Melco Resorts & Entertainment Limited

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in the first quarter 2024 earnings conference call of Melco Resorts and Entertainment Limited. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the call, we will conduct a question and answer session. Today's conference has been recorded. I would like to turn the call over to Ms. Jeannie Kim, Senior Vice President, Group Treasurer of Melco Resorts and Entertainment Limited. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you for joining us today for our first quarter 2024 earnings call. On the call are Lawrence Ho, Jeff Davis, Evan Winkler, and our property presidents in Macau, Manila, and Cyprus. Before we get started, please note that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provision of federal securities laws. Our actual results could differ from our anticipated results. In addition, we may discuss non-GAAP measures. A definition and reconciliation of each of these measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in the earnings release. Finally, please note that our supplementary earnings slides are posted on our investor relations website. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Mr. Lawrence Ho.

Thank you, Jeannie, and thank you all for joining us today. We have had an eventful year so far. We've had a shift in management Our sales board has been restructured. We've knocked down walls and started reconfiguring our gaming areas and opened several new retail outlets at Studio City, to name a few highlights. On the financing side, we paid down another $250 million in debt, raised $750 million in bonds, and extended the maturity of our $1.9 billion revolving credit facility. significantly reducing our refinancing risk in 2025. We had a slow start in January, but we recovered in February, in part due to Chinese New Year, and the improvement in our performance in March and April reflects the steps that we've taken towards regaining our leadership position in premium mass. Melco Macau's first quarter field property EBITDA reached 89% of 2019. In March, both COD Macau and Studio City recorded their highest mass table games drop ever. And in April, we continued to gain market share, recording their highest daily gaming revenue since Macau's reopening in January 2023. We remain extremely optimistic about Macau's continued growth potential. Various initiatives recently announced by the Chinese government such as the multi-entry group tour visas between Macau and Hangcheng, the new cities added to the IBS program in March, easier online visa application process for residents of China's 20 largest cities, as well as the proposed connection of Shenzhen to the Macau Zhuhai Bridge, increases accessibility to Macau and enlarges our customer base. We're confident that we will maintain our leadership market-leading position based on the quality of our properties and our continued efforts to enhance our services and offerings. In the Philippines, City of Dreams Manila continues to generate solid results in mass table games and slots, but we had some bad luck in VIP this past quarter. City of Dreams Mediterranean and our satellite casinos in Cyprus showed positive EBITDA and cash flow through the first quarter. We have been working on expanding our marketing efforts throughout Europe as well as the Middle East, and we're cautiously optimistic that we can continue to expand profitability despite the continued conflicts in the region. Today, we announced that we're working with the John Keels Group in Sri Lanka in relation to their new integrated resort development. The integrated resort will be rebranded as City of Dreams Sri Lanka and will be the first of its kind in Sri Lanka and South Asia. We will be responsible for the fit-out and operations of the casino, which we expect to open in mid-2025, while the City of Dreams Sri Lanka Integrated Resort itself is expected to open in the third quarter of 2024. This is a landmark development in Sri Lanka, and we're thrilled to participate in this opportunity. This is a capital light investment with an attractive return profile, allowing us to expand the City of Dreams brand and broaden our customer reach. And finally, I'm excited to announce that we have hired Tim Kelly as property president of City of Dreams Macau. Tim was most recently president at Atlantis Global for Kersner International based in Dubai. and has achieved great success in building the Atlantis brand since joining them in 2017. He has a unique blend of skills and experience that we believe positions him perfectly to lead this next chapter of City of Dreams, and I would like to welcome him to the Malco family. With that, I turn the call over to Jeff to go through some of the numbers.