Earnings Labs

Century Casinos, Inc. (CNTY)

Q1 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, May 15, 2014

$1.43

+1.79%

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Same-Day

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1 Week

+4.86%

1 Month

+8.27%

vs S&P

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Please standby, we are about to begin. Welcome to Century Casinos' Q1 2014 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. I would now like to introduce our host for today’s call, Mr. Peter Hoetzinger. Mr. Hoetzinger, you may begin.

Peter Hoetzinger

Management

Thank you, Jamie. Good morning everyone in North America and good afternoon to all our European listeners. I am happy to have all of you join us for this call following the release of our first quarter 2014 results. With me on the call today are Erwin Haitzmann, Co-CEO and Chairman of the company, who is attending the Gaming Conference in Japan right now; and Margaret Stapleton, Executive Vice President of Finance. Before we begin, I need to remind you that in our remarks today we will be discussing forward-looking information which involves a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. We provide a detailed discussion of the various risk factors in our SEC filings and we encourage you to review these filings. In addition, throughout our call, we may refer to several non-GAAP financial measures, including but not limited to adjusted EBITDA. Reconciliations of our non-GAAP performance and liquidity measures to the appropriate GAAP measures can be found in our news release and in the 10-K and 10-Q filings, all of which are available in the Investors section of our website at cnty.com. The first quarter 2014 started out really well for us with net operating revenue up 72% and adjusted EBITDA up 31% in January and February, but then came the month of March and the combination of bad weather and then unfavorable Easter holiday comparison resulted in unsatisfactory performance for the entire quarter. The resulting period-over-period increase of 62% in net operating revenue in the quarter relates to the inclusion of operating results from Casinos Poland Limited, offset by a softer business levels in…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Kirk Williams with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

Kirk Williams - Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Analyst · Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Good morning, Peter, this is Kirk on for Bryan this morning.

Peter Hoetzinger

Management

Good morning.

Kirk Williams - Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Analyst · Craig-Hallum Capital Group

We are wondering if you could discuss a little bit more what is pressuring the margins at your various properties.

Peter Hoetzinger

Management

Erwin, would you like to comment, Erwin?

Erwin Haitzmann

Analyst · Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Yes, I got. I heard you. What’s pressuring the margins? The main reason for that was the bad weather. And after that, we have to start guessing quite honestly. I mean, one of the things you typically could examine is that we are in the process of building a three more hotel rooms and they will be ready by the end of May. And the building of the hotel rooms had an impact on the gaming floor there. That is one of -- one example of bits and pieces stories, why we think run-off is wanted them. We’ve been monitoring that closely with the concerning and close contact with our GMs. We haven’t really found a reason other than to build that and the overall marketplace. In the second quarter as Peter indicated, things look brighter. But we’ve been really disappointed about the first quarter and then in many ways, mistakes couldn’t really find an intelligent answer by closely working with them.

Kirk Williams - Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Analyst · Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Okay. That is helpful. And could you also discuss some of the timing on the additional 100 slot machines that you are looking to add in Poland during the next couple of quarters?

Erwin Haitzmann

Analyst · Craig-Hallum Capital Group

It doesn’t depend on us. We have them. It depends on -- we’ve been focusing in Poland, we need to go to a slot machine by slot machine, not type by type, need to go to improvement process or licensing process and we are just waiting until you have provided the relevant departments time to time. Our best case is -- it’s all in our hands, base case is within the next 30 to 60 days, we should have more on the floors.

Kirk Williams - Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Analyst · Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Okay. That is helpful. Thank you. And then just a final question --

Erwin Haitzmann

Analyst · Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Sorry, if I missed this, Poland is really looking upwards. I mean, finally after a long time, we see that the measures we are taking are also showing in the results. So, hopefully within the next months, this is will be pleasing for all of us and sorry to interrupt you.

Kirk Williams - Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Analyst · Craig-Hallum Capital Group

No, no. That’s great. I appreciate that. Just a final question on Century Downs before I hop back in the queue, do you have an opening day for that or you still just looking at 1Q of next year?

Erwin Haitzmann

Analyst · Craig-Hallum Capital Group

We are looking at 1Q, as we say like that because what happened is in the short history of development, we have had one success with weather and we also caught up a little bit due to being able to reshop it. So it’s hard to say, we are in a very tight schedule. We have been -- the target has been anything between end of December and mid-February. But we just don’t -- we have to give a better date because in next months, we could pass the one of the other phase. We will go pass the other -- one of the other extra efficiency where we just can maybe gain them if we got to.

Kirk Williams - Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Analyst · Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Sure. That makes sense. I appreciate that. That is all my questions. Thank you.

Erwin Haitzmann

Analyst · Craig-Hallum Capital Group

When you translate Q1, you should be on the very safe side.

Kirk Williams - Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Analyst · Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Okay. Thank you.

Erwin Haitzmann

Analyst · Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Yeah. Sure.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Justin Ruiss with Sidoti & Company. Please state your question. Justin Ruiss - Sidoti & Company: Good morning. I just had a question. Do you get detail, kind of, just flesh out the competitive landscape in Calgary and what kind of market that you are really entering into once Century Downs is completed?

Erwin Haitzmann

Analyst · Sidoti & Company

The seven casinos now in Calgary and six, so to speak regular ones and one on Indian lands in the Southwest and the Century Downs will be geographically located in the Northeast of Calgary and in that area, there is no casino yet. Distribution of the existing seven casinos is as follows -- we could say four are kind of just South of the city of Calgary, one is in the Southwest of the Indian Casino, one is in the Southeast and one is in the -- shall I say, not really northwest but south of the Calgary airport. And our new Century Downs will be north of the airport and due to the way how the highways it can work, it will also cater to the very interesting Northwest of Calgary, where there is no casino at the moment. So everybody thinks that the demographic are such great and we should -- when you look at demographics, we are much better positioned than in the present casino that we have. Justin Ruiss - Sidoti & Company: Okay. Perfect. And then lastly, just with what’s going on in Colorado, the weather really had impacted you. I think you’ve said in the prepared remarks that you did take the prices up a little bit. Is there anyway that you can recapture any of the loss sales there through rising prices and anything like hotel rooms or what have you?

Peter Hoetzinger

Management

Yeah. But we too nicely, we are testing the process of introducing the downloadable credit which has been approved in Colorado while ago. We are not the first ones in the market doing that. And we’re in the process of introducing that now. We see the first reactions from the customer is that at least it’s coming in second, our customers are familiar with the system. Most customers in Colorado Springs are not only sticking to one casino. They typically go to two or three. So the introduction it tells it is easy and we hope that this downloadable will help us to regain some of the market share that we have lost over the past one of two years. And with the positioning of -- the property looks very nice. They know that we have extra hotel rooms which lead us to think as to 21. That is helpful. Every hotel room on average per day is booked about between $50 and $60 per customers on the room but the customer. They should help a little bit. And we just have to continue to keep our position relative to the others. The Cripple Creek market is very complicated because it’s a segment market and its -- there are some games more or less what you make, you have to take from somebody else. And so, we’re just continuing this -- in this bad luck and competitors. Justin Ruiss - Sidoti & Company: Do you see population expanding at all in Colorado or is that just the….

Peter Hoetzinger

Management

No, quite honestly no, we don’t really see that yet. Particularly by the Black Hawk and Century Casinos market is little bit better. But in Cripple Creek, unfortunately it’s been stagnant over the time. And the only thing we can do is try to steal it away from other. And then we try to do that just like the others try to steal from us in the past. Justin Ruiss - Sidoti & Company: Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much.

Peter Hoetzinger

Management

Sure.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And it appears there are no further questions. Mr. Hoetzinger, I’d like to turn the conference back over to you for any additional or closing remarks.

Peter Hoetzinger

Management

Thank you, Jamie and thanks everybody for your interest in Century Casinos and your participation in the call. For recording of the call, please visit the Financial Results section of our website at cnty.com. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for attending.