Net revenues at $1.7bn, 256% up YoY, 16% on same-store basis but net losses widened to $423m from $176m. Same-store adjusted EBITDA at $548m up 33.7%.<\/p>\n
Las Vegas same-store revenues were down 39.5% to $497m; regional gaming was flat on a same-store basis at $1.1bn. Managed, international and interactive was down 21.3% at $90m.<\/p>\n
Caesars expects to pay down $2bn of debt during this calendar year helped by William Hill sale, detail likely to be confirmed in Q3\/Q4. Contrary to reports, discussions are not in progress on the disposal of a Strip asset.<\/p>\n
April showers cash:<\/strong> Talking of the recovery from Covid, CEO Tom Reeg said on the earnings call the business that Caesars had seen in April was \u201cso different from the narrative I have seen out there\u201d and much more positive. He said Caesars had produced over $300m of consolidated EBITDA in April alone which was more than 5% ahead of the 2019 comparative and with margins of over 37% which was over 1,000bps ahead of the same month 2019. Vegas EBITDA margin was almost 47%. Reeg added that \u201cweekends in Las Vegas are sold out for the foreseeable future.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re very optimistic about the remaining three quarters and the returning group and convention business,\u201d he added. Analysts at Deutsche Bank suggested the tone of the conference call was \u201cdecidedly more bullish\u201d than previously.<\/p>\n Running down that Hill: <\/strong>After thanking the departing Joe Asher, CEO of William Hill US, for the \u201cfoundation he and his team built\u201d, Reeg went on to suggest that in the last football season the business has been playing with \u201cone arm tied behind its back.\u201d Asked whether Caesars had ever considered keeping hold of the non-US elements of William Hill, Reeg said \u201cwe\u2019ve not had a moment\u2019s pause in selling.\u201d \u201cOne of my pet peeves when I was an investor was companies that didn\u2019t know what they were good at,\u201d he said. \u201cI can’t tell you we are good at running a non-US online business.\u201d Indeed, he also somewhat undersold what they were leaving on the table for the next owner, whether that is a trade buyer or rumoured PE buyer Apollo.<\/p>\n \u201cFrankly, William Hill had a number of lame-duck brands in a number of markets where it didn’t make sense to invest. We will be more aggressive on leverage,\u201d Reeg added. \u201cWhat we needed was to move forward and take control of our destiny.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Taking up the online cudgels:<\/strong> Reeg was keen to emphasise how important the company viewed the potential to leverage the player database at its disposal in the online realm. \u201cIf you look at what our friends at MGM did in Michigan, achieving leadership where they had a large database, that gave us great confidence moving forward,\u201d he said. \u201cWe like the hand that guys like us and MGM have to play,\u201d he added. \u201cWe have the largest player database in the business bar none. We should be effectively the low cost producer. And we are throwing off over $100m-a-month in free cash flow (from the whole business) to invest in this business as aggressively as we need to. We aren\u2019t throwing money away to buy market share, but there will be a significant increase in investment.\u201d<\/p>\n Players only love you when they\u2019re playing: <\/strong>The newly rebranded Caesars sports app would be a \u201ccompetitive business and brand by this coming football season.\u201d \u201cWe expect to be a player this fall,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019re going to put our heads down and do the work. We feel very, very good where we\u2019re headed.\u201d<\/p>\n Caesars Entertainment The top line Net revenues at $1.7bn, 256% up YoY, 16% on same-store basis but net losses widened to $423m from $176m. Same-store adjusted EBITDA at $548m up 33.7%. Las Vegas same-store revenues were down 39.5% to $497m; regional gaming was flat on a same-store basis at $1.1bn. Managed, international and interactive was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[337,324],"tags":[630,636,643,672,765],"class_list":["post-1994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analyst-notes","category-news","tag-aspire-global","tag-better-collective","tag-caesars","tag-gaming-innovation-group","tag-red-rock-resorts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1994"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1996,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1994\/revisions\/1996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wagers.com\/staging\/4285\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Check out these additional articles today on Earnings + More:<\/h3>\n
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