Wynn Resorts, Limited

Welcome to the Wind Resort's fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. All participants are in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session of today's conference. To ask a question, press star one on your touchtone phone. Record your name and I will introduce you. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question. This call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I will now turn the line over to Julie Cameron Doe, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon, everyone. On the call with me today are Craig Billings and Brian Gulbrass in Las Vegas. Also on the line are Linda Chen and Frederick Luisuto. Please note that we've published a presentation to provide more color on the company and recent performance ahead of this call. You can find the presentation on our investor relations website. This will become a regular fixture along with our earnings release going forward. I want to remind you that we may make forward-looking statements on the safe harbor federal securities laws And those statements may or may not come true. I will now turn the call over to Craig Billings.

Thanks, Julie. And good afternoon. As always, thank you for joining us today. You know, we've been very active over the past three years making innumerable positive changes to and investments in our businesses in Las Vegas, Boston, and Macau. Changes in how we market in our underlying technology and how we deliver service to our best customers. in how we build and program food and beverage and retail, in how we program entertainment, in the production of our own unique events, and in how we control expenses. All of these changes made in pursuit of further distancing ourselves from our competitors. And you can see the results of these efforts in our 2024 results. Yet another record year of adjusted property EBITDA, including another annual record in Las Vegas. Operationally, We are stronger, more nimble, and more results-focused than we have ever been. Meanwhile, we are expeditiously developing what I believe to be the most exciting development project in the industry in the UAE, a project that will ultimately produce meaningful EBITDA and further diversify our business. The opening of that project, coupled with a concurrent reduction in the amount of CapEx we will be deploying in North America, will also mark an important inflection point in our free cash flow profile. Our future is bright, And it is this bright future coupled with the fact that our stock price continues to inappropriately reflect the value of our assets that drove us to repurchase $200 million of stock in the fourth quarter and another 150 million thus far in Q1. While industry multiples remain suppressed, while growth capital remains focused on a narrow set of AI and tech companies, and until we believe when El Marjan is appropriately reflected in our valuation, we will continue to repurchase our equity because we believe the return profile on those repurchases is meaningful. Now, turning to the quarter and starting here in Las Vegas. Demand remained healthy in the fourth quarter with table games dropped essentially flat against a very tough comp and slot handle up by 13%. Our gaming market share for the quarter grew meaningfully, highlighting the strength and quality of what we offer here in Vegas. Our non-gaming business in Q4 was also strong, though it was impacted by tough year-over-year comparisons during F1 week. EBITDA during the event in 2024 was about $20 million lower than in 2023. The lion's share of the difference was due to a decline in RevPAR stemming from lower overall Las Vegas room rates during that event, though it is important to note that in both years, our ADRs were about 50% higher than those of two closest competing properties here in Las Vegas. and our daily EBITDA during the 2024 event remained materially elevated relative to the years before F1 was a fixture in the market. The F1 team did a tremendous job with this year's event, and with the event having now settled in, we have a good baseline from which to grow in future years. More recently, demand in January looked good, with both drop and handle up year over year, and ADR and F&B covers both up year over year. Of course, this year we didn't have the benefit of hosting the Super Bowl here in Las Vegas, which impacts February, and that's about a $25 million EBITDA headwind for Q1 versus 2024. Excluding Super Bowl weekend, all of our key volume metrics are up year over year. Looking further out, we already have our budgeted group and convention room nights for 2025 on the books at healthy ADRs, and transient booking demand over the last two weeks has been extremely robust. when coupled with a calendar that is once again chock full of large demand drivers in the market, the setup for 2025 feels good. The team at Wynn Las Vegas continues to set the standard, and with new food and beverage openings later this year, including the much-anticipated opening of Zero Bond, a planned renovation of the Encore Tower, and other relatively modest targeted investments, we will exit 2025 even stronger and with limited remaining capex on the horizon. Turning to Boston, Encore Boston Harbor generated just shy of $59 million of EBITDA. We were encouraged by particular strength in our slot business where Handel was up 6%. This helped set a new all-time property record for slot revenue, offsetting some of the union-related payroll increases incurred in 2024. We continue to grow the database and stabilize some of the recently opened food and beverage outlets with the property's best days ahead. More recently, demand in Boston has remained healthy through January, led by strong year-over-year growth in slot handle and stable non-gaming revenue against a tough comp. Turning to Macau, we generated $293 million of EBITDA during the fourth quarter, down about 1% year-over-year and up 11% sequentially. While the market in Macau continues to be competitive, we remain disciplined in our focus on maximizing EBITDA and maintaining a healthy margin profile. We recently completed the rollout of digital tables throughout WIN Palace and WIN Macau, which will yield OpEx benefits and, when coupled with our data science and machine learning capabilities, should allow us to be more precise and more efficient with reinvestment over the medium term. On the CapEx side, we made a number of improvements and optimizations in Macau in the fourth quarter, most notably an expansion of the Chairman's Club at WIN Macau, a gaming area focused on our best customers. We will also soon be adding a variety of food and beverage offerings at Wind Palace with the opening of our destination food hall, a development that we believe will drive incremental visitation and footfall to Wind Palace. We also continue to advance design work and approvals on the remainder of our concession-related CapEx, the event center, the theater, and a production show at Wind Palace. More recently, January was characterized by healthy mass table drop, strong direct VIP turnover, and full occupancy in the hotels, while Chinese New Year saw a more prolonged period of visitation and less concentration on specific days than we saw in 2024. In fact, for the 14 days beginning January 29th and including the days after the holiday period, volumes were healthy with drop and turnover in line with 2024 and slot handle up. Hold during the period was choppy, but volume indicators looked good. Turning to Wynn-Almarjan Island in the UAE, construction is rapidly progressing on the project with work now reaching the 35th floor of the hotel and over 4.6 million square feet of concrete and steel in place. As we discussed at our Investor Day in October, we believe the UAE will be a $3 to $5 billion gaming market over time and certainly the most exciting new market for our industry in decades. To support this project and the early work we are doing to build our database and brand awareness in the region, We were pleased to announce in early January that we entered into an agreement to purchase Aspinall's in Mayfair, London. This small but strategic asset provides a presence in central London, where many of our future Wynn El Marjan customers spend a meaningful amount of time. Lastly, we are actively exploring and well positioned to capitalize on additional new market opportunities in attractive gateway cities. And we have strategic land banks in each of our new markets that provide an embedded long-term growth pipeline. Meanwhile, our leverage profile continues to improve as free cash flow grows, allowing us to increase the return of capital to shareholders through the recurring dividend and meaningful share repurchases. With that, I will now turn it over to Julie to run through some additional details on the quarter.