of the whole company’s growth really began and putting some extra investment in that property, given how the markets evolved so much and potential opportunity we see with Palace. But there’s not any other property in the portfolio that we would identify at this point that would have any substantial capital requirements or needs at this point.

Barry Jonas

Analyst · Bank of America. Please proceed

Great. Last one for me, any update on Reno?

Marc Falcone

Management

At this point with respect to Reno, I mean, obviously, we’re very focused on what we’re doing with respect to Palace expansion. We’re very focused on what we’re doing with Palms. I think until we get close to finishing those projects, we’ll still work – do work on the entitlement process in Reno and still work on the development. But at this point, I think we’re going to be closer to the end of when we finish those projects before we would start the Reno project.

Barry Jonas

Analyst · Bank of America. Please proceed

Great. Thanks so much, guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from the line of Chad Beynon with Macquarie. Please proceed.

Chad Beynon

Analyst · Macquarie. Please proceed

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to go back to Palms, Marc, in your prepared remarks you said that that synergies are in line with expectations. I know you guys have only been operating the property for five or so months. But have you been able to see any revenue benefits tie in your rewards program, or just kind of knowing the market better than the former owners, anything there on the revenue side would be helpful? Thanks.

Marc Falcone

Management

I think it’s – I think, obviously, Chad, it’s a little bit early. I mean, we spent the fourth quarter being very aggressive on the systems transitions and putting our accounting systems, and marketing systems, our slots system in place. So we really only had a couple months of visibility in terms of the revenue side. So I think it’s early to say, but we’re encouraged by the fact that this property is located in an area, where we have a low penetration of our boarding pass members. And so we certainly see that as we have our systems in place, we refine our marketing program for that asset that we would see good upside on the revenue side of the business as we have further time to absorb their database and exploit our database with our own systems in place. So obviously, that takes a bit of time than more than a couple of months.

Chad Beynon

Analyst · Macquarie. Please proceed

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Marc Falcone

Management

Yes, I think overall and generally, we don’t comment on the first quarter trend. But GVR and Red Rock are well positioned broadly in the convention market in town and in the local market. But I think, historically, as with all citywide events such as the strength of ConAgra, which is coming up in this week, there’s generally a lift for those type of conventions in the market. And – but I don’t want to specifically comment on any of our current trends for the quarter, but I think where we feel our hotel portfolio is well-positioned with the recent renovations we’ve done.

Chad Beynon

Analyst · Macquarie. Please proceed

Okay. I appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from the line of Stephen Grambling with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.

Stephen Grambling

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please proceed

Hey, thanks. I know you’re going to give a little more detail on the Palms repositioning in the future. But as you think about the EBITDA still 60% below peak, how much of that decline is being driven by the top line versus margins? And are there any structural issues to think about in evaluating where margins could go longer-term versus the company average?

Marc Falcone

Management

Well, I would certainly say, that the historical revenues at the property have been somewhat consistent. There’s been some changes from sort of the peak to current levels, but a majority of the impact has been on the margin side. And we see opportunities for us to close that gap meaningfully between our average margin in the company and versus where the margins are at the Palms.

Stephen Grambling

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please proceed

That’s helpful. And then I know you don’t like to talk about the quarterly expectations, but can you remind us of any other kind of unusual events that we should be thinking about for the year? And then any sense for the impact on the Native American expansions? Thanks.

Marc Falcone

Management

With respect to your first question on – the only thing that we would point out as probably everybody knows, at least, in the first quarter, there’s one extra day for the leap year, but that’s everybody’s business issue. But I’m not aware of anything we haven’t disclosed. But we talked about the disruptions, the drag of the margins, some of those factors being contributors for the balance of our 2017 EBITDA performance. The impact on the Native American expansions, I think, we’re very optimistic about the early results we’re seeing at Graton out of the hotel. It’s been very strong benefit from that hotel expansion, particularly with our Asian – core Asian customer up there. And where we’ve given that the high slot occupancy and overall table and gaming occupancies [we want in valley] [ph] we feel that expansion that will open later this year will be a big contributor to the Gun Lake cash flows and ultimately our management fees. So I think, the other thing we’re obviously quite excited about going forward as we move it through 2017 get over some of these obstacles is, when we get through the Palace expansion, when we identify the – and the refinish, the repositioning of the Palms, we’re extremely enthusiastic about the upside we can potentially see in 2018 from our new slot system. And if we get some change in regulation and potential tax cuts, lower healthcare costs, we all think those would be extremely good contributors to our 2018 cash flows.

Stephen Grambling

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please proceed

That’s all very helpful. Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] There are no further questions. So now it is my pleasure to hand the conference back over to Marc Falcone, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer for closing comments and remarks. Sir?

Marc Falcone

Management

Thank you, everyone. We appreciate your time today, and we look forward to talking to you after first quarter results. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation on today’s conference. This does conclude the program. You may all disconnect. Everybody have a wonderful day.