Earnings Labs

Churchill Downs Incorporated (CHDN)

Q1 2013 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 25, 2013

$100.89

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Churchill Downs Incorporated First Quarter Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will be given at that time. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, today’s program is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today’s program, Ms. Courtney Norris, Director of Corporate Communications at Churchill Downs. Please go ahead.

Courtney Norris

Management

Thank you Jonathan, good morning and welcome to this Churchill Downs Incorporated conference call to review the Company’s results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2013. The results were released yesterday afternoon in a news release that has been covered by the financial media. A copy of this release announcing results and any other financial and statistical information about the period to be presented in this conference call, including any information required by Regulation G, is available at the section of the Company’s website titled 'News', located at churchilldownsincorporated.com as well as in the website’s Inventors section. Let me also note that a news release was issued advising of the accessibility of this conference call on a listen-only basis via phone and over the Internet. As we begin, let me express that some statements made during this call will be forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are statements that include projections, expectations or beliefs about future events or results, or otherwise are not statements of historical facts. The actual performance of the Company may differ materially from what is projected in such forward-looking statements. Investors should refer to statements included in reports filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of additional information concerning factors that could cause our actual results of operations to differ materially from the forward-looking statements made in this call. The information being provided today is of this date only, and Churchill Downs Incorporated expressly disclaims any obligation to release publicly any updates or revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect any changes and expectations. I will now turn the over to our Chairman and CEO; Bob Evans, Bob?

Robert L. Evans

Management

Thanks, Courtney. I don’t have any prepared comments today, other than what we put in the press release. Let turn this over to our CFO, Bill Mudd, who will take you through some of the details regarding the numbers, then will be back and start to answer whatever questions you may have. Bill?

William E. Mudd

Management

Thank you Bob and good morning everyone. Despite some challenges, which I will highlight in a few minutes. We set records to both revenue and EBITDA for the first quarter. Revenues increased 7% to $148 million, while EBITDA improved 3% to $17.9 million. Our racing segment posted revenues of $27.8 million, down 8% from the prior year. The only track that was conducted live racing during the period was our Fairgrounds property, which revenue decreased 2% on an equivalent number of race days. The decline in total racing segment revenues was primarily driven by lower host days at Arlington Park. When there is no live racing in the state, the track is selected by the Illinois Racing Board to act as the host track. Host track receives a percentage of revenues from pari-mutuel wagering activity at locations across the state. Arlington was awarded 44 days in 2012, but that number was reduced to 26 days in 2013 and is the primary reason for our racing revenues decreasing year-over-year. This decision is made on a yearly basis, we don’t know what the decision will be for 2014. But certainly we will attempt to argue for return to 44 days we had in 2012. Racing EBITDA was essentially even with the prior year perhaps a $1 million loss associated with fewer host days in Illinois was mostly offset by 400,000 of net insurance recoveries associated with hail damage sustained at Churchill Downs in April of last year. But we are on the racing segment, I am sure most of you want to know how the Derby is shaping up. There’s not a lot more I can say than what was discussed during the last earnings call. But we continue to be very optimistic about this year’s performance. The weather can always affect…

Robert L. Evans

Management

Thank you, operator if you could help us open any of the questions we’ll be glad to take at this time.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Steve Altebrando from Sidoti & Company, your question please. Steve T. Altebrando – Sidoti & Co. LLC: Good morning guys, it looks like deferred revenue up about 15% year-over-year, how indicative of it, is that of profitability for the Derby?

Robert L. Evans

Management

Steve; deferred revenue is a combination of factors it can change because of the timing of when we invoice customers, it can change because of the timing of when we collect cash from customers. So, it’s one point in time is how that is measured, so I’d say that it’s better being up than this being down, from a expectation of revenue, but it did mean that your collecting cash later, so that could be bad as well. So, we look at the cash free collect and obviously the other thing it could be because you have higher pricing or more volume going through. So, just be careful of looking at the balance sheet in making any assumption based on that. I will go with more for my comments that made it. Metrics we’ve look at indicates that it should be a very strong Derby. Steve T. Altebrando – Sidoti & Co. LLC: Okay, and in terms of Harlow’s how much of the million dollar decline related to just one-time expense from marketing.

Robert L. Evans

Management

Grab that real quick, I have it, but I just want to make sure that I’m looking at it correctly. Not $400.000. Steve T. Altebrando – Sidoti & Co. LLC: Okay, and then just lastly some color on the buyback, just curious how you’re viewing it, is it more of opportunistic or it’s generally the plan to exhaust the authorization through ’15.

Robert L. Evans

Management

We didn’t make any comments about how we’re thinking about that Steve, we did put the buyback in place because we view the stock as cheap, but we’re obviously not going to save what price we about to stock that. Steve T. Altebrando – Sidoti & Co. LLC: Okay, Thank you.

Opearator

Analyst · Sidoti & Company, your question please

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Amit Kapoor from Gabelli & Co., your question please. Amit Kapoor – Gabelli & Co., Inc.: Good morning, thank you. Robert L. Evans Good morning Amit. Amit Kapoor – Gabelli & Co., Inc.: Good morning, can you there was nothing in the press release, could you please comment on any updates on Luckity or any measures there, any new metrics that you’re tracking in terms of customer acceptance improvement there. We’d appreciate that color, thank you.

William C. Carstanjen

Analyst · Sidoti & Company, your question please

Hi, it’s Bill Carstanjen. I’m going to take that question. Good morning. We spend a lot of time with the customers that we’ve acquired and really the focus to-date has been on refining the product to make it better meet their expectations to improve their redeposit rates. We have not to-date really kicked off marketing in any serious way because the approach we’ve taken to building out this product is we really want to be confident that we got a product that we believe the customers will not only be attracted to, but once they are attracted to will be able to retain them. So the products got to be good enough to meet the hurdle of getting the customer to redeposit funds after they play the first time. I think, and our expectation, we’re still a couple of sprints, as we call them, a couple of releases away from that. But I think you’ll see over the second quarter and the beginning of the third quarter, we’ll get there and we’ll start to market heavily at that point. We truly test the capability of this product in the market space. We have been encouraged that we’re getting better and when we introduce the product into marketplace late in the fourth quarter, we did acquire some customers and we continue to work with that group primarily instead of worrying about attracting masses of new ones. Okay, that’s a positive sign, but we’re not quite there yet. Amit Kapoor – Gabelli & Co., Inc.: Okay. Thank you. What is most encouraging in terms of feedback that you are getting from these customers?

William C. Carstanjen

Analyst · Sidoti & Company, your question please

In my opinion the most positive thing that we’re hearing is that there is a niche for a product like this that… Amit Kapoor – Gabelli & Co., Inc.: Okay.

William C. Carstanjen

Analyst · Sidoti & Company, your question please

This is real money gaming, but it has elements of social gaming and it’s a niche that’s not really well filled in the U.S. market. So, in my opinion what’s most encouraging is there are customers out there that seem to be looking for a product like this that isn’t generally easy to find in the U.S. market. Amit Kapoor – Gabelli & Co., Inc.: Thank you.

Robert L. Evans

Management

Yeah, I’m Bob. I’ve one another comment to that. My perspective on what I find encouraging is that we are starting to find that we have better customers. People play a significant amount of money and secondarily that they are redepositing. So they are not just doing it once and stopping there, continuing to play after their first (inaudible) with us. So I find that really positive. Amit Kapoor – Gabelli & Co., Inc.: Appreciate that.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Thomison from Hilliard Lyons. Your question, please? Jeff S. Thomison – J.J.B. Hilliard, W.L. Lyons LLC: Thanks and good morning. As we approach this first week of May, I was hoping to get some qualitative and/or quantitative commentary from you guys. Regarding a comparison of Kentucky Derby Week 2013 versus 2012 and that could include things such as changes or differences in steering capacity, pricing, sponsorships, industry environment and then obviously security, but just some comments on how all the event might be a little different this year.

Robert L. Evans

Management

That’s covering a lot of ground. Jeff S. Thomison – J.J.B. Hilliard, W.L. Lyons LLC: You can tell just a few of them then.

Robert L. Evans

Management

So in terms of steering capacity, the only significant addition that we put in place this year is the mansion, which is sold out. I’m sure there is a seat left in there somewhere, but essentially that’s sold out and in the Section 110 where we put it some stadium-style, sort of football or baseball stadium-style seating, so that added a bit of capacity. And then we opened last fall an area off of the paddock called the Plaza, which is outdoors and provides some additional capacity as well. So not a lot of capacity, but the stuff we added tended to be higher end in terms of pricing. So that’s the best I can give you there. The big wildcard of course is what the weather does on Oaks and Derby day and that has some influence on how many people show up that day by tickets that day and occupy primarily the infield. So, in terms of seating, I’d say, those are the highlights, did take some price increases this year. So we should see that reflected in our result as well. TV deals are multi-year deals. So that’s essentially locked in the sponsorship deals, we were able to grow a bit this year. So we feel pretty good about that. We may have an announcement in that area over the next week-and-a-half. So, keep an eye out for that one. And then the other sort of large kind of the revenue stream is pari-mutuel wagering. That ends up being a function of how competitive the field is. We assume we have 20 starters. I know it’s a very competitive field, but wagering would be better and if we get good weather that would help us as well. So basically at this point the two wild cards are what happens to, they have attendance, primarily infield, what happens to the wagering reports. Jeff S. Thomison – J.J.B. Hilliard, W.L. Lyons LLC: Great. That was a good job, Bob.

Robert L. Evans

Management

Jeffery, anything else? Jeff S. Thomison – J.J.B. Hilliard, W.L. Lyons LLC: That’s all I had. I’ll follow-up later today.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is a follow-up question from the line of Steve Altebrando from Sidoti & Company. Your question please. Steve T. Altebrando – Sidoti & Co. LLC: Hi. With regards to ADW and Illinois, are you seeing any composition to reinstating the law or is just a matter of getting the organization together and if you can provide any color on that would be helpful. Thank you.

William C. Carstanjen

Analyst · Steve Altebrando from Sidoti & Company

Hi, Steve. It’s Bill Carstanjen. What happened in Illinois is the law that had been on the books expired and so it’s necessary for the legislature to take action to repass the law or repass the similar law. ADW and Illinois is not a controversial subject. It’s not something that we are aware if there’s any opposition to, I’m afraid that the bill just got caught up in broader Illinois politics, which of course can be in one sense that’s encouraging and in another sense it’s frustrating, but our team is working very hard to position that issue to get resolved legislatively as soon as possible and of course that’s been for the team that’s been a hurdle for us because it absorbed and then some the organic growth that’s otherwise in the business. By that, I mean losing the core Illinois business that was there. Steve T. Altebrando – Sidoti & Co. LLC: Okay. That’s helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) And this does conclude the question-and-answer session at today’s program I like to hand the program back for any further marks.

Robert L. Evans

Management

All right. Guys, thanks very much for joining us today, appreciate it. We’re going to be kind of busy over the next 10 days. I’m sure you will understand and hopefully the night of the Derby, we’ll be able to get a press release out with some of the preliminary results. Thanks very much and talk to you again next quarter.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen for your participation in today’s conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.