Century Casinos Inc /Co/ Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our earnings call. We would like to remind everyone that we will be discussing forward-looking information under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ from those projected. Throughout our call, we will refer to several non-GAAP financial measures, including, but not limited to, adjusted EBITDA. Reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the appropriate GAAP measures can be found in our news releases and SEC filings available in the Investors section of our website at cmty.com. With me today are my co-CEO, Erwin Haitzmann; and our Chief Financial Officer, Margaret Stapleton. After our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions from analysts. We announced solid third-quarter results yesterday afternoon. Net operating revenue was $154 million, driven by strength in the East and Midwest regions as well as in Canada, offset by weakness in the West region and in Poland. The quarter started out really well. EBITDAR in July was up 7%. August was even better with EBITDAR up 22%, but September saw a sharp year-over-year decline due to the following one-time effects. In September of last year, Colorado received a $1 million breakup fee from Tipico. Also in September of last year, Mountaineer had a bonus accrual for $0.5 million reversed. In this September, Poland had extra costs but no revenue from a closed casino. As such, you can attribute the EBITDAR decline in Q3 all to Poland and the one-time effects in September I just mentioned. Adjusting for those, Q3 EBITDAR would have increased by about 5%, beating consensus estimates and demonstrating the continued operating momentum across various segments of our business. Not bad at all, definitely better than it looks at first sight. During the third quarter, play from our high-value and core customers continued its long-term growth trend, but we did not see further improvements from our low-end customers. The upper customer segments continued to perform well, showing 8% growth, helping to offset a 9% decline in the lower-end segments. Therefore, total rated GGR was essentially flat. Retail play increased by 4%, resulting in a 2% GGR increase across the U.S. portfolio. Visitation statistics show a similar picture, visits by high-value and core customers increased 4%, while visits from low-segment players declined. Before I hand it over to Irwin, let me come back to Poland for a second. From now on, no license expirations are coming up for at least 3 years. So Poland should be at its normalized EBITDAR run rate for many quarters to come. In any case, however, we remain committed to divesting our Poland operations and we'll provide updates on the divestment process in the coming months as appropriate. Now over to Erwin for more color on our individual properties and markets.

Thank you, Peter, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with our results for the third quarter beginning in Missouri. Our Century Casino and Hotel Caruthersville, which just celebrated its first anniversary, continues to exceed expectations. Gaming revenue grew strongly across all segments. High Value up 82%, core, up 29% and retail up 22%. In total, gaming revenue was 29% higher than last year, and EBITDA increased 35% to $6.1 million, up from $4.5 million. Rent expense rose about $1.1 million, reflecting the VICI lease that funded the new property and operating margins remain high. It is worth noting that with our new land-based facilities, we're now reaching new markets. This is particularly evident in the significant increase in customers living 75-plus miles from Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs has been an outstanding success, modern, efficient, and exceptionally well received by our guests. Our thanks to the entire team for a fantastic first year. Now to Century Casino and Hotel Cape Girardeau. Cape delivered $6.1 million in EBITDA, only slightly below last year's record quarter. The property continues to perform very well against competition from Illinois. Sports betting launches in Missouri on December 1. In partnership with BetMGM, we will open a BetMGM branded sportsbook-owned property and BetMGM will launch its online sportsbook using our skin. We expect sports betting to elevate Cape's profile and create new revenue streams for the property. Now moving to Colorado. At Cripple Creek, EBITDA was $1.8 million, flat year-over-year. In the quarter, our high-value and core segments grew while pace in retail declined. Retail play now represents about 30% of total gaming revenue. We believe that Chamonix may capture a larger share of the retail market still driven by the novelty effect. At Central City, rated play was up 6%, but total revenue was down 4%, again, due to fewer retail players. EBITDAR came in at $1.2 million, up 20% on a comparable basis as last year's EBITDA of $2 million included a $1 million one-time payment from Tipico. At both Colorado properties, we have replaced live table games with electronic table lounges, which generate about the same revenue at significantly lower cost. That's a solid win for both operations. Now to the East. At Mountaineer in West Virginia, EBITDAR was $4.4 million, flat to last year. Apples-to-apples, though, EBITDAR was up $0.5 million as last year's EBITDAR was inflated by the reversal of a $0.5 million bonus accrual. Performance across the board was steady and parimutuel handle rose 26%, driven by improved scheduling and race mix. At Rocky Gap in Maryland, EBITDAR increased 7% to $4.9 million as we expected our first clean quarter without weather disruptions since the beginning of the year. Growth came from high-value players, while other segments held steady. Now to the West and the Nugget Casino Resort in Reno Sparks. While the Nugget had a standout August, mainly due to our signature Best in the West Nugget Rib Cookoff, overall, the quarter was still challenging. We experienced a record EBITDAR for August of $4.1 million, the highest single-month result in nearly 3 years, but that was offset by a weaker July and September. Throughout the quarter, we enhanced marketing programs to grow both local and destination play. We are also building out our 2026 concert season. Tickets for Brooks and Dunn in April are already selling extremely well. We began converting unused space into an additional 11,000 square feet of convention space, a 10% increase in square footage to be completed by year-end. The additional space will first be used by a major group event that is booked for January 2026. At the Nugget, we're executing on a clear repositioning strategy, shifting away from low ADP players who are no longer profitable and focusing on core players in Reno Sparks and Northern California. In sync with the enhanced marketing to play in the core segment, we are working on further improving the F&B offerings. It takes time, but we are starting to see the results already. Now to Canada and Europe. In Alberta, slot coining was up 5.8%, total revenue up 1.6% and EBITDA up 11.1% to $5.4 million. Growth was broad-based, supported by disciplined cost management. Century Downs in St. Albert led the way with St. Albert benefiting from this year's upgrade of the facade. In Poland, we're nearing the end of a challenging period marked by license delays and relocations. The main headwind this quarter was the closure of our Wrocław Hilton Casino, which contributed an EBITDA of $1.3 million last year versus a negative $0.5 million this quarter. Our relocated Wrocław Casino is ramping up well and the second Wrocław location will open in January 2026, further strengthening our position there. All current licenses, as said before, are valid through 2028, so we expect stable operations going forward. With that, back to you, Peter.

Thank you. And before we cover a few balance sheet and capital items, let me explain what led to the filing delay of a couple of days. As described in the 8-K we filed with the SEC yesterday, we discovered an error during impairment testing for goodwill and ROCE GAAP that required us to restate our 2024 10-K and the 10-Qs for the first two quarters of this year. The correction of the error will reduce our goodwill balance with an offsetting increase in net loss less the tax impact. The estimated impacts are described in the 8-K. This does not change our revenue or adjusted EBITDA for any of the periods being restated. We are finalizing our review of the amended financial statements and anticipate filing these with the SEC within the next 5 business days. All right. Now back to the balance sheet. Our cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter were $78 million compared to $85 million at the end of Q2. That includes $5 million we spent in CapEx and $1.5 million we spent on the share buyback program. We also paid the annual table games license fee of $2.5 million in West Virginia as well as about $1 million in closing costs in Poland. So all in, we were about flat in cash from operations. Total principal amount of debt outstanding was $339 million, resulting in net debt of $261 million. At the end of the quarter, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 6.9x. On a lease-adjusted basis, the ratio was 7.6x. Let me also note here that we have no debt maturities until 2029. And there is no need for significant CapEx this year or next. This year, we'll spend a total of $18 million, of which we have spent $15 million already. As we look ahead, we are very confident in our business prospects. Last year was a transitory period for us, but now we see a clear path forward to higher EBITDAR and cash flow for 2026 and beyond. Now it's all about harvesting what we have invested last year. When you sort through the noise I mentioned at the beginning of the call, we are encouraged by the trends in our business. While we recognize the level of economic uncertainty, we are more confident in the long-term prospects of our company than we were at any point last year. While the fourth quarter has just started, it's worth noting that the positive customer trends have continued into October, including improved play from both core and retail customers. Preliminary results for October show EBITDAR up well over 20% compared to last year. And as we head into next year's tax season, we believe that our core customers around the country will benefit from the tax bill passed by Congress this summer, including new deductions for tips and overtime and an additional deduction for seniors as well as larger standard deduction for all taxpayers. As you know, we are in the midst of a comprehensive strategic review process. At this stage, no decisions have been made, and there can be no assurance that the review will result in any transactions or particular change. We do not intend to make further public comments on the process unless and until the company's Board of Directors approves a specific course of action, which we do not expect before Q1 of next year. With that, I ask for your understanding that we will not take questions on this topic in our Q&A session as we cannot share any incremental information at this time. All right. That concludes our prepared remarks. We'll now open the call for Q&A with the analysts. Operator, go ahead, please.

And our first question will come from Jeff Stantial with Stifel.

This is Don Young on for Jeff Stantial. Maybe starting off on the strong results in your Canada portfolio. Can you sort of expand a bit on what's driving that broad-based growth? And as you continue to evaluate the broader portfolio, do you view these as more noncore with the increasing U.S. exposure? Or do you see real synergies with the broader portfolio?

Thank you. I’ll address that question. To start with your second question, we observe some synergy, though it’s more incremental. Therefore, it is best viewed as a stand-alone collection of operations for our Canadian properties. In terms of drivers, there’s one clear factor, which is St. Albert, where we completely overhauled the exterior, and that had a significant positive effect. Beyond that, I believe we have a highly motivated management team that is diligently focusing on both cost management and revenue generation. We recently visited the area and found a very dedicated team eager to excel, which is encouraging to see. Additionally, I think there is further potential for growth, especially considering the macroeconomic environment in Canada, which seems to be less affected than in the United States.

Great. That's helpful. Turning to the Nugget. Can you give us an idea of how you're thinking about timing for the group and convention business to normalize? And to sort of put some numbers around it, how many more room nights can this add? And then on some of the new entertainment programming, can you help us think about how you're underwriting that uplift and how confident you are that this will attract those visits and corresponding gaming revenues that you're underwriting? And then that's all from us.

Okay. So you're asking about the timing of the improvements as we see it, the impact it will have on room nights and the impact and the progress of the consult, correct?

Yes.

It's difficult to specify the timing, but as previously mentioned by both Peter and myself, we are starting to see results from our marketing adjustments in October. We're confident that the full effects of our ongoing refinements will be visible, both now and especially as we approach 2026. On the revenue side of the casino, we are looking closely, but we are also treating the hotel retail side as a separate focus. Some guests come to the Nugget solely for the hotel and may not participate in gaming at all. In this context, as noted earlier, we will intensify our focus on food and beverage, possibly expanding our offerings while upgrading one or two of our outlets. It's challenging to quantify in terms of room nights, but we have three segments for the hotel: the casino side, which mainly involves complimentary stays as part of our overall comping program; the convention and group business, where smaller groups can be accommodated short-term, but larger groups require significant lead time, potentially looking as far ahead as 2030 or 2031; and the retail business, which we market separately and which has shown growth in 2025, with expectations for further improvements in 2026. Regarding concerts, we learned from last year that the concert operations turned a profit of about $850,000 in 2024, but this year we are facing a loss of around $300,000. This is due to two main factors: the difficulty in booking desired acts and the need for intelligent planning for their scheduling. Additionally, this has resulted in fewer country acts being booked than we would have liked. We expect improvement in 2026. We have determined that to mitigate risk in concert bookings, it's better to bring in fewer, high-quality acts like Brooks and Dunn rather than a larger number of less costly acts. Our aim is for the concert series to be self-sufficient, with many concerts positively impacting the hotel, casino, and food and beverage sectors.

Our next question today will come from Jordan Bender with Citizens.

It seems you're experiencing good success with the ETGs implemented in Colorado. Do you believe this is a strategy you would consider applying to your other U.S. assets, given that it may help improve margins due to its cost-effectiveness?

Yes. However, we are not completely replacing table games with electronic table games. We do have electronic table games in other casinos alongside traditional table games. In Colorado, the decision was based on the smaller operations where it didn't make sense to keep a few tables. In the larger casinos, we maintain both electronic table games and traditional table games, and we plan to continue this approach.

Great. And on the follow-up, I think you mentioned you bought shares back in the quarter. I'm just curious where your balance sheet sits today, where the cash balance sits, how do you kind of think about buying back shares here versus continuing to pay down debt as we head into '26?

Absolutely. Peggy, why don't you take that question, please?

We're currently analyzing the stock buyback versus paying back debt and have not made any real decisions on how to proceed into 2026.

We'll take our next question from Ryan Sigdahl with Craig-Hallum Group.

20% or greater than that EBITDAR growth in October, improved play from the core and retail players, if I caught that right in the prepared remarks. Can you elaborate, I guess, on specifically, is that pretty broad-based across the portfolio? And then as you look to November and December, are there any weird comps or anything to be aware of on the plans for this year where that's not a good assumption to kind of continue throughout the rest of the quarter?

We don't see anything unusual that would significantly affect the fourth quarter. Regarding the customer trends that Peter mentioned, which contributed to over 20% growth in October, we hope that consumer sentiment continues to improve. This sentiment has negatively impacted us in the lower end of the market. It's uncertain, but there is at least hope that consumer sentiment will improve in the next couple of months. Peter, would you like to add to that?

Yes. The only difference we will notice is that last year we opened the new land-based facility in Caruthersville during the first week of November. As we compare year-over-year, that property from the first week of November onward may not experience the same growth rates we have seen over the past 12 months. However, for all other properties, I do not anticipate any abnormalities.

Great. Then just on the Nugget, July, September were weaker. Curious, I guess, think going back year 2, it was the convention business was building. It was going to really be inflecting kind of middle to late this year into '26. I guess, is there a reason did you have any cancellations? Or curious, I guess, the weakness in July and September as my view, I guess, could have been partially incorrect, but was that the convention business was going to really start to ramp up here?

The weakness in September primarily resulted from the absence of two strong concepts we had in 2024, which were Chase and Eldion. In September, we did not have any new concepts introduced. Additionally, we experienced a significant bingo event in September last year that we did not have this September. Regarding the conference business, there was a reduction in conference activity in July and September of 2025 compared to 2024. Unfortunately, this situation could not be addressed in the short term.

And we'll move next to Chad Beynon with Macquarie Group.

I wanted to ask about Caruthersville. You touched on the growth that you continue to see in the operating leverage of that property. Are you still on track to hit the returns that you originally laid out on the construction CapEx? And then secondarily, where do you expect most of the growth to come from? Will it be that further out customer in the neighboring states? Or are there still opportunities in the closer in catchment area?

Yes, we are on track with what we expected. We believe that growth will come from both the nearby and more distant groups, particularly those within 75-plus miles. We see potential for greater outreach into that segment than we have achieved so far. Therefore, we anticipate growth from the more distant areas, along with continued growth from the closer areas as well.

Okay, great. Referring back to the weakness observed in the retail customer segment, which seems to have eased with a 20% growth in October, do you have any insights on whether this trend will be stable? Can you provide any explanations for the decline during that period? Was it possibly related to weather, comparable figures, local cost of living, or unemployment? Any information that would give us confidence in a potential improvement for retail in Q4 and beyond would be appreciated.

It's difficult to determine definitively, but we believe the concerns about tariffs and their potential impact on consumers play a significant role. This worry is especially pronounced among those with lower income, which is evident in areas like Rocky Gap, where household incomes are considerably lower than in other markets where we operate. This certainly has a substantial impact. While I’m not as skilled as others when it comes to predicting future consumer sentiment, I would say that the outlook appears positive, though you might have a better perspective on that.

Okay. Great. And are there initiatives or cost improvements that you could make if this customer remains volatile?

There's always a possibility to look for more and tighten the belt further. However, I don't believe it will get any worse than it was during the worst month of this year. We managed through those challenges effectively, and if needed, we could do so again. As I mentioned, if you keep searching, there is always a way to save more. The risk is always that you might go too far in your efforts.

Our next question comes from Connor Parks with CBRE.

Maybe another capital allocation one, maybe separate from the debt paydown versus share repo discussion. Just in the context of the cash on the balance sheet and some of the EBITDAR growth you've seen this year with all the CapEx rolling off to Missouri. I guess, how are you weighing the reinvestment plan at this point? Is there anything maybe outside of nugget you mentioned that you would like to build or reinvest in or any low-hanging fruit type projects in Missouri again that you're weighing at this point in time?

Yes. I will begin and then turn it over to Peter and Peggy. We are considering a minor facade upgrade at two of our Canadian properties. Although it's not a significant capital expenditure, there will be some costs involved. Previously, we found that such upgrades in St. Albert positively impacted revenues and the overall business. We may allocate some funds for food and beverage improvements at the Nugget, but beyond that, we will focus on routine maintenance and investing mainly in slot products at our properties. Peter, would you like to add anything or elaborate further?

Yes, we don't anticipate any major movements regarding stock buybacks or debt repayment at this time due to our ongoing strategic review process. The outcome of that review will guide our decisions. If we decide to sell an asset, we could have a substantial amount of funds available to reduce our debt. However, until we finalize this process, there will be no significant stock buybacks or debt payments.

Great. And then maybe as my follow-up, you've mentioned in this quarter and in prior quarters, the expected uplift potential in regional gaming around the benefits from the upcoming tax season. I guess have you provided any barriers or tried to quantify any of these benefits around customer bases, spending habits or anything of that matter for any of the areas of which you operate in?

I wouldn't have to make a guess here. It's hard to say. Peter back over to you, do you think you could quantify?

No, not really see it. As Erwin said before, mostly the low ADT players, the lower segments of our database are impacted by that. And depending on which property, it's about maybe 15% to 20%, 25% of our customers are in that lower segment. But in general, we are making steps to move away from that and to move towards mid-tier and upper-tier customers in our marketing approach and in everything we are doing. So that should lessen that impact. But I agree, we don't want to quantify that; there are not enough hard facts that we have.

And that is all the time we have. If we did not get to your question, please reach out to the company using the Investor Relations page at cnty.com. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Hoetzinger for closing remarks.

Yes. Thanks, operator, and thanks, everybody. We appreciate you joining our call today. I will talk again when we present the 2025 full year results. Until then, thank you, and goodbye.

This does conclude today's conference. Thank you for attending.