In preparation for ISLE's FY4Q11 earnings release tomorrow, we’ve put together the pertinent company updates since its FY3Q11 earnings call as well as a FY3Q11 earnings call YOUTUBE.
FLOOD UPDATE (MAY 4):
- "We recently closed our properties in Caruthersville, Missouri, and Lula, Mississippi. Moving south, we have been working closely with officials from the City of Natchez and plan to close our casino on Sunday, May 8 unless circumstances change. We continue to face pressure in Vicksburg and we are continually monitoring conditions there. We have been in contact with our insurance carriers regarding property and business interruption claims."
- “On Sunday, May 1 the Company reopened its Davenport, Iowa facility after a 15 day closure as water levels receded there.”
NEMACOLIN WOODLANDS CASINO RESORT PROJECT APPROVAL (APRIL 14):
- $50MM project cost; 600 slots, 28 table games
- PA combined licensing fee $12.5MM
- Hopes to open the Lady Luck Casino within 12 months
REFINANCING (MARCH 29):
- The New Credit Facility is comprised of a $300 million revolving credit facility, maturing in 2016, and a $500 million term loan facility, maturing in 2017.
POST EARNINGS CALL: BARCLAYS CONFERENCE (MARCH 24)
- [Spend per visit]: “We’re starting to see this level off and maybe inch back up a little bit recently. But, right now people are very news driven or event driven. So if there’s good economic data that comes out, home prices stabilize wherever they are, if unemployment news comes out that’s good, we’ll see a lift for a while. The converse is true as well.”
- “We have started to see retail play tick back up recently. We’ve seen about a 60% correlation between changes in unemployment and changes in retail revenue. The important part about this is that this is also the highest margin business we have, because these people aren’t getting the coin coupons, they’re not getting the room offers, the free buffets, so the things that go along with that, the marketing costs to a retail customer is really about 5%. In the last quarter, we saw seven of our properties have increases in retail play, and all of the minimum flow through at those properties to the EBITDA line was about 45%.”
- “What we generally look for when we look for acquisitions or for growth is a state that either has limited licenses or a low tax rate, one of the two”
- Cape Girardeau, Missouri:
- “Awarded in December the last gaming license that’s available in Missouri and have started this project, some of the infrastructure work and street repairs and stuff like that or building that needs to be done”
- “We’re in the final stages of selecting a contractor. Now, we hope to have that wrapped up probably by the middle of May. We’ll break ground officially this summer on the construction of the building and hope to be open by the end of calendar 2012.”
- “It’s about a $125 million investment, 40,000 square feet of gaming space, 1,000 slot machines, 28 table games.”
- “The closest competition to Cape Girardeau will be 80 miles in any direction, with the Pinnacle property, River City to the North. 80 miles South is our property in Caruthersville and sort of Southeast of us is the Caesars property or Harrah’s property in Metropolis.”
- Nemacolin Woodlands Resort:
- “Our deal with the resort is that we pay them a fixed fee plus a certain percentage of revenues once revenues hit $30 million. And the market study for this would suggest that the market is about $60 million. And then we would receive 100% of the EBITDA after we paid what essentially is the rent.”
YOUTUBE FROM FQ3 2011 EARNINGS RELEASE AND CALL
- “In the fourth quarter, we expect about $15 million in capital expenditures, $10MM of which would be maintenance capital and $5 million related to Cape Girardeau.”
- “Houston is generally a pretty robust economy, but Houston is not our primary market. We would consider Houston a secondary or tertiary market. So I think that while there may be a little bit of benefit from increased oil prices as it relates to the Houston market, it obviously puts pressure on the rest of our portfolio because of increasing gas prices.”
- “We’ve had some significant pressures in the south from continuing unemployment rates at all of our Mississippi properties. I think that Lula, which is considered the north Mississippi market has just experienced its 20th consecutive quarter of decline in gross gaming revenues. Natchez is basically under pressure as well from the outer market which would be considered actually the Vicksburg market because of the high promotional activity there and we’re still seeing some significant pressure, pretty much across the entire Southern portfolio because of the high unemployment rates.”
- “If you look at the corporate costs for the year, they’re going to right in-line with what we sort of guided to at the beginning of the year. It’s sort of in this mid-30s on a cash basis and then plus or minus whatever the stock comp is. So it may bounce around a little bit from quarter-to-quarter because of reserve adjustments and stuff like that, but by and large, I don’t think much has changed from what we talked about at the beginning of the year.”
- [Stock comp] “Somewhere in that range, $1.4 million to $1.7 million or $1.8 million is probably what we would expect it to be the next quarter.”
- “We’re seeing some increased promotional activity in the Quad Cities as other regional casinos in both Iowa and Illinois target the Quad Cities markets as well as Jumer’s promotional activity as well. We’re seeing a pretty intense promotional environment as I said in Biloxi but that’s pretty much steady state there. We are seeing an intense promotional environment in Vicksburg as everybody tries to compete for the same customers and deal with the effects of the economy, and a pretty good promotional environment in Lake Charles as well.”
