Earnings Labs

Red Rock Resorts, Inc. (RRR)

Q3 2017 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 7, 2017

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to Red Rock Resorts' Third Quarter 2017 Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Please note, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Daniel Foley, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead sir.

Daniel Foley

President

Thank you, Nova. Good afternoon, and welcome to Red Rock Resorts' third quarter 2017 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today from Red Rock Resorts are Frank Fertitta, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Rich Haskins, President; Steve Cootey, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer; and Joe Hasson, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Our call today will include forward-looking statements under the safe harbor provisions of the United States 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 a 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 Steve Cootey.

Steve Cootey

Management

Thank you, Dan, and good afternoon, everyone. Prior to getting into our third quarter numbers, we would like to take a moment to touch upon the terrible events of October 1. Like everyone in our community, we are all deeply saddened by the tragedy and our thoughts are with the victims and their families, as well as the countless others both inside and outside of Las Vegas whose lives were affected by this horrific [insane] act. Response following the tragedy was nothing short of remarkable. From the incredible bravery, cities first responders to those concertgoers who risked their lives to help out complete strangers. A list of heroes goes on and on. In addition approximately $21 million has been raised to-date to assist those impacted by this devastating event which included a $1 million commitment from our company. This outpouring of support has only served to demonstrate what we already knew that Las Vegas is a strong resilient city that will rise to overcome this adversity and we are extremely proud to be a member of such a community. Now let’s take a look at our third-quarter results. Continued strength to Las Vegas economy, as well as the initial impact of our ongoing revenue efficiency initiatives were both evident in the third quarter as we experience a very solid revenue and EBITDA growth as the company. For the quarter consolidated net revenues inclusive of the Palms increased 15.3% to $400.4 million and our adjusted EBITDA increased 8.5% to $118.3 million. Margins for the quarter were 29.6% on a consolidated basis and 27.5% for Las Vegas operations. Notably, when viewing our performance on a same-store basis excluding the Palms, we recorded our highest third quarter consolidated net revenue, highest adjusted EBITDA and highest adjusted EBITDA margins since 2008 even while experiencing…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Joe Greff of JPMorgan.

Joe Greff

Analyst · JPMorgan

Obviously the first question is with respect to the Palms obviously the Phase 2 CapEx sort of higher than maybe where we are expected. When you look at the 800 million plus of all-in investment, they'll have at that property and you look at a stabilized mid-teens return that you refer to before Steve, what property in the Las Vegas market do you look at as legitimate benchmark and does this property have to be significantly more resort Las Vegas strip type of patients versus Las Vegas local patients?

Frank Fertitta

Analyst · JPMorgan

Joe this is Frank I mean, they sure we’re partners in this property for nearly 10 years. We have a history of understanding what the property is capable of doing. Its last a lot tendering loving care, it’s going to basically be a completely new property with all these new amenities and offerings and we know with our experience at Queen Valley Ranch at the Palms and the Red Rock how to triangulate what we believe our returns were going to be given the location of this property.

Joe Greff

Analyst · JPMorgan

And it sounds like you're likely going to experience significant disruption at the Palms so that disruption accelerate from here before it levels out, in other words are we looking at any EBITDA contribution over the next few quarters in the Palms and was there much EBITDA contribution in the third quarter that you just reported and that’s it for me.

Steve Cootey

Management

I’ll take the second part and then I’ll hand it off to Joe. I mean from a EBITDA disruptions we actually given you the numbers you can fairly - you can pretty easily triangulate on what the Palms contribute this quarter to the press release. But it was a diminimus amount - it was a diminimus amount of positive EBITDA.

Joe Hasson

Analyst · JPMorgan

Also from a disruption point of view we've now reached the point where from this point forward it should get better. We've got seen a pretty much torn apart at this point about 50% of the floor is disrupted. From this point forward we are in the final stretch of turning it back on by Q2 2018 and that should put us in a terrific place to both add table games capacity and to yield the slot floor in a way that we've not had the opportunity to do it up to yet.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Carlo Santarelli from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Carlo Santarelli

Analyst · Carlo Santarelli from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open

To follow up just a little bit on Joe's question obviously the 485 for the redevelopment I think as Joe mentioned maybe a little bit bigger number but clearly you guys have better sidelines then most of us and how to make the return on that project overall look like a low double-digit moving to mid teens but I guess I’ll ask the question a little bit differently when you look around at some of the opportunities that maybe present for you just in terms of Greenfield and some of the land that you own. Are you comfortable that the 800 million-ish investment in the Palms return is better than maybe what you could do or what you could conceivably do down the road from a Greenfield perspective with some of your other Vegas land?

Frank Fertitta

Analyst · Carlo Santarelli from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open

Look I think we’re very confident with what we’re doing at both Palace Station and the Palms given their location on the I15 corridor in the middle of Las Vegas with what’s going on at the Las Vegas convention center the new Raider Stadium I mean Las Vegas tourism is outperforming almost every domestic gaming market there is same with the locals market and these properties are going to be able cater to both to tourist market and the locals market. And we feel good about the capital commitment we’re making there, there is a lot of properties in Las Vegas that have not been reinvested in. And these two properties are basically going to be redone from head to toe going into 2019 with greater economy growing population. And guess what we still own and control the Durango site the Wild Wild West site we have four entitle development sites here in the Las Vegas market two in Reno, a Native American opportunity and the pipeline in Fresno California. So I think the companies will position that going into 2019 we have these two fully renovated properties in the center of Las Vegas and still control our own destiny in terms of great both our opportunities.

Carlo Santarelli

Analyst · Carlo Santarelli from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open

And then on a slightly different topic obviously the topline story and clearly the Las Vegas macro story are very strong backdrop for you guys to continue to drive topline growth. As you look out to 2018 and 2019 is there anything kind of on the cost side that gives you concern and/or pause obviously labor and certainly competition in the market for labor is one thing I would kind of highlight. But is there anything that you guys are concerned about from that perspective in terms of cost inflation.

Frank Fertitta

Analyst · Carlo Santarelli from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open

I mean I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of the largest cost of the business is obviously labor and we’re doing our best to manage that cost but other than labor I think it's our average cost is running about $2.5 million a day with a 3% increase we probably expect something very similar next year.

Carlo Santarelli

Analyst · Carlo Santarelli from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open

Thank you very much guys.

Frank Fertitta

Analyst · Carlo Santarelli from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open

Remember I was just going to say we’re super encouraged to see the same-store growth at our properties given the disruption at Palace Station and I think that the combination of both what we’re seeing in the population growth in Las Vegas, the demographics, the economic activity in the Valley. But I think it's also this new technologies that we deployed on these 20,000 slot machines we’re feeling really good about we’re seeing with that today and we’re in the early stages of being able to rollout I think other phases of this that should give us further benefit.

Joe Hasson

Analyst · Carlo Santarelli from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open

Frank let me piggyback on that just a little bit again you're correct we’re in the very early stages of developing and deploying new technology and there's a pipeline of it. The good news is already we are very confident that some of our topline growth demonstrated in Q3 is coming from that pipeline right now with far more to come.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Shaun Kelley of Bank of America.

Shaun Kelley

Analyst · Shaun Kelley of Bank of America

Maybe just touch on the last point about the progress that you’re seeing in Vegas could just help us break that down little further in terms of the initiatives and if I million reading it correctly is this something that we could actually pull forward or extrapolate for the next couple of quarters here meaning this is really the first quarter that we’ve seen some of the initiatives you’ve underway actually starting to play out on the top line?

Joe Hasson

Analyst · Shaun Kelley of Bank of America

This is Joe Hasson again as I mentioned just a moment ago we’re very confident that Q3 demonstrated top line growth in part stemming from some of the technological initiatives that we've rolled out and we see a full pipeline of that on a go forward basis. It's also fair for me to say much like I said a quarter ago that we see good volume and velocity strength in our slot business across all work segments of our business. It’s not isolated in one particular place it permeates all segments of our business. And I think that speaks ultimately not only to our technological capabilities and our operating expertise I think it also speaks to the strength of the locals Las Vegas market and the terrific destination called Las Vegas that’s enjoying the benefit of the economy.

Frank Fertitta

Analyst · Shaun Kelley of Bank of America

I think to add to that Shaun the idea of actually including the disruption of the Palace we’re still carrying a 4.2% same-store sales growth which is huge.

Joe Hasson

Analyst · Shaun Kelley of Bank of America

And I’m very pleased on the operating side of the business to reiterate that we have some of the best maintained property certainly in the locals market and for anyone seeking a destination opportunity with us we know how to operate destination resorts you look at the Green Valley Ranch you look to Red Rock and in the very near future will be very proud of what with do with the Palms paralleling what we've done in the past at those destination style hybrid properties.

Shaun Kelley

Analyst · Shaun Kelley of Bank of America

And maybe just to follow up or to dig a little deeper just to be clear was there any like hold impact last year there was some sports book hold dancing around in the latter part of the year that benefit or neutral or anything that we should be aware of just did I get too excited about extrapolating these forward in our models?

Steve Cootey

Management

No we actually held normal.

Shaun Kelley

Analyst · Shaun Kelley of Bank of America

Great thanks Steve

Steve Cootey

Management

Yeah couple basis lower than last quarter actually.

Shaun Kelley

Analyst · Shaun Kelley of Bank of America

And last one from me it will just as I was looking through the different that you announced for the Phase 2 a lot of these center around night life and celebrity chefs type things that can you probably drawn up a lot of excitement. Just kind of curious could just explain to us at least strategically you know was there any design here in terms of trying to pull people knowing that the palms location is a little bit off strip that you need to have some attraction of power people here how did you kind of pick the partners that you chose and type of features that your really spending the capital on because it seems like it was well thought out but I’m just curious for your thoughts on some of that?

Frank Fertitta

Analyst · Shaun Kelley of Bank of America

We took the better part of I guess we closed on Palms about a year ago really trying to go through them fully put together a curetted experience of different amenities that were attract to broad demographic of both locals and tourist to the property and we believe the moment we get done this if you look at the Palms when it opened in 2001 and for a very good run before downturn in the economy around 2008 it was a place that was all about not only locals on the West end of the building and movie theatres and parking and the buffet and the café but it was really well known around the world as an entertainment destination for great life entertainment acts, for great restaurants, for nightlife for pool and the day pub and we’re basically go looking at what made the Palms successful when it originally opened and we’re making it better then it every was. And I think people will be very surprised to see when they see - it’s gone through a lot of pain right where about four quarters from now or a little bit over year from now the properties is going to be completely redone as a brand new facility and I think it's going to be must-see place when people come to Vegas and that's what the idea was give people a lot of reasons to come over to Palms.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Grambling of Goldman Sachs.

Stephen Grambling

Analyst · Stephen Grambling of Goldman Sachs

I guess another follow-up on the Palms you mentioned this ramp period for returns are there any expectations you can provide for that timeline based on the types of changes you are planning. And at the end of that investment cycle what would you characterize is kind of the maintenance CapEx levels?

Steve Cootey

Management

We still anticipate maintenance CapEx for the entire company be around $100 million I don’t think that has changed arguably the ramp up period is very typical to an integrated resort or the ultimate bones are actually built here. So we’re thinking yes probably do couple of years before we get fully ramped.

Stephen Grambling

Analyst · Stephen Grambling of Goldman Sachs

And I may have missed this, I think you mentioned that you’re touching virtually every aspect of the property is there going to be any change in the room count or any color you can provide on what's being done on a room basis?

Frank Fertitta

Analyst · Stephen Grambling of Goldman Sachs

As we added we actually added 60 new rooms so the new room count is roughly 776 rooms excluding Palms place it will give us the access to another 600.

Joe Hasson

Analyst · Stephen Grambling of Goldman Sachs

Also for clarity those new 60 rooms came from pre-existing space that was unfinished space as part of the original design and development of Palms so we’re simply finishing that out to take it advantage of the extra lodging.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And I'm showing no further questions at this time. I’d like to turn the call back to Steve Cootey for closing remarks.

Steve Cootey

Management

Well thank you everyone for joining us on call and we look forward to seeing you in about 90 days. Thank you.