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spk00: The good news is we are seeing it easier to find people that are willing to work and perform within our properties.
spk03: Perfect. And then I recall last year you talked about about 35,000 room nights missing at the Strat relative to pre-COVID. Is it safe to assume, just given the strength in October, that sounds like you're kind of right back at where pre-COVID level was in terms of Strat bookings?
spk01: Yeah, I think we're still missing a little midweek. If you look at where the property in 2019, it operated on average roughly 89% occupancy. So when we're talking October, we're in low 80%. We still have a little bit of ways to go from that perspective, so we see that as upside. And again, as the city continues to book events, as raters continue to fill up, um as the nights continue to draw people as we still continue out city-wide concerts we think that that will that gap will close into one of next year um perfect thank you thank you the next question comes from john decree with cbre securities hi blake hi charles thanks for taking my questions uh two
spk04: Maybe a follow-up on your last point, Charles, in terms of regaining that last little bit of occupancy at the Strat. We've heard from some of your peers that a little bit of international business is coming back into Las Vegas. Are you seeing that? And can you remind us if that's a meaningful piece of that additional occupancy gap that you'll look to recover next year?
spk01: Yeah, meaningful is probably the wrong word, but it's something. If you look at 2019, international is about 7% of the occupancy at the Strat. So that adds, that will definitely be additive. I think a strong dollar obviously hurts that traveler coming over here. So we'll just have to see how that goes. And of that 7%, about half was from Asia and the other half was from Europe. We got a very strong bid for that during the summer season. We hope that that comes back. So it's not big, it's not meaningful to us, but it is something that's additive to close that gap.
spk04: That's helpful. Maybe one on the balance sheet. I know we've talked a little bit about this already, but to ask it a little differently, as we look out to when you close Rocky Gap and your net leverage and give your cash balance, it'd be a lot closer to two times or less. And I think you said you want to stay under three. Just to get your views looking ahead, I mean, would you potentially kind of stay closer to two for a while, given the potential economic impacts that we all keep talking about? And then on the reverse side of that, would you go above three times for the right accretive opportunity? And so kind of, you know, what are the parameters you'd flex the balance sheet up or down, say, over the next 12 or 18 months?
spk01: Look, I think, as you pointed out, pro forma for the sale of Rocky Gap will be two times or less from a leverage perspective. I think for a company that owns its own real estate, being three times or less is very, very healthy. Would we stretch above that if we found the right acquisition? I mean, it would be very close to that level. Again, keep in mind, if you have a target, you'd be using the leverage capacity of that target. We have excess cash on the balance sheet as well. So, you know, I think that you're not going to see this company be at four or five times leverage again. That's not in our lexicon, right?
spk00: Yeah, I think, John, I mean, that's a good question to try to lead us into. you know, we stay in sub two or would we go above three? One of the prerequisites, if you will, when we look at the potential opportunity is we like owning the real estate. And in that case, to Charles' point, you know, it's a high hurdle for us to find an M&A opportunity, although we do think there is or may be those available. But I think that real estate portion of it would drive you know, number one, our interest, and number two, where do we end up in terms of the price for that asset in terms of the balance sheet leverage? I think if all that comes together and we think it's the right opportunity, we do it. But to Charles' point, you're not going to see us leverage it four or five times again.
spk04: That's helpful. You guys have done a great job getting the balance sheet in such a great place. It's good to see all the flexibility you have.
spk02: I appreciate the additional color on how you're thinking about that. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over to Charles Rotel for any closing remarks.
spk01: Okay. Thank you all for participating. We'll talk to you on our next quarterly call.
spk02: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
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