Alberto Fornaro
Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is now open
Thank you, Marco and hello to all of you. Our fourth quarter financial results are summarized on slide 8 in constant currency and scope which adjusts for Lotto upfront amortization and the sale of DoubleDown. Revenue rose 3%, growth was driven by a significant and expected contribution from our international segment and other quarter of strong global lottery performance and higher contribution from Italy’s sports betting. At constant currency and scope, adjusted EBITDA grew 6% on higher revenue and lower operating expenses, driven by reduction in both SG&A and R&D. Adjusted EPS in the period includes a $0.66 per share non-cash tax impact from recent US tax reforms. Roughly half relates to tax expenses on unremitted foreign earnings and the rest to differ tax assets. The reported EPS in the press release include also substantial positive adjustment for deferred tax liabilities related to purchase accounting. Let’s now turn to our operating segments; beginning with North American gaming and interactive on slide 9. At constant scope, revenue was down on lower product sales and gaming service revenue. Service revenue from terminals reflect a lower installed base compared to prior year. However, excluding comparisons mostly in Oklahoma, we saw a sequential improvement of approximately 100 units in the installed base. Product sales faced a high comparison to the fourth quarter of 2016, which included more gaming machine shipments for new casino openings as well as the central system sales to MGM National Harbor and a contribution from intellectual property settlements. We shipped 5,295 gaming machines compared to 5,419 units in the same period last year. Keep in mind, that units for the recent Resorts World Catskills opening are not in our fourth quarter numbers, they will be included in our first quarter results. Total replacement unit sales were up sharply including double digit growth in casino replacements. Additionally, overall ASP improved highlighting customer demand for our Crystal series cabinets and filled by stiff content. The constant scope operating income largely reflects lower revenue as well as timing of the Jackpot expense which is primarily related to the timing of two Megabucks jackpots. We were able to partially offset these with lower operating costs. Turning to North America lottery on slide 10, total revenue rose 7%, same store revenue grew over 8%, with strong wagers in incentive and draw based games as well as multi-state jackpots, as the instant ticket sales continue to be the largest driver for same store growth. While core lottery trends are strong, service revenue were fairly stable to a lower effective rate on contract expansion and the exit from certain low margin contracts. A low contract expansion have been modest near-time impact on effective rate, the aggregate return on investment for extended contract is very favorable. Produce sales vary from quarter-to-quarter and in Q4 we had a significant benefit from lottery terminal sales and the VLT central system sale in Canada. Operating income was up 1% as revenue growth was largely offset by higher service delivery costs and the legal fees in Illinois. Our Illinois lotter management contract extended in 2017 and we will no longer be recognizing roughly 50 million in annual reimbursable expenses as revenue. This pass-through revenue had no profit associated with that. As a reminder, the supply contract in Illinois remains in place throughout 2018. Let’s turn to our international segment on slide 11. We always expected a strong second half and fourth quarter and you see that reflected here across all revenue items. Revenue and operating income increased to double-digit in constant currency. The strength of the fourth quarter results compensated for the lower profits in the first quarter and reflects the highly variable nature of our international business. For the full year period, revenue and profits were nicely above the prior year. Lottery same store revenues were lightly below the prior year. Broad based expense in EMEA and Latin America were offset by weakness in Colombia. UK lottery trends were stable. Gaming services revenue from terminal was up 1% in constant currency, as a higher installed base was offset by lower average yields due to the geographic mix of revenues. The installed base grew to 15,543 machines from 10,453 in the fourth quarter of 2016 on unit growth in Africa, Greece VLTs and video bingo machines. Product sales were up on lottery software sales primarily in Europe. We shipped 5,565 gaming machines compared to 4,901 in the prior year with a 41% increase in replacement, more than compensating for fewer new and expansion units. Higher unit volumes were offset by product weeks with lower ASPs including the impact of larger transactions in Latin America. Italy results was light as well, with constant currency scope the business essentially steady, thanks to solid underlying performance. In lotteries mainly the machine gaming and sport betting, we mitigated a sharp drop in late numbers compared to prior year as well as the unfavorable impact from higher machine gaming taxes. Non-late number, Lotto wagers rose 4% in the fourth quarter as a lot of players gravitated towards our innovative new offering Doppio ORO. Scratch & Win wagers were up 2% on the continuous success of Miliardario and multiplayer tickets. The decline in gaming machines mainly reflects higher taxes. Recent network optimization in higher levels of online play drove sports betting wager growth of over 8% in the fourth quarter. This accounts overall for the substantial increase in revenues. The other route was the results of historically low payout which was 10 percentage point below the prior year. On slide 13 we have summarized the results for the full year, a constant currency scope revenue was roughly in line with the prior year. In other words we were able to make up for the combined benefit from Powerball in late numbers in 2016 and despite higher Italy gaming machine taxes in 2017. Growth from strong underlying lottery performance, system and software sales and sports betting offset these headwinds. Adjusted EBITDA of over 1.676 billion was a dry hand of our outlook. Expense saving helped to mitigate a tough comparison with higher margin profile of the 2016 revenue benefits I just mentioned. Capital expenditure for maintenance and growth excluding Lotto were 585 million for the year, within our expected range of $575 million to $625 million. Total CapEx was 698 million and included 130 million in Lotto network and infrastructure upgrades. External to the depth and average profile which you can see on slide 14, net debt at the end of the year was 7.3 billion which is slightly better than our outlook where we consider 100 million in unplanned impacts from the first Scratch & Win payment and incremental foreign exchange headwinds. Adjusted for currency, leverage was approximately 4.25 times, a nice improvement from 2016. Cash flow shown here on slide 15; during the year we generated nearly 700 million in cash from operation, as you know the Italy upfront payment of 245 million are now in cash from operating activities and were previously located in cash from investing activities. This change has no impact on free cash flow. We also had elevated cash taxes from the sale DoubleDown. On slide 17, we have the outlook for 2018, which assumes an average euro-dollar exchange rate of 122. We currently expect adjusted EBITDA of 1.7 billion to 1.78 billion for the full year period. As a reminder, the first half of 2017 included approximately 30 million in EBITDA from DoubleDown and there would be an incremental 20 million headwind from gaming machines in Italy also from higher taxes in the first four months of 2018 and also from some new regional restrictions on AWP. Profits should be a little bit more weighted towards the back half of the year, as they were in ’17. This is mainly a function of gaming product sales timing including the largest ridden VLT sales expected in the fourth quarter. 2018 capital expenditure are planned at 575 million to 625 million. At the midpoint, this includes about 550 million related to the maintenance on existing contract and about 50 million for growth CapEx. Maintenance CapEx is lightly above the normal trend largely due to capital for several successful lottery wins and expansion including California, Georgia and Florida. Additionally, the nine year renewal of the Scratch &Win concession we require a gross cash payment of €300 million in the second quarter and €450 million in the fourth quarter. We are responsible for roughly €500 million in total with the balance coming from minority partners. We believe in the recent change to the US tax code should be a modest cash benefit in 2018, given the complexity of the changes we are still working through impact on future years. As we have demonstrated over the last two year, our lottery and gaming operation generated a strong operating cash flow that has enabled us to consistently find our CapEx needs. The elevated cash out outlays for CapEx and upfront payment in Italy in 2018 are linked to many years of revenues and cash flow visibility for a good portion of our Italy and North American lottery business. After 2018, the capital requirements for these operations should moderate considerably if free cash flow should accelerate and leverage should improve. At this point, we’d like to open the call for your questions.