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Q1 2025 Red Rock Resorts Inc Earnings Call

In This Article:

Participants

Stephen Cootey; Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President, Treasurer; Red Rock Resorts Inc

Scott Kreeger; President; Red Rock Resorts Inc

Lorenzo Fertitta; Vice Chairman of the Board; Red Rock Resorts Inc

Carlo Santarelli; Analyst; Deutsche Bank

John DeCree; Analyst; CBRE Capital Advisors

Shaun Kelley; Analyst; BofA Global Research

Barry Jonas; Analyst; Truist Securities

Jordan Bender; Analyst; Citizens JMP Securities LLC

David Katz; Analyst; Jefferies LLC

Steven Wieczynski; Analyst; Stifel Financial Corp

Joseph Stauff; Analyst; Susquehanna International Group

Benjamin Chaiken; Analyst; MIzuho Securities

Chad Beynon; Analyst; Macquarie Research

Presentation

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to Red Rock Resorts first-quarter 2025 conference call. (Operator Instructions) Please note this conference is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to Stephen Cootey, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of Red Rock Resorts. Please go ahead.

Stephen Cootey

Thank you, operator, and, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Red Rock Resorts first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are FrankLorenzo and Lorenzo Fertitta, Scott Kreeger and our executive management team.
I'd like to remind everyone that 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.
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, Form 8-K and investor deck, which were filed this afternoon prior to the call.
Also, please note that this call is being recorded. Let's start off by stating that the first quarter represented another strong quarter for the company by all measures. Our Las Vegas operations achieved its highest first quarter net revenue and adjusted EBITDA in our history while maintaining near record adjusted EBITDA margin.
In addition to delivering strong financial results, we remained pleased with the continued performance of our Durango Casino Resort. Following a successful first year, Durango has continued to grow the Las Vegas local's market as well as drive incremental play from our existing customer base while attracting new guests to the Station Casinos brand.
Property continues to show positive momentum with increased visitation and higher net theoretical win from target customers in the surrounding Durango area, while adding over 95,000 new customers to our database.
The property remains on a solid ramp trajectory and is on pace to become one of our highest margin properties, generating return net of cannibalization of nearly 16% through the first quarter of 2025. As we've noted on prior earnings calls, some cannibalization has occurred primarily at our Red Rock property as a result of Durango's opening.
However, we are encouraged that the revenue backfill is ahead of pace. And early trends suggest the worst of the cannibalization impact is behind us. Consistent with our historical experience, we continue to expect full revenue recovery over the next couple of years, supported by the strong long-term demographic growth across the Las Vegas Valley, particularly in Summerlin, where the combined build-out of Downtown Summerlin and Summerlin West is projected to add approximately 34,000 new households.
As stated on our last earnings call, construction continues on the next phase of our Durango master plan. This expansion will add over 25,000 square feet of additional casino space, including a new high limit slot area iand bar.
In total, the project will introduce 230 new slot machines with 120 allocated to the high limit room. As part of this phase, we are also building a new covered parking garage with nearly 2,000 spaces, which will enhance customer access and provide infrastructure flexibility to support future growth of the property. The total project cost was approximately $120 million and is currently operating under a guaranteed maximum price contract with completion of the project expected in late December.
Where there has been some construction disruption on the south side of the property, we are taking proactive steps to minimize guest impact. Across the rest of the portfolio, we maintained strong operational discipline; continued to execute our core strategy of reinvesting in our existing properties to enhance amenities while remaining focused on delivering best-in-class customer service.
Despite a return to more typical seasonal visitation patterns, we effectively managed expenses, delivered record financial performance with near-record margins, reinvested in our properties and returned capital to our shareholders. Now, let's take a look at our first quarter.
With respect to our Las Vegas operations, our first quarter net revenue was $495 million, up 1.9% from the prior year's first quarter. Our adjusted EBITDA was $235.9 million, up 2.7% from the prior year's first quarter. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 47.7%, an increase of 34 basis points from the prior year.
On a consolidated basis, our first quarter net revenue was $497.9 million, up 1.8% from the prior year's first quarter. Our adjusted EBITDA was $215.1 million, up 2.8% from the prior year's first quarter. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 43.2% for the quarter, an increase of 42 basis points from the prior year.
In the quarter, we converted 43% of our adjusted EBITDA into operating free cash flow, generating $93 million or $0.88 per share. This strong level of free cash flow was strategically deployed to support our long-term growth initiatives, including our most recent projects at Durango, Sunset Station and Green Valley Ranch or returned to stakeholders through debt reduction and dividends.
As we begin 2025, we remain focused on our core local guests while continuing to grow our regional and national customer segments across the portfolio. Compared to the first quarter of last year, we saw continued strength in card and slot play across a majority of our database. Strong customer engagement and robust spend per visit helped drive near record revenue and profitability in our gaming segments for the quarter.
Turning to our non-gaming operations. Both Hotel and Food and Beverage divisions delivered a strong quarter, achieving near record revenue and profitability in the first quarter.
Our Hotel division recorded its second highest first quarter revenue and profit, driven by our team's success in driving increased occupancy across the portfolio. Not to be outdone, the Food and Beverage division also achieved near record performance, supported by higher cover counts across our outlets. Regarding group sales and catering, as noted on our last earnings call, we faced a challenging year-over-year comparison in the first quarter.
However, we are seeing positive momentum in both lines of business and expect stronger performance throughout the remainder of 2025. As we look ahead into the second quarter, we are seeing stability in our core slot and tables business in the local's market and across our carded database.
We remain confident in our business prospects moving forward. Now let's cover a few balance sheet and capital items. The company's cash and cash equivalents at the end of the first quarter was $150.6 million. And the total principal amount of debt outstanding was $3.4 billion, resulting in net debt of $3.3 billion. As of the end of the first quarter, the company's net debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 4.1x.
Also during the first quarter, we made distributions of approximately $27.6 million to the LLC unitholders of Station Holdco, which included a distribution of approximately $16.1 million to Red Rock Resorts. The company used the distribution to pay its previously declared dividend of $0.25 per Class A common share. Capital spend in the first quarter was $68.2 million, which includes approximately $32.2 million in investment capital as well as $36 million in maintenance capital.
For the full year 2025, we now expect to spend between $350 million and $400 million, down $25 million from our previous earnings call, mainly due to the timing of capital payments. The full year capital spend includes $260 million to $300 million in investment capital as well as $90 million to $100 million in maintenance capital.
As mentioned on our last earnings call, we are making investments in both our Sunset Station and Green Valley Ranch properties. At our Sunset Station property, we are building up the success we are seeing with our recently renovated race and sportsbook and partial casino remodel by continuing to refresh the podium in order to better position the property to capture the continued growth of Henderson, including the master planned communities of Sky and Cadence, which are expected to total over 12,500 households upon final completion of both communities.
As part of the project, we are adding an all-new Country Western bar and Nightclub, a New Mexican restaurant and all-new center bar along with a completely renovated casino space. Work continues to move forward on this project. And the total cost of the renovation is expected to be approximately $53 million.
At our Green Valley Ranch property, we are expected to start a complete refresh of our room and suite product as well as our convention space, aligning the Hotel with our most recent renovations made to our well-received high limit table and slot rooms at the property. Work is expected to start in June of 2025 with the majority of our rooms bringing back in service by year-end.
The cost of the room and convention renovation is expected to be approximately $200 million. Like our other recently introduced amenities, we expect these to be solid investments. However, we do expect some disruption challenges at these properties while we introduce these new amenities to our customers.
Turning now to North Fork, construction is progressing well. We anticipate completing theis slab on grade in July and closing the facility by October, keeping us on track for a mid-2026 resort opening. The total all-in project is expected to be approximately $750 million and is currently operating under a guaranteed maximum price contract.
When complete, this best-in-class resort will include approximately 100,000 square feet of casino space with over 2,400 slot machines, including 2,000 Class III games, 42 table games and 2 food and beverage outlets and a food court with many exciting options. Subsequent to quarter end, we are pleased to announce the successful closing of construction financing for the project, which is both a major milestone in our 20-plus year relationship with the North Fork Tribe.
And we believe a landmark transaction in the arena of tribal Greenfield development. The $750 million financing package will consist of a $25 million revolving credit facility maturing in 2030, bearing interest at 450 over SOFR; a $340 million delayed draw Term Loan A credit facility maturing in 2030, also bearing interest at 450 over SOFR.
And a $385 million delayed draw Term Loan B credit facility maturing in 2031, bearing interest at 725 over SOFR. The delayed draw structure of the project financing will significantly reduce the project's cost by lowering capitalized interest expense by nearly $100 million. In addition, the majority of the credit facility is immediately accessible without the need of a declination letter, providing the Tribe with more cost-effective capital structure, while simultaneously ending Red Rock Resorts' need to fund the project of its own balance sheet.
As part of the financing, Red Rock Resorts received $110.5 million in return capital along with accrued interest itthat invested in the project over the past 20 years. After this repayment, Red Rock Resorts' outstanding note balance with the Tribe stands at approximately $69.6 million. We are excited about this project, very happy with the execution of the financing and look forward to providing further updates on future earnings calls.
Consistent with our balanced approach to investing in long-term growth while returning capital to our shareholders and following the return of a significant portion of our capital invested in the North Fork project, we are pleased to announce that the company's Board of Directors has declared a special cash dividend of $1 per Class A common share payable on May 21 to Class A shareholders of record as of May 14. This action reflects the continued confidence of our Board and the management team and the strength of our business model and the resilience of the Las Vegas local's market.
Lastly, the company's Board of Directors has also declared its regular cash dividend of $0.25 per Class A common share payable on June 30 to Class A shareholders of record as of June 16. After the payment of our special dividend and our regular dividend, we have returned approximately $159 million to our shareholders in 2025.
The year is off to a strong start. And we remain confident in the strength and resilience of our business model. Durango continues to validate our long-term growth strategy and highlight the value of our owned development pipeline and real estate bank, which includes more than 450 acres of developable land positioned in highly desirable locations throughout the Las Vegas Valley.
Combined with our existing portfolio of best-in-class assets in premier locations, this pipeline positions us for significant growth and enables us to fully capitalize on the favorable long-term demographic trends and high barriers to entry that define the Las Vegas local's market.
We want to take a moment to recognize and sincerely thank all of our team members for their continued hard work and dedication. Our success begins with them. They are the driving force behind the exceptional experiences that keep our guests coming back. Thanks to their efforts.
We are proud to have been voted top casino employer in the Las Vegas Valley for the fourth consecutive year, certified as a Great Place to Work for three years running, recognized by Forbes as one of America's best in-state employers and named Top Place to Work by USA Today. Finally, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to our loyal guests for their unwavering support over the past 6 decades. Operator, this concludes our prepared remarks for today. And we are now ready to take questions.