Golden Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ:GDEN) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Carlo Santarelli: Hey, guys. I have two. First one is a little bit bigger picture and second one is probably a little bit more bigger picture than the first one. But obviously, Charles, in your comments, and we see it in the data and we heard it from peers, but the trend seems to be down in most of the locals businesses in and around Nevada. Given kind of the macro backdrop and acknowledging that things don’t grow to the sky. What do you think has perhaps changed that’s driving kind of some of the top line headwinds, some of the incentive for competitors to go out and be a little bit more promotional, et cetera?

Charles Protell : Yes. I mean, look, we’ve got 600,000 active players in our database. So I think we have a pretty decent view at least in our population of what’s going on with our consumer. And I think it’s — when you have persistent inflation and higher interest rates, some of that consumer is certainly feeling it at this point. And so that’s what we see. And I think that in terms of does that level off? Like I said in my remarks, we saw some of that trend continue through April, but as we look into May, we’ve seen some stabilization. Now some of that has to do within the local market. And our largest contributor to our local casinos is Arizona Charlie’s Decatur property, which had the entry way blocked to road construction. So when that’s free up, that’s obviously helpful. But I think on the macro side, I think it’s tougher to say that for the prolonged period of an inflationary environment and higher rates that, that has no impact on the consumer, including ours.

Carlo Santarelli: Got it. And the second one, it’s probably going to be a little bit tougher to answer. But when you look at — let’s just arbitrarily take 1Q run rate. The property level business is running at call it $210 million or so. There’s give or take $50 million of corporate expense. You talked a little bit about the M&A environment on the buy side being tough. You certainly have a portfolio of assets that I think are attractive. I’m assuming potential suitors see many of the same headwinds that you see in that market. But when you think about scope and size, and you think about kind of the options — strategic options that perhaps are could be available to you guys, what are some comments you could share as to how you view some of those things?

Charles Protell: Yeah. I think – look, we look at everything like I said in my comments. And we’ve looked at several things over the past several months, as we’ve had these discussions with you guys in a public setting and then many others privately. And I think that the things that we see on the M&A front from the buy side are quite frankly not very appealing either in terms of size or the market they are or in the structure in terms of being an opco asset. I’d also say that again from a rate environment perspective that obviously impacts cost of financing. And so to make some of that math a little harder and also given where we’re trading at it makes it tougher to do deals that are accretive where the bid ask is between buyer and seller.

So for us what that leads to is what we said, we’re going to do which is invest in our own assets, utilize our buyback authorization. We think that’s the most accretive use of capital. But I’d also say, that if you look at us as a company that owns its own real estate even given where we’re trading at today, at any market multiple for rent you could pick a range that’s in a lot of your research reports or where even the REITs are trading at right now which is depressed prices that value is in excess of our current enterprise value. So to me, I’m not sure there’s any action to be had, until we are quite frankly valued appropriately for both the real estate and the operations of the business. But again, we’re looking at all ways to unlock that value.

But for now, we think that value is in buying our own shares.

Carlo Santarelli: Thank you, Charles. Appreciate it.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from Chad Beynon, Macquarie. Chad, please go ahead.

Chad Beynon: Afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Charles, Blake you guys just kind of hit on what you’re seeing in the database. Charles in your prepared remarks you talked about that lower-end probably being the weakest part of it. Are you seeing any of that in the mid- to kind of core higher-end players? Like is it broad across the board? Or is it mainly in the lower segments of your database?

Blake Sartini: Chad, I think the word mainly — if you use the word mainly it’s in the lower tier of the database. The upper tier visitation is consistent. The mid-tier visitation is consistent but the mid-tier may be — the mid-tier spend may be a bit modest in some cases visitation being consistent. So we think — to answer your question the main part of it is in the lower tier of the database. Upper-tier remains consistent mid-tier is consistent visitation with in some cases less spend.

Chad Beynon: Okay. Thank you. And then, as we think about maybe the next 12 months on the strip you potentially have some supply coming off the strip with Trop just closed, potentially Hard Rock under renovation and taking some rooms out of inventory. You have Fontainebleau which just opened you have Rio new ownership. When you put all these things in a blender, should that be a net positive for you guys as we’re kind of thinking about some of the big convention weeks and F1. How do you see that?