Boyd Gaming Corporation (NYSE:BYD) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Keith Smith: So Carlo, I think you’re right. I think that the first quarter, what we tried to lay out was a very challenging comp because of our record results last year. So, we will — Q1 will be the most challenging quarter of the year. Customer trends, as we indicated in January and through the first few days of February, look a lot like Q4, which implies we haven’t seen any significant impact as a result of the opening of Durango. Now, it’s still early, the property has only been open 60 days, but we haven’t seen any significant impact. So, [indiscernible] other than that, I think as you think about the rest of the year in the Locals market, absent some disruption from a room remodel of Gold Coast, which will have half of its rooms out of service at a time, the year should look a lot like 2023.

Josh Hirsberg: Yeah. I think it’s helpful just to remind people, the reason Q1 was so strong last year, in particular for Las Vegas Locals, had to do with COVID and kind of the removal of some mass restrictions and things of that nature that was going on, and so that’s why I think the seasonality that you referenced, Carlo, correctly is not — probably not going to play out this quarter.

Carlo Santarelli: Okay. Meaning, Josh, just to simplify, historically, 1Q better than 4Q, this quarter perhaps not better, but more so…

Josh Hirsberg: Correct. That’s right.

Carlo Santarelli: Okay. All right. And then — yeah, sorry. Just as a quick follow-up, as you think about kind of the numerous projects, the room remodels across, I think it was four regional properties, there are three regional properties and Gold Coast that you mentioned. And based on the $100 million of CapEx on that stuff in second half, more weighted it seems like, should we be taking into consideration those being at all disruptive, or is that somewhat seamless in the way you can go about that?

Keith Smith: So, I think with respect to the regional room remodels, we’re able to do them differently. There are some structural issues with the Gold Coast that causes us to take more rooms out of service at a time. The other room remodels that will be happening at Blue Chip and Valley Forge and Ameristar St. Charles, we’ll be able to do where there’ll be smaller number of rooms out of service that will have limited impact on the business. So, I would not be factoring in any real disruption from those.

Carlo Santarelli: Great. Thanks, guys.

Josh Hirsberg: Thank you.

David Strow: Thanks, Carlo. Our next question comes from Joe Greff of JPMorgan. Joe, please go ahead.

Joe Greff: Good afternoon. Back to the Las Vegas Locals market. I know it’s only been about 70 days since Durango opened up. But do you think at this point that you’ve hit the impact of peak trial from your gaming patrons going over to Durango? Or do you think the trial impact is different than, say, other times when you faced new competitive supply in the Locals market?

Keith Smith: It’s a really hard question to answer, Joe. Look, it’s been open, as you say, 60 or 70 days. We haven’t seen a significant impact. We’re pleased with the way our operating teams have been able to manage through this. And other than that, we’re going to continue to be very cautious very diligent about how we approach the business. But I’m not ready to say that we’ve hit kind of peak trial and the worst is behind us, so to speak. So, every market is different, every opening is different, every property is different. And so, it’s really tough to peg that.

Joe Greff: Great. And then, Josh, it’s hard not to hear your comments about cost pressures are moderating. Can you highlight in what specific areas you’re seeing the most moderation and maybe the magnitude of those operating expense segments on the enterprise?

Josh Hirsberg: Yeah, I’ll do my best to try to help you figure that out, Joe. I think — look, I’ll start at the high level, which is the two largest areas of expense categories that you guys very much know about is labor and marketing. And from a marketing perspective, our cost as a percent of revenues have been very consistent really since coming out of COVID. We’ve not really deviated from our strategy. Even here in Las Vegas, where we have a new competitor, we continue to remain discipline with how we will be investing with our customers. So, marketing is really not a source of pressure and hasn’t been one really coming out of COVID. From a labor perspective, I would say there’s really two aspects to it. One is kind of self-inflicted, where we have chosen to kind of increase the minimum wage of our team member to what we consider a livable wage of $15 an hour, and that has been rolled out really over the last two years, with the last piece of that happening in the second half of 2023.

So, if you think about labor in that sense, it’s going to take until kind of the second half of next year before we’re able to kind of start to anniversary some of those labor increases. We expect still to see increases, but just not to the levels or the pressure that we’ve seen over the last two years. Another big category that we’ve talked about historically has been utilities. For us, in the fourth quarter, we didn’t really see a big increase in utilities. It’s obviously a seasonal expense, and we’re not expecting the level of increases in that category next year. And so, we’ll work through that year-over-year as we work through the year in terms of seasonality impact. And then, the last one I would call out that we’ve talked about before is property insurance.