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spk05: Welcome to Red Rock Resort's first quarter 2021 conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Stephen Kuti, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer of Red Rock Resort. Please go ahead.
spk10: Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Red Rock Resort's first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, as well as our executive management team. I'd like to remind everyone that our call today will include forward-looking statements under the safe harbor provisions of the United States federal securities laws. Developments and results may differ from those projected. During this call, we will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures. the definitions and complete reconciliation of these figures to GAAP, please refer to the financial tables in our earnings press release in form 8K, which were filed this afternoon prior to the call. Also, please note that this call is being recorded. Before we get started, I would like to note that we are comparing our 2020-21 first quarter results against our 2019 first quarter results. Given that our properties were closed for a portion of the prior year's first quarter due to COVID-19 pandemic, we believe this financial comparison is a better reflection of our performance this past quarter. Now let's take a look at our first quarter results. On a consolidated basis, our first quarter net revenue was $352.6 million, down 21.1% from $447 million in the first quarter of 2019. Our adjusted EBITDA was $156.6 million, up 8% from $145.1 million in the first quarter of 2019. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 44.4% for the quarter, an increase of 1,197 basis points from the first quarter of 2019, and up 59 basis points from the fourth quarter of 2020. With respect to our Las Vegas operations, excluding the impact from our four closed properties, our first quarter net revenues was 338.4 million, up 5.4% from 321 million in the first quarter of 2019. Our adjusted EBITDA was $165.6 million, up 38% from $120 million in the first quarter of 2019. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 48.9%, an increase of 1,155 basis points from the first quarter of 2019 and up 339 basis points from the fourth quarter of 2020. On a same store basis, we achieved the second highest net revenue and the highest adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin in the history of our operations. During the quarter, we continue to prioritize free cash flow, converting 57% of our adjusted EBITDA to free cash flow, generating $88.8 million, or 76 cents per share. This brings our total free cash flow generated by the company from our June 2020 reopening through the end of the first quarter to almost $350 million, or $2.97 per share, with virtually every dollar going to pay down debt and 45-hour balance sheet. Taking a look behind the numbers, the overall customer trends we saw in the first quarter were consistent with the trends we've seen since our reopening last June. We continue to see strong visitation from a younger demographic, increased spend per visit, more time spent on device, plus the glowing return of our core customer. These trends were all positively impacted by the continued rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination program easing of capacity restrictions from 25% to 50% on March 15, and federal stimulus money. These positive trends were offset by approximately $4.8 million of COVID-19 mitigation costs for the quarter, approximately $4.9 million in carry costs associated with our closed properties for the quarter, and the continued negative impact of government-mandated occupancy restrictions on several of our core business lines, including hotel, food and beverage, and sales and catering. As of May 1st, occupancy restrictions were further eased to prevent 80% occupancy, and if at least 60% of Clark County residents are vaccinated by June 1st, we expect occupancy to increase to 100%. While these developments should improve the business segments most impacted by these restrictions, we still expect to carry, to continue to carry our COVID-19 mitigation costs, as well as our carry costs associated with our closed properties, at least over the short term. On the expense side, as we begin the anniversary of the government mandated closures in March of 2020, we now expect to achieve over $200 million per annum in cost savings. This new target is $50 million above the $150 million per annum cost savings we referenced on prior earnings calls, as the company continues to benefit from the actions we took to streamline our business, optimize our marketing initiatives, and renegotiate a number of vendor and third party agreements. These initiatives, along with maintaining a disciplined operational focus, have enabled the company to achieve and sustain higher profitability and drive more free cash flow. Now let's cover a few balance sheet and capital items. The company's cash and cash equivalents at the end of the first quarter were $117.9 million and total principal amount of debt outstanding at quarter end was $2.87 billion. In the first quarter, we paid down $78 million in debt and since our reopening in June, we've reduced our net debt levels by approximately $334 million to a peak level of $3.1 billion. Capital spend in the first quarter was $5.1 million, and as mentioned in our previous earnings call, we anticipate our 2021 maintenance capital spend to be between $65 and $75 million. Also during the first quarter, we made a tax distribution of approximately $31.5 million to the LLC unit holders of Station Holco, which included a distribution of approximately $18.1 million to Red Rock Resorts. Because Red Rock Resorts does not expect to pay cash income taxes in 2021, the company elected to use $14.1 million of its distribution to purchase slightly over 382,000 Class A shares and redeem 100,000 Class B shares at an average price of $29.16 per share under its previously disclosed $150 million share repurchase program. When combined with our debt repayment, we returned $92.4 million to our stakeholders in the first quarter. Now let's provide a short update on our North Fork project. We continue to move forward on this project that are near completion with our design efforts. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be having discussions with our lending partners as to how we can most efficiently finance this project. We continue to expect to have a shovel in the ground in the second quarter of 2021 with the construction expected to take 15 to 18 months. As of now, The budget for the full completion of this project, excluding any financing cost, is expected to be between $350 and $400 million. Upon completion, we expect this project to include over 213,000 square feet, including almost 100,000 square feet of casino space, 2,000 class three slots, and 40 table games, and two standalone restaurants, as well as a food hall concept. We are excited to begin the development of this very attractive project on behalf of the North Fork Tribe. and we'll be providing more details in the coming quarters. Lastly, on May 3rd, we entered into definitive agreements to sell the Palms Casino Resort in Palms Place for an aggregate purchase price of $650 million in cash to an affiliate of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians. The closing of this transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, as expected to be completed before the end of the year. While we are incredibly proud of how we transformed this iconic property, We determined that the sale of the property is the best way to create shareholder value and enables us to emerge from the pandemic on a more accelerated timeline. Going forward, we will continue to focus on and improve operations of our existing portfolio of leading gaming assets in the Las Vegas locals market. With this transaction, we can accelerate the development of our Durango project, located in the fast-growing and underserved southwest Las Vegas market, while maintaining a fortress balance sheet. Finally, this transaction will further reduce our interest expense costs and eliminate approximately $9.5 million of our current annual closed property carry costs, of which $2.7 million was incurred in the first quarter. In conclusion, with government-mandated restrictions waning, with widespread vaccinations, and with significant pent-up leisure demand, we believe the worst is finally behind us, and we look forward to a brighter future. We are proud of our team members and how we managed to weather the storm in such a positive We were one of the only gaming companies in the United States that did not raise additional debt or equity during this crisis. Instead, we paid our team members during the crisis, increased team member benefits while simultaneously reducing its costs for our team members, kept our focus on being destinations of choice within the Las Vegas locals market by increasing our service levels and quality of our amenities, generated historically high EBITDA and EBITDA margins while converting 68% of that EBITDA to cash since our reopening in June of 2020. We paid down $334 million in debt, so we're now sitting at levels well below pre-COVID level. Reduced our share count in a series of creative transactions, all while continuing to be one of the few gaming companies that still owns all of its real estate and operating assets. When these highlights are coupled with very favorable supply-demand pandemic, the positive long-term trends in population growth, and the stable regulatory environment that characterized the Las Vegas locals market, and where our best-in-class, irreplaceable assets and locations, unparalleled distribution, and scale in our deep organic development pipeline, we believe that we are uniquely positioned to thrive in this highly attractive market. Lastly, we'd like to recognize and extend our thanks again to all of our team members for their hard work and to our guests for their support through this pandemic. Operator, this concludes our prepared remarks for today, and we are now ready to take questions from participants on the call.
spk05: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchstone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question is from Joe Greff from JP Morgan. Go ahead.
spk08: Good afternoon, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. My question isn't really on the sustainability of margins maybe directly. Maybe that's unanswerable. But really my question is focusing on how are you thinking about adding back existing capacity, closed capacity to the three properties that are still closed versus the relaxation benefits from having more hotel rooms and F&D at your existing properties. And then you mentioned, Steve, there at the end, you mentioned about where the balance sheet's going, and that allows you to take on Durango development. Maybe, Frank, you could update us on your current thoughts on the timing and scope of developing on the Durango site.
spk10: Actually, yeah, there's a few questions in there. So in terms of, we'll talk about the closed properties. I mean, we're seeing we evaluate these closed properties. I think we're going to take a very disciplined approach to any potential property reopening. In any case, I think what we're looking for is if we decide to open a project, it needs to generate incremental free cash to the entity. In terms of bringing on more staff, I think we expect as volumes to increase, staffing in certain areas to also rise up. But when you look at where volumes are increasing, the majority of that is in non-gaming entities such as hotels, sales and catering, theaters for that example. all of which are very high margin businesses. So we expect to get a return on any employee as we kind of load up on new hires.
spk01: Plus, I think you have to look at our business model. We're primarily a gaming company. 80% of our revenues and cash flows primarily come from slots, table games, sports. And we're very levered to that side of the business. And while we still haven't gotten back to normal on the hotel catering and food and beverage, which we expect to normalize here very soon, those we do not think should really take away from the margins that we've been able to achieve given a better cost structure that we've gotten to under COVID. We think the theaters are basically lease income based on revenue, which flows through at 100 cents on the dollar. Hotel and catering are typically between 40, 50%. We were one of the few companies that opened up initially with primarily all of our food outlets other than the buffets. And those have been capacity restrained, you know, between 25, 50, 80%, depending on where we've been in this COVID cycle. And so we would expect those margins to, if anything, get better than they have been historically. So, you know, we're feeling pretty good about what we're seeing overall here in the local economy. Right now, I don't know, Lorenzo, if you have anything that you'd like to add to that.
spk09: No, I think that covers it. I mean, like you said, we opened with essentially all of our amenities on June the 4th. We wanted it to seem as normal as possible to our guests, and the things that haven't been opened are really theaters and then whatever we get incrementally through the hotel and food and beverage, but that should come in a fairly nice margin, so it shouldn't As far as bringing on additional amenities, nothing should really drag our margins from there. And then he had asked about Durango.
spk01: Yeah, I mean, look, at the end of the day, the company has a great development pipeline here in Las Vegas, primarily with gaming-entitled A-plus locations surrounding the Las Vegas Valley and the fastest-growing areas of the city. We think Durango is the most prime of all of those development sites. It's the only non-restricted gaming location on that part of the Beltway within a five mile radius. It's one of the fastest growing areas of the city. We like everything we're seeing. We think it's very, very underserved. And we are currently very focused on the scope of the project and defining that. and basically working to make that project the most efficient project that we have ever built as a company, trying to take everything that we've learned along the way. And so we hope to be sharing those details with you guys within the next, hopefully by the next call. We'll be able to share with you guys the timing and the scope of that project, but we would like to be in a position to be in the ground in early 2022.
spk08: Thanks very much, guys.
spk05: Our next question is from Carlo Fontarelli from Deutsche Bank. Go ahead.
spk03: Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my question. To the extent you guys can comment, I know, Steve, you kind of called out, obviously, not only the closed property costs but also some of the health safety cost measures and whatnot. If I'm not mistaken, those are kind of knocking your margins somewhere in the ballpark of $250,000. to 300 basis points a quarter. Clearly, I would imagine some of those things stay as we move forward here. But when you think about the other pushes and pulls, and this is kind of getting into Joe's question, relative to the portfolio that you have open right now, you guys have been pretty comfortably in this 700 to 1,000 basis points of margin improvement on this kind of same storage basis. As those costs go away, Is it possible that perhaps we even see a little bit more expansion from here?
spk10: I mean, Carl, that is a possibility. I mean, to say that these are historically high margins, I'd like to think that we can run at these levels. What I can comfortably say is I think we'll be historically above where we have been for a long time. I think this has a lot to do with, I think Frank touched on the best, that The business model is a recurring revenue stream that's based on really centered around the high market slot business. And we've been maintaining our operational discipline around labor and around marketing. And to your point, we do see some of the COVID mitigation costs weaning away. We also see some of the closed property costs weaning away. In fact, the $9.5 million, as pointed out earlier in the call, that's going to wean away as well. Plus, you know, the businesses that we're bringing along when occupancy restrictions are listed, your theaters, which opened up in early May, your hotel, which is seeing traction through the end of the first quarter, and that's continuing this quarter. The same with sales and catering. You're starting to see green shoots through the end of 21, and then group business really returning in 2022. But because, as Frank mentioned, we've opened up all of our amenities, even your F&B, the incremental margin is going to be somewhat high because we're already covering our fixed costs with our existing operations.
spk03: Right. Thank you, Steve. And then if I could, just one follow-up, and Frank acknowledging that you obviously did very clearly say you'd have more color on it perhaps next time we spoke, but just in terms of magnitude, clearly construction costs, things like that have gone up. how do we think about the scope of the Durango project, and is that kind of construction impact or material impact something that influences the timing on going forward with the project? And then just if you could, like, to the extent you can kind of give us a range of, is it a $350 to $500 million project? Is it maybe a little bit more than that? You know, how we could think about where your head is on it.
spk01: Look, we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We're going through the process. I can tell you the project is significantly tighter than anything that we've done in the past. We're going to put the dollars into the place where we make money. It's going to be a focus on slot machines and table games, our primary business. We'll have several restaurant options. We will not have a buffet. And I don't want to get ahead of ourselves on it. We're going to go through and get the real cost on the project. We're going to bid it out. We're going to know exactly where we are. And we want to give you guys good, solid information. But I can tell you, I invite anybody, go do demographics around every local casino site in Las Vegas, and you'll see that Durango is an absolute no-brainer. Like I say, it's the most underserved adult population relative to the number of gaming positions within a three and a five mile radius. And so we feel really good about it, knowing what we're able to produce out of our other protected micro markets that we're in. And I can tell you, we've seen a real inflection, and I'm telling you, it's real, in the type of persons moving to Las Vegas where we have these locations, you know, like Red Rock and Green Valley that are in, you know, the suburbs where everybody wants to live And the quality of the customer that's moving to Las Vegas and the high-end part of our business is stronger than it's ever been.
spk09: Yeah, this is Lorenzo. If you look historically, we've been able to generate outsized returns on the projects that we find the location on the freeway. Great traffic, great demographics. We've been able to generate outsized returns And that's why we're so excited about the Durango project. And without committing to an actual size, or certainly we don't have a budget yet, but we do feel comfortable that given the amount of free cash flow that the company's generating, that we can build that project without affecting our debt levels and affecting our balance sheet. So you have that kind of powerful effect of being able to continue to have, you know, strong growing existing operations and then growth beyond that with all of our development opportunities coupled with the ability to essentially execute that with the free cash flow that we're generating and not having to lever the company up to do it. Thank you, guys.
spk05: Our next question is from Steve Withinski from Stifel. Go ahead.
spk06: Hey, good afternoon, guys. So when I ask a question about the Palm sale, and I guess the question, actually this is probably going to be a two-part question, but the first part would be, do you guys think you would actually have sold this asset if, and this is somewhat hypothetical, but if COVID never happened? And then the second part of that question would be, I mean, looking back when you made the original Palms acquisition, what were some of the bigger challenges that maybe you didn't foresee when you originally made that deal?
spk10: So I guess the first question, that's like trying to grab the tail of an aardvark, Frank. Sounds easy but difficult to do. Who knows? I don't know. I mean, I think our job is to create shareholder and maximize shareholder value.
spk09: It wasn't something we were contemplating pre-COVID. We weren't talking about really selling the palms or going through a process at the time, of course. When COVID hit, you know, we reassessed our entire business from top to bottom. And, you know, the San Manuel tribe came forward and presented what we thought was a great opportunity for our company to, you know, refocus our strategy, which is on our current operations here and accelerating the development of all these products pieces of land that we have throughout the valley that focus on the growing areas of the Las Vegas local market, which we love. Second part of the question. The challenges at the Palms. Look, I mean, we were starting to actually get some traction at the Palms. I think if you go back and, you know, kind of if we look at, you know, we're self-critical about, you know, what maybe didn't go exactly planned at the Palms, I think that we invested too much and too much focus on the nightlife and daylife part of the business. I think we entered the market at a time when it was hyper-competitive. There were probably too many players in the market at the time, given the landscape of the competitive environment. That market has reset as well. No, the cost of entertainment, just the amount of players in the market, and the market didn't necessarily seem to grow. And I think that, you know, we missed that. And we made a decision seven months later to shut that part of the operation down. And we, you know, it was kind of one of those things where we decided if we're going to fail, we're going to fail fast and move on. And from that time on, we really started to focus on, you know, the core parts of the business. We were actually starting to get some traction on the casino side and the overall operation side of the business. And then COVID hit, you know, and like I said, it kind of allowed us to reassess everything and Look, we just, we really like the idea of we have this very clean, simple story where we have a very simple balance sheet, very straightforward.
spk01: We own all the real estate.
spk09: We own all the real estate. We own all the development opportunities. Simple business. This is, there's no flea flickers. This is literally like, you know, student body left, student body right, just march down the field and get a touchdown. And that's what we're focused on.
spk06: Okay, gotcha. Thanks for that. That's great color. And then, Second question, can you give us a little bit of color in terms of what you've seen over the past couple months in terms of your loyalty program and the My Rewards boarding pass and in terms of new sign-ups and then maybe what kind of movement you've seen inside of the loyalty club or program as well, meaning have you seen a lot of movement from guys going from platinum to chairman or kind of movement up inside of your loyalty program?
spk10: Yeah, we're going to stay away from a bunch of that, but what I can tell you is we are actively trying to grab new sign-ups, and we're gaining a lot of traction, and what we can see is the sign-ups that we're getting are far more active in terms of their transition from just signing up to actually playing, and then when they play, they're much more valuable than sign-ups at the pre-COVID level, almost 2x times as valuable.
spk06: Okay, great. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
spk05: Our next question is from Stephen Grambling from Goldman Facts. Go ahead.
spk12: Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. This is a bit of a follow-up to Steve's first question on the palms, but what's your latest thinking, I guess, on the strip recovery, given you sold the palms, and it seems like we're hearing from some of the peers on the strip a little bit of an inflection, and how might this inform us how to think through a recovery eventually at Palo Stations?
spk09: I think Palace Station is well recovered. Yeah, Palace Station is doing very well. The local business there has really, really driven that business. And, of course, as the Las Vegas trip recovers and the room market recovers and you start to get the ability to start to push rate, not just on the weekends, but we get a little bit more firm rates midweek, it's only going to accrue to the better to Palace. It's in a really, really nice sweet spot there. given its overall location and the dollars we invested in the property over the last two years. I mean, the whole place is completely redone, and the customers have really taken to it very well.
spk12: That's helpful. I finally got a property-specific response there. As we think about free cash flow going forward, you gave the maintenance capex assumptions, but are there other factors that could influence free cash flow conversion, either on the working capital or as we think about tax credits from the palm sale to think through?
spk10: Yeah, I think if you want to get a little framework around free cash, we'll just take your EBITDA estimate. From a cash taxes standpoint, 2021, it'll be de minimis cash taxes. The Palms will be able to shield any of its taxes. The Red Rock will be able to shield any taxes paid on the Palm sale. Cash interest will fluctuate, I think, in a positive way, a lot of it because of the inflow of $650 million into our balance sheet. So you could talk about interest between 105 and maybe $115 million, probably more likely on the lower side. And in terms of working capital, no real change in working capital. We're right now somewhat at a steady state in terms of working capital, so I wouldn't put too much credence in working capital fluctuation.
spk11: That's helpful. Thanks so much.
spk05: Our next question is from Sean Kelly from Bank of America. Go ahead.
spk00: Hi, good afternoon, everyone. I was just wondering if we could get a little color on some of the customer behavior as it played out maybe across the quarter. I think what we saw out there was obviously in many markets in hospitality, January and February were a little slow, but March was kind of off the charts good, probably helped a little bit by stimulus. So I'm wondering if you could comment there and also just maybe any thoughts on just how the older demographic is coming back at this stage in the locals' markets.
spk10: Yeah, I think from a trend perspective, you kind of nailed it, Sean, so you answered your own question. I mean, you did see, yeah.
spk01: It's vaccination, stimulus. It's a multitude of things all coming together. I think getting the election behind us, stimulus money, but as well as the vaccination, people being more comfortable going out.
spk10: That's right. So you're seeing an uptick in when hours per visit, visitation is up. And from an older demographic, you're seeing that core customer return.
spk00: And maybe just given that you're already up on, if I caught it correctly, I think on casino revenues, it looks like you're already up versus 2019. I think same for revenues, same. So is there anything in here that you look at and say you think it's unsustainable, at least on the gaming operation side, on the pure revenue line? Or do you think, look, this is here to stay, and like you said, you've got other drivers, midweek rooms, things like that, that can actually push things maybe even higher from here?
spk01: I mean, we're definitely midweek rooms. We can do a lot better. I think that catering, we can definitely do a lot better. I see that probably more as a slow recovery in the fourth quarter and probably doing much better in 22. But those are definitely areas that we have upside. And I don't know, Steve, we feel pretty good about what we're seeing right now.
spk10: Yeah, I would say, Sean, I thought from a tone of business, I think we feel really good about where we are, particularly, again, on the non-gaming side. I mean, Frank touched on it. But hotel is coming back. It's up from an occupancy standpoint and an ADR standpoint as we're starting to be able to hold rates. And food and beverage, particularly with the restriction that's kind of easing, you're definitely seeing an increase in covers. And I'm going to say ex-buffet, because obviously we'd be down year over year because of the buffet, which I think we can fairly say will never return. But we're also up in terms of price points. So we're getting more from the customer per cover, which is more than making up for the revenue loss of the buffet.
spk00: Thank you very much.
spk05: Our next question is from Barry Jonas from Truist Security. Go ahead.
spk02: Hi. Thank you for taking my question. For starters, any updated thoughts on selling any excess land? Is there less urgency now?
spk01: No. I mean, look, our goal is always to maximize shareholder value, and we always look to monetize shares any excess land that we may have. I think when you look at it, we think we have six great core development opportunities here in Las Vegas. As you know, we have had some traction on real estate. COVID kind of set that back a little bit, but we continue to work towards monetizing anything that we don't see being part of our development pipeline over the next, I would say, five years or so.
spk10: Yeah, just to add to what Frank said, the demographic trends in Las Vegas are continuing to go stronger by the week. And that same goes for the housing market and the same goes for the real estate market.
spk01: We have two things working to our advantage. The geographic location of the development sites we have are A-plus, gaming and title in the areas of Las Vegas that are growing. And the demographics are working to our advantage given the migration that we're seeing from other states where people want to avoid regulation, taxation, and look to move to a great state like Nevada where there's opportunity.
spk02: Great. And then as a follow-up question, we're hearing a lot about labor, hiring issues across the country. Wondering if you are seeing an impact or expect to see an impact as you staff up.
spk10: I mean, right now we feel really good about our labor situation. I mean, there's some open positions, but not to what we're hearing across the valley.
spk01: You have to remember, we did keep our team members on during COVID. We were in a few companies that did that. And I think as a result, it's made it easier on us to basically be properly staffed, you know, as business returns to normal.
spk10: Yeah, and I think the focus on family initiative that we announced really last call you know, increasing wages, increasing training, increasing benefits that made us an employer of choice in the Valley.
spk02: That's great. Thank you so much, guys.
spk05: Our next question is from Chad Beynon from Makery. Go ahead.
spk07: Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. First, I wanted to ask about cashless gaming adoption at your properties, how you're thinking about rolling this out, and how you think your customers will embrace this new technology. Thanks.
spk10: I was going to say there's clearly momentum in the industry to move forward in this technology. And we're currently in the process of developing an app and a one-wallet solution which we think will increase customer convenience, reduce friction, and I think ultimately lead to a positive customer experience as well as increase profits on our side. And we plan to have more information on that in the next couple of quarters.
spk07: Okay, great. And then just to follow up on the $50 million of annual cost saves that you announced, the $150 going up to $200, is that completely separate from, I guess, bringing back the non-gaming amenities at a higher margin? Or should we think about some of that $50 million is basically just operating some of those non-gaming amenities that will come back on more efficiently?
spk10: The latter. I mean, when we first started this program back in June when we reopened, It's a combination of managing labor efficiently, optimizing marketing programs, as well as managing our third-party vendor and consulting and management contracts.
spk11: Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
spk05: Our next question is from John Decree from Union Gaming. Go ahead.
spk04: Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Just to follow up on Chad's question regarding the cost savings, Steve, just for clarity, I think you've maybe mentioned this earlier, the COVID mitigation costs fading as well as some of the closed property carrying costs, is that in addition to or would that be in addition to the total of $200 million of operational cost savings that you've talked about? Yes. Got it. And... Second question, on some of the share repurchase activity, you have a program or an amount outstanding. You've talked about Durango being on the horizon and deleveraging. So when we think about the share repo activity or returns to shareholders, what's your thought process going forward? Is it opportunistic, programmatic, and bigger picture, kind of thinking of all of those buckets as uses of free cash flow going forward?
spk10: I think it's the latter. You guys are making it easy because you're answering your own questions. So I think it's actually the latter. And I think one of the reasons why we look to close the sale of the Palms is having that $650 million just really increases our financial flexibility and allows us to look at all options and all ways to increase and maximize shareholder value.
spk04: Got it. I think you guys made the story quite simple, so make it easy for us too. Congratulations on the quarter, guys, and thanks for taking the questions.
spk11: Thanks, John.
spk05: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Stephen Coote for closing remarks. Go ahead.
spk10: Well, thank you everyone for joining the call and we look forward to hearing, we look forward to talking again about 90 days.
spk05: Take care. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
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