VICI Properties Inc.

.btproperties.com. Some of our comments today will be floor-looking statements within the medium of the federal securities laws. Floor-looking statements, which are usually identified by the use of words such as will, believe, expect, should, guidance, intends, outlook, projects, or other similar phrases are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. Therefore, you should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on them. I refer you to the company's SEC filings for more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact future operating results and financial conditions. During the call, we will discuss certain non-GAP measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAP. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAP measure is available on our website in our fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings release, our supplemental information, and our other filings with the SEC. For additional information with respect to non-GAP measures of certain tenants and our counterparties discussed on this call, please refer to the respective company's public filings with the SEC. Hosting the call today, we have Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, Gabe Wasserman, Chief Accounting Officer, and William McCluskey, Senior Vice President of Capital Markets. Ed and team will provide some opening remarks and then we'll open the call to questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ed.

Thank you, Samantha. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Over the course of the next few minutes leading into our Q&A session, you'll hear from John Payne on our growth activities, and you'll hear from David Kieske on our financial results, financing activities, and initial 2025 earnings guidance. I'll start the call with a few words about the announcement we made Wednesday morning, initiating a new VG strategic and financial relationship with Kane International and Eldridge Industries through an initial investment in the financing of the One Beverly Hills development. Like most of VG's growth activities, this VG investment is a result of our growing a new relationship. This relationship began last May when on a trip to London, I spent time with Jonathan Goldstein, the founding CEO of Kane International, a diversified global real estate development and investment company. By the end of our hour, Jonathan and I agreed that we should find ways to work together. Our urge to work together grew out of the recognition that we share convictions and we share values. We share conviction in the secular strength for years to come of experiences. We share cultural and ethical values around partnership. Put another way, the meeting of Kane and VG is a meeting of minds and a meeting of ambitions, particularly the shared ambition to invest in differentiated place-based experiences, whether those experiences are entertainment, hospitality, wellness, or sport-based. Excuse me, for those of you not familiar with Kane, which has a year-end 2024, had nearly $18 billion in asset center management. It was founded in 2014 by Jonathan and his partner, Todd Bolley, and is affiliated with Eldridge Industries, an investment company founded and led by Todd Bolley. Kane and Eldridge have made investments in iconic experiential brands that include Amon, Delano, St. James Sports Clubs, Cirque du Soleil, and Flexjet. Todd is an owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles Lakers, and both Todd and Jonathan are owners of Chelsea FC in the English Premier League. As 2024 went by, Jonathan asked if Kane's development of One Beverly Hills might be our first opportunity to work together. These discussions enabled Kane, Eldridge, and VG to get to know each other better, and over the last few months, we all came to believe that our shared conviction around place-based experiences could yield as many compelling opportunities to work together in the years to come. And that's why, as well as announcing our One Beverly Hills investment on Wednesday, Kane, Eldridge, and VG also announced our joint signing of a letter of intent, expressing our intention to work collaboratively to identify and pursue experiential investment opportunities that meet our respective investment objectives. As you would have seen if you reviewed the investment deck we posted to our website, One Beverly Hills stands to rank among the most compelling American luxury hospitality, retail, and residential developments in recent history. The development is currently rising out of over 17.5 of the best located acres in Beverly Hills, a triangle bordered by Wilshire Boulevard, Santa Monica Boulevard, and the LA Country Club. This development is centered on the Amman brand, among the world's most venerated luxury hospitality brand. One Beverly Hills will be the largest realization of Amman branded hospitality, wellness, and living to date, with an Amman hotel, an Amman wellness spa, an Amman club, and two Amman residential towers. The development will also include a full renovation of the legendary Beverly Hilton long-time host site of the Golden Globes and the Milken Conference, as well as 10 acres of botanical gardens and open space with high-end retail and dining offerings. Capital is a key fuel for ambitious placemakers and experienced creators. Kane stands among the most ambitious placemakers we have come to know, and yet Kane balances that ambition with what we've seen to be strong capability in development risk management. We believe multi-generational, multinational demand for the differentiated experience within the differentiated place will create abundant opportunities for Kane and Eldridge in the coming decades, and we're excited about the prospect of becoming a long-term partner in their growth. This announcement of our new partnership with Kane and Eldridge represents our first new venture in what we hope will be a year of new investment ventures in both gaming and non-gaming. For more on that, I'll now turn the call over to John. John?

Thanks, Ed, and good morning to everyone. I'll start by reiterating Ed's enthusiasm around the new strategic relationship we formed with Kane and Eldridge. As we've said time and time again, deep relationships are at the core of Vichy's investment strategy. Through the development of a new relationship with Home Field Kansas City and the strength of existing relationships with Great Wolf and the team from Venetian, we were able to commit approximately $1.1 billion of capital in 2024 at initial yield of 8.1%. The quality and scale of our existing portfolio also accrues to the value of our platform. Since our last earnings call in early November, the Vichy team attended the May Week Conference in Las Vegas. The conference provided a great opportunity to physically showcase our Las Vegas strip assets and convey the incredible scale of operation happening at these properties every single day. For example, the Venetian to which we committed up to $700 million in 2024 through our partner property growth fund strategy sprawls over 17 million square feet and is being proactively re-imagined across several business verticals, including conventions, food and beverage, hotel rooms, gaming floor optimization, entertainment, and more to drive the continued growth of the operating business as well as capitalize on the sphere which sits behind the Venetian. In RJ Milligan's Nay Reet recap note, he observed that, I quote, with all the events in and around Las Vegas, it was hard to ignore the quality of Vichy's real estate, which we don't think the market is giving them enough credit for. It's just so hard to comprehend that Vichy was able to purchase the Venetian at the same cap rate as a well-located Dollar General. Well stated, RJ. Las Vegas tourism also continues to hit records. According to the LVCVA, 2024 saw record airline passengers through Harry Reid Airport at 58 million for the year and visitation to the city increased 2% year over year to approximately 42 million. Our operating partners recognize the value in proactively investing in and reinventing experiences at our assets to capitalize on demand. For example, MGM Grand recently announced a $300 million remodel of all of their 4,200 hotel rooms to be completed in December of 2025 and launched their Palm Tree Beach Club outdoor music and entertainment venue, which will open in May of 2025. Caesars New Orleans just opened following a comprehensive $435 million renovation and the property hosted many Super Bowl billers a couple of weeks ago. And in November of last year, Harvey's Lake Tahoe also announced a $100 million all-incumbency transformational project. Just since the fourth quarter, our operators have announced nearly $1 billion of investments in our real estate. That is reflective of our shared conviction around the value of high quality experiences at high quality properties. Vichy believes that the quality and scale of investment opportunity in our existing properties, as well as our ability to cultivate and maintain deep relationships with our partners will provide springboards for future growth. Now I will turn the call over to David, who will discuss our financial results and guidance.

Thanks, John. I'm gonna start with our balance sheet. As we begin 2025, seven years after our IPO in 2018, I wanna highlight 2024 and reflect on how far our balance sheet has come since, well, going way back to our pre-emergence in the summer of 2017, when Vichy had total leverage of roughly 10 and a half times that EBITDA. We were born with a very unnatural balance sheet for a rate short tenor, secure debt, second lien debt, a $1.6 billion CNBS loan that matured in 2022. All instruments that we knew were not consistent with becoming the blue chip we knew we should and could become. After we emerged in October of 2017, we got to work on fixing our balance sheet. We started to chip away at the second lien notes with our IPO and retired the remaining 498 million in February, 2020. In connection with the El Dorado-Caesar's merger, we retired the CNBS debt. And with our acquisition of MGP, we were able to retire all of our remaining secure debt and received an investment grade credit rating from S&P and Fitch in April of 2022. There was one straggler at that time, Moody's. Through the leadership of Aaron Ferreri on our team, we put our heads down and worked with Moody's over the next two years to educate them on the merits of gaming, the resiliency of our tenants' business and the quality of our balance sheet. That work paid off with the Moody's upgrade we received on November 18th of 2024, giving us an investment grade credit rating across all three agencies. The ratings upgrade should accrue to our benefit with an improved access to and cost of capital over time. We believe our balance sheet and unsecured debt complex is one of the more liquid debt complexes across a leeched landscape with total debt of 17.1 billion, which we have unsecured debt of 14.1 billion. This creates liquidity in our unsecured notes. We saw this in our December refinancing where we had several new institutional credit investors coming to our offering. The quality of our balance sheet was also highlighted during our recent recast of our unsecured revolving credit facility, which we closed subsequently at quarter end with a new $2.5 billion facility. We had strong sponsorship from our bankroom and want to thank each and every institution that committed to that facility and the conviction they all have in our balance sheet and business. We have approximately 3.3 billion in total liquidity comprised of approximately 525 million in cash, 376 million of estimated proceeds available under our outstanding forwards, and 2.4 billion of availability under our revolving credit facility. Our net debt in the annualized fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA, excluding the impact of unsettled forward equity was approximately 5.3 times, within our target leverage range of five to five and a half times. We have a weighted average interest rate of 4.41%, taking into account our hedge portfolio and a weighted average 6.4 years to maturity. Again, thank you to Aaron and the entire team for the work that has been completed, but know that we are not done with a continual focus on improving our balance sheet. Touching on the income statement, AFL per share was 57 cents for the quarter, an increase of .6% compared to 55 cents for the quarter ended December 31, 2023. For the full year 2024, AFL per share was $2.26, an increase of .1% compared to $2.15 for the full year 2023. Our results highlight our highly efficient triple net model, given the increase in adjusted EBITDA as a proportion of the corresponding increase in revenue. Our margins continue to run strong in the high 90% range when eliminating non-cash items. Our GNA was 20.7 million for the quarter, and as a percentage of total revenues was only 2.1%, which continues to be one of the lowest ratios in not only the triple net sector, but across all reaps. Turning to guidance, we are initiating AFFO guidance for 2025 in both absolute dollars, as well as on a per share basis. AFFO for the year ending December 31, 2025 is expected to be between 2.455 billion and 2.485 billion, or between $2.32 and $2.35 for diluted common share. Based on the midpoint of our 2025 guidance, BT expects to deliver year over year AFFO per share growth of 3.3%, a very solid starting point as we begin 2025. As a reminder, our guidance does not include the impact of operating results from any transactions that have not closed, interest income from any loans that do not yet have final draw structures, possible future acquisitions or dispositions, capital markets activity, or other non-recurring transactions or items. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on the telephone keypad. If you'd like to remove your question, that's star followed by two. Our first question for today comes from Anthony Palona from JP Morgan. Your lines are open, please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks and good morning. I guess my first question is, from our side, we obviously just see the things that you close, but I was wondering if you could talk about kind of what deal flow looked like in 24 and what it looks like currently in contrast to maybe in prior years, whether you're seeing a lot of stuff and it's just not making it past the finish line, or you're not seeing as much as you'd like in terms of the outright property purchases. And so any color there would be great.

Yeah, I'll start Tony and then I'll turn it over to John. The 2024 for us was the year in which we did not see anything resembling a plentiful flow of compelling high quality real estate acquisition opportunities. We did see a very compelling opportunity to further invest in one of our marquee properties, the Venetian. And what we also saw is that while high quality existing assets don't appear to be widely for sale or at least didn't in 2024, highly compelling high quality developments were there. And a lot of the work we've done, whether with Home Field at the very beginning of the year, whether our ongoing work with Great Wolf, our ongoing work with Canyon Ranch

and Cabot. And now our new work with Canyon and Aldridge is about identifying

and providing capital to great experiential placemakers and getting very, very good yields on it, especially when comparing those yields to the incredibly high quality of the developments we're helping to fund. And beyond that, I'll turn it over to John, who can give you further color on what we saw in 2024, but maybe more importantly, what we believe we will see in 2025. John?

Yeah, a little bit to add, Tony, good to talk to you this morning. One of the parts of your question was, how does it compare to years before? Remember when you started the company, as David walked through some of that history and is opening the marks, we really were born simply a casino triple net week. Today, with Ed's announcement and our announcement the other day, you can see we continue to diversify our portfolio. So the funnel continues to get wider of things that we look at. And I would say the beginning of 2025, I'm as busy or busier than I've been in a very long time. And we continue to be very thoughtful as we put our capital to work, the type of partners that we wanna do business with, the type of growth potential. So that's a long way of saying, we're quite busy, the funnel's wide, we're looking at a variety of things in the experiential and the casino gaming space.

Okay, thanks. And then just follow up, any comments on where you think cash yields would be right now for some of the various buckets that you're looking at, whether it would be where high quality asset on the strip might be versus regional versus some of the other categories?

Not a lot of visibility into that Tony on the strip. Obviously we haven't seen any meaningful trades recently on the strip. And I think with the volatility that we've seen in the 10 year over, well, what are we now? The last three years, and this year has not really represented a meaningful change from that volatility. I think it's a little bit hard to get pricing certainty on permanent assets, whether on the strip. Regional, I think there's been more trading activity, John. So there's probably somewhat more clarity there. So again, quality for us is a key consideration.

And remember on the strip Tony, the world's pretty good out there. I'm not sure there's a market that had such great success again in 2024 after following a record of 2023. So operators looking to sell those assets on the strip is not likely at this time because the business continues to be strong across many of the different segments in Las Vegas.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Caitlin Burrows of Goldman Sachs. The line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Maybe just following up on the development funding talk, Ed, I know you mentioned that when you looked through the opportunities of 24, it seems like that's what made sense at the time. So I guess, how do you think of that development funding that eventually gets paid back versus acquisition and what that means for the future of the portfolio and like recurring nature of income?

Yeah, no, it's a very good question, Caitlin. And it's one we think and talk about a lot at the management table at Vichy. As a starting point, in this particular case with Kane and Eldridge, much has been the case with Great Wolf. We are not overly concerned about the money coming back because of the depth and time extent of the pipeline we believe we could have with Kane. And in this particular case, I obviously need to be careful here, but I do wanna say that in the particular case of One Beverly Hills, we continue to work with Kane and I should note the money for One Beverly Hills, that 300 million has already gone out the door, but we continue to work with Kane as potentially participating in a larger and longer way with One Beverly Hills. But beyond that, to really get to the heart of your question, we see a pipeline of opportunities with Kane across their various verticals that could enable us to continue to roll our capital into new Kane ventures. When they talk, for example, about the growth opportunity for a month globally, especially across Europe in the coming decade, we see an opportunity to continue to be a funding partner in that particular example, much in the way David and the team have been now a steady partner to Great Wolf for how long David, five years?

Yeah, about five years, right.

So we obviously are mindful of the fact that this money will come back to us at some point or could come back to us at some point, Kaitlin, but we really do focus on relationships that we think could enable us to continue to basically roll that capital into new manifestations of a given partnership.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. And then maybe a more nerdy question, but on the share count, you guys have a lot of forward equity. So can you go through over what time period you're required to settle those shares under what conditions you would choose to settle them and what assumptions for your own share price are assumed in guidance?

Yeah, Kaitlin, as we've done for many years now, we have standing forward equity on a quarter by quarter and annual basis. And those contracts are typically one-year contracts, but they are extended and amended to go beyond that initial period of time. And that is very commonplace with banks and with the counterparties. And then in our guidance, in our share count, we use a treasury stock solution method in making some estimates around reasonable projections around future stock prices and incorporating a level of dilution into our guidance range, but do not obviously take into consideration the entirety of the outstanding polls because we use those to match funds, potential acquisitions, which are not in our guidance. So this is very common across the re-land and we've been doing it. I know a lot of other triple-mets have done it for years.

Maybe I'll just add to what David said, Kaitlin, by emphasizing that the way we did it for 2025 guidance is the way we have always done it. There's been no change in the methodology.

Got it. Okay, thanks.

Thanks, Kaitlin.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Barry Jonas of Trurus Securities. The line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. In September, you'll have the right to call the CSIS Forum Convention Center at the same cap rate you had on the Indiana properties. Any thoughts on that? You can offer on the puts and takes to exercising that option.

Thanks. Barry, John Payne. Good to talk to you. It's definitely an asset that you're well aware of. They built a great facility there. It anchors the empty acreage that we have in Las Vegas. So we'll continue to see how it's performing when that time comes up. It obviously also connects to one of our assets in the Harris facility that we own the real estate in the building there and release it back to Caesar. So it's definitely on our radar. It's definitely something that we've been looking at over the years and well aware of this opportunity that we could have and will continue to study it in the time period as it approaches.

Understood. Understood. And just as a follow-up, I'm not sure you've talked about this before, but you've obviously operated golf courses. But is there a scenario where you would consider operating casinos or other assets in a TRS? Thanks.

Well, at the starting point, any casino in Samantha and David, help me out here, any casino that went into a TRS would have to be a casino with zero, repeat, zero hotel rooms. There is an intricacy or nuance of rate legislation that would forbid the inclusion of a casino with hotel rooms in a TRS. Beyond that, I would say we don't see that happening. We would not seek to have that happen. I guess it's always a possibility that we would be silly to rule out a priori with 100% certainty. But not in our plans.

Understood. All right. Thanks,

guys. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Greg McGinnis of Scotia Bank. The line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Given the non-binding...

Yep.

Hello? Sorry. Yeah, we can. Given the non-binding letter of intent on the new partnership with Kane and Elkridge, how would you describe your competitive positioning relative to other capital providers, especially if they consider more permanent financing options upon completion of that development?

Yeah. Yeah, it's a very good question to ask, Greg. I would say that in the case of One Beverly Hills, so again, we shouldn't rule out anything ever a priori. We do not expect to become a permanent real estate owner of the assets at One Beverly Hills. But having said that, based on the discussions we've already been in with Jonathan Goldstein and with Todd Bowley, we see opportunities to work across a portfolio. For example, in the Kane-Elkridge portfolio, you will see that one of the investments they have is St. James Clubs. And again, I really emphasize looking at that slide and the wonderful deck that Hayes put together. And St. James Club can represent an example of us to further capitalize on the knowledge we've gained through our investment in Chelsea Piers into these kind of sports and recreation complexes. And absolutely, they will always have the ability to seek other forms, other sources of capital. But I will emphasize that there is a cultural union between or among Kane, Eldridge, and Vichy that gives us a lot of confidence that we will always have a chance to be a partner of choice to them as they seek to capitalize the really compelling, experiential investments they are making. And I will say to that regard, Greg, Greg, I'll just say to that regard, it was Todd Bowley who proposed, hey, let's do an LOI. I mean, Samantha can explain why in a case like that, you kind of have to make it non-binding, but it was a sign of Todd's commitment to the partnership.

Okay, good to hear. I guess thinking about investing in the assets that you already have, one, curious, is the nation kind of be looking for more of the capital you've potentially committed? And then, MGM guided slightly lower growth CapEx funding for this year. So it does appear they're allocating some funding to MGM grants. What's your kind of general sense for how CapEx is doing? CapEx budgets are trending for casinos compared to the last few years. What might that mean for your investment opportunities with them in Las Vegas and regionally? And then also, how does that compare to the contract with the obligated CapEx?

Yeah, very good question. I'll start in Las Vegas. One of the advantages of our portfolio and having such a big presence in that market is the assets are absolutely incredible. In my opening remarks, I talked about Venetian and I said that then over 17 million square feet, that's bigger than some companies whole portfolio and it's one of our assets in one market. Why I bring that up is that it provides opportunity for us to brainstorm with the operator about how to use our capital to continue to have them grow. And obviously, over the past year, we announced the amount of money, up to 700 million dollars we've been putting in with the Apollo team into the Venetian. We have those same conversations with our other partners and operators. Obviously, Las Vegas has bigger boxes than the regional. But we do have conversations with our regional partners about opportunities to build hotels, other opportunities to bring casinos that happen to be on riverboats on the land. So we continue to have those discussions. I think there continues to be an excitement about putting new capital into Las Vegas. In fact, there was an article I saw this morning about the Caesar's organization putting over a billion dollars into Las Vegas over the past couple of years. So that should get you and our investors excited about the opportunities that could be presented in that market. But I think 25 is very similar to what we saw in 24 and even 23 that operators continue to reinvent themselves and they need capital to create new experiences.

Great, thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Rich Hightower of Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everybody. And congrats again on the new partnership with King Eldridge. Good morning, Ed. Let me go back to the guidance really quickly if you don't mind. David, I think you mentioned in the prepared comments that certain loan fundings are not included in the ASFO number as presented last night. Can you walk us through what precisely is included, dollars cadence, timing, et cetera, just so we have a clear understanding of funding throughout the year as currently contemplated?

Yeah, in my comments or what I was, we do not include in guidance any funding or development funding that does not have a identified draw schedule. As we sit here today, we're continuing to fund Great Wolf Northeast, we're funding Canyon Ranch Austin and Cabot Citrus Farms, and it's $15, $20 million a month or so that Great Wolf Northeast completes in May of 25, Canyon Ranch is sometime in 26, Citrus Farms is working through later this year, early next year. So there's not a specific number per month because it's all based on the timing of the draws and then obviously as the developments are completed, we have a construction loan fully funded construction loan that's outstanding. Okay,

that's actually helpful. And just to be clear, Venetian PPG funding is kind of separate from that. Is that, what's the timing on that one as well? If I have that correct. Yeah,

so we announced a total commitment of 700 million, they drew 400 million in 2024, and that is all converted to rent and embedded in the lease. Now they have the option, but not the obligation to draw an incremental $300 million of that commitment over time. And there goes to the budgets right now and the plans and as John talked about putting a lot of new, as you may have seen, a lot of new restaurants and a lot of new experiences in the Venetian. And so they're working through if and when they would draw that incremental 300.

And needless to say, Rich, given that they have not firmly committed to using any of that, none of that is in guidance.

Okay, that's very helpful. And then one last kind of small one, and I think you guys have addressed this on prior calls, but just so we all have it clear, you do see some pretty big swings in, I guess the change in allowance for credit losses and the income statement, obviously a non-cash number, most of the time, we hope there aren't any actual credit losses, but just David, help us understand the drivers that quarter to quarter swing.

Yeah, hey, it's Gabe Lawson here, I can take that. So in the fourth quarter, most of the allowance is really driven by,

hey,

it was really driven by Moody's, which is the service provider that we use to help us model out and project future losses. In the fourth quarter, their economic scenario, which is scenario condition, then, and a requirement of the model, and the banks are using similar forward projections. They were kind of forecasting, you know, higher for longer interest rate, potential tariffs, and some headwinds economically, and that was going through our projections. So that was really the driver of the increase in the allowance in the fourth quarter.

Which, Gabe, another way of saying it is, more general than specific to any single credit, more

macro as opposed to micro to any of those.

Perfect, very helpful, thank you guys.

And Rich, you get an award, Rich, for asking about Cecil.

I knew we had addressed Cecil on prior calls, but I just, I think it's been a little while, so again, appreciate the call, thanks.

Maybe I did ask. There you go.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jim Cammert of Evercore. The line is now open, please go ahead.

Thank you, good morning. I know David, obviously, guidance excludes new capital markets activities, but given the billion three that's rolling, or maturing, I should say, of notes in Q2, how is VG leaning right now? Will we pay a part of that, or reach behind? What would the cost be?

I think I got to just your question, Jim, to break it up a little bit. Yeah, we've got a main maturity and due maturity, and we don't think any assumptions and guidance on those reprised, but we're seeing on a 10-year, kind of 120, 125 spread over the 10-year, which was a 448 a few earlier this morning, but obviously bounces around, so, mid-5, mid-575 area for a 10-year refinancing.

All right, thank you. And then obviously, early innings with the new relationship with Todd Bolley and otherwise, but has his relationship or ownership of Chelsea helped give you a little inside the tent, kind of views to how those owners and consortiums think about tracking additional capital and opportunity for VG?

Well, certainly, in the specific case of Chelsea, one as is true of so many of the Premier League teams, they're very focused on making sure that they are doing everything they can to maximize game day revenue, and obviously, maximizing game day revenue involves making sure you have the optimal stadium, and to a great degree now increasingly, the right surroundings around the stadium.

The last part of your question, you asked about the MDM property, just put together a very,

a very healthy bid for the full license. I don't know the exact answer to your question. Should they not receive one of the three licenses, how that ultimately plays out as the slot facility, but I think as this whole process plays out with the gaming commissions, how they make their decisions, we'll continue to learn more, but it does seem like there's more progress in quarter 125 than there has been in a while, but it's hard to determine ultimately when the final stage is.

Okay, and then in terms of the one Beverly Hills, and maybe this doesn't make any difference in terms of your loan to them, but I just wanted to ask you, I mean, Los Angeles has a lot of luxury retail readily available, it has a lot of luxury housing, and it has a lot of luxury hotels, and I guess from their perspective, what I guess is giving them confidence that there's incremental demand for more multimillion dollar condominiums and more Chanel's and whatnot, and just, I don't know, maybe that's sort of a dumb question, but I'm just kind of wondering how they're thinking about the demand factor there.

Yeah, I think, and I'm priming Samantha, she's gonna need to speak here in a moment because she actually has experience of Amon. I think, Smeed, to answer your question, we really have to do all we can to help everyone understand the brand power of Amon. Amon obviously is not a public company, there are no Amons within hotel-re portfolios, but if I were you, I would just do a price check on the rates that Amon gets location by location around the world because Amon is in a very, very, very, league of its own, correct, Samantha? Yeah, I think just

to add to your point, you're talking ultra high-end, monthly, it truly is above and beyond really what you see almost anywhere else in the world, and they've been able to do it in cities throughout the world, and I think that's what's going to Beverly Hills, which I don't think they have up

here. Yeah, and it's so much to the credit of the Cain team, they were able to get entitlements and permitting for that 17 and a half incomparable acres for incremental hotel supply in Beverly Hills, and some of you may have seen over the course of 2024 that LVMH was unable to get entitlements and permitting for a Cheval block on Rodeo Drive. There is supply there to your points meets, but again, we will do all we can to help everyone understand the very, very differentiated position of Amman in every market in the world that it operates,

in which it operates.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from David Katz of Jeffries. The line's now open. Please go ahead.

Thank you, good morning, everybody. I wanted to ask a little bigger picture question. First, congratulations on your announcement of the new partnership, but in that putting it all in context, the discussion we have with investors frequently is around thinking about underwriting the various aspects of your TAM, and obviously a deal like this adds to your TAM in some ways, right? To an earlier question about the duration of the capital you have out now and how we sort of think about that strategically, then the potential expansions embedded in your current portfolio, and how we think about underwriting those versus a new casino partner to be named later, so to speak, right? They're across the spectrum, and I'd love, Ed, just your thoughts and comments around how we underwrite those, or whether it's straight math.

Yeah, it's a great question, David, and one of the ways in which I'll answer it is that when we think about TAM, we really also think about

the,

I'm trying to come up with an acronym on this, but I'm not gonna do it, David. I

was gonna say like the car, the total amount of the relationship. That's not very good, is it? That's excellent. Anyway, what I'm getting at is- On the fly. Yeah, there you go, thank you, David. Yeah, on the fly, yeah. I'll do better next time, I promise. As we began to get to know Kane and Eldridge, we very quickly developed very high conviction that this has the potential to be a multi-billion dollar relationship over time. We do believe there can be opportunities within that relationship for us to ultimately own permanent real estate, but also the opportunity to continue, as my answer to Kaitlyn indicated, the opportunity to have numerous funding opportunities and thus opportunities to continue to roll our capital behind their initiatives. And so we are very, very focused on widening our TAM without diluting our quality, our quality of relationship and our quality of investment. And again, at a time like this, when the gaming deal flow is what it is, we believe we serve our stockholders very well by developing these kinds of relationships to give our stockholders participation in what we think is some of the most compelling place-making taking place right now.

Okay, thank you, appreciate it. Thank you, David.

Thank you. Our next question comes from John Kielchowski of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thank you, good morning. Maybe if I could just circle back on that last comment, Ed, you said that eventually owning some of the real estate in these deals with Kane and Eldridge, could you specify specifically maybe what types of real estate you'd be looking to own here? Obviously in this project, it's multi-use. We have the hotel, the residences, the retail, the food and beverage. Just curious what you would be considering owning versus not owning.

Yeah, and just to be clear, and as I indicated earlier in my remarks, we are not optimistic that we would eventually own any real estate within one Beverly Hills. This is real estate that if and when it trades, it will trade at stratospheric values. And also is real estate of a nature that doesn't exactly fit our investment criteria, which obviously mainly does involve that lease. But beyond that, as you look across the Eldridge-Kane portfolio, I think you will see, again, citing that really good slide in the transaction deck, current businesses within Kane and Eldridge that involve real estate, it very, very much resembles real estate that we already own. And I would cite the example of Chelsea Pierce as the type of real estate we already own and are very excited to continue to invest in.

And I have one thing to that as well. Creating partnerships like we have with Kane and Eldridge also opens other potential partners that are around the world that are seeing what we are doing with our capital to help other experiential companies grow. I mean, we've just made this announcement and there are folks that are reaching out saying, hey, very interesting way that you are getting involved with that project. We'd like to talk to you about X, Y, and Z. So don't underestimate that as we continue to build these world-class developers and partners, that it also opens new ones for us and doesn't keep us as, hey, you're just that gaming, which we love casino gaming, but it really has opened the funnel for conversation about other opportunities for us around the world.

Yeah, and I just want to build on what John is saying too, that there's actually another dimension of partnership in what we just announced, and though it may not have been visible in our releases, this marks the fourth time in which we will have partnered with JP Morgan in participating, working together on a capital structure for a very compelling development. And as you all know, we are a very small team. We have over 25% of the company sitting at this table, and that's seven people. And so we are always very focused on opportunities to force multiply what we are able to achieve at Vichy. And we're really, really appreciative of partnership that David and his team have formed with Brian Baker and his team at JP Morgan, when it comes to identifying opportunities to work together and put our capital to work in opportunities that might not have otherwise been available to us.

Got it, I appreciate that. And then, maybe jumping back to one of the first comments you made today was just on the pipeline really picking up. I'm curious on the other side of that equation, how has the competitive landscape changed? I feel like across most of our earnings discussions this quarter, we've heard competition has certainly spiked from the private side. I'm curious if you're seeing the same.

It's been the same since we started the company. It's in a space, particularly the casino space, where there's a lot of interest. There's great operators, there's great real estate. The buildings perform like no other in the experiential sector. So as we look at any opportunity, we go in with our eyes open that there's others that are looking at this. And that's why we pride ourselves on building deep relationships, win the ties, and grow the company in that fashion. So I wouldn't say we see an increase in competition. I'd say it's always been there, and we wanna continue to be out there as well.

Got it, thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from John Dicree of CBRE. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey everyone. You've got a lot of ground, but maybe two more. One on the casino M&A environment. I think we discussed it a little bit earlier, pointing to the volatility in the 10 year, but Ed or John or David, I'm curious if you have any thoughts as to what else is kind of influencing, like I said, the lack of M&A in the space, whether it involves real estate or not. It seems like it's still kind of quiet. So curious if you kind of see any other factors in there that are maybe causing that.

I don't think, John, it's nice to talk to you. You hit on a few. Again, in my remarks earlier, while I was answering one question, I just talked about Las Vegas. And if you're an operator in Las Vegas and you're performing the way you're performing, you have to say, well, where else would I like to operate? And you land on, I'd rather own this asset. I can continue to invest in it. There are new customers coming through my door every day. And I'm gonna just make this a better place. I mean, the results that you saw out of Las Vegas, I mean, Wim's results were absolutely incredible. We saw there's incredible results coming out of the buildings that we own. So John, I don't see a lot of trading in Las Vegas at this time. When it comes to the regionals, I think it's just a matter of, they like operating those business right now. There could be some trades over time. And so we'll see if there's an opportunity for us.

And John, I'll just add to that. I think when it comes to regional gaming, we're in a period where

investing

in regional gaming has to be done with precision, market by market, asset by asset. We're obviously seeing some supply growth across much of the US regional landscape. And I think if you're going to invest incremental capital in regional gaming, you wanna be highly conscious of new competition and new supply and what that would mean for same store sales and existing assets. So again, it's not solely a case of, well, what's available. It's also a case of, well, what do you really wanna own? Again, we are very much in the long term and thus we are going to be by nature selective.

Thanks, John, that's helpful. Maybe one more on the discussion of kind of Amman Hotels as a good example. A lot of those old dry ends, international hotels. Here's your thoughts on how you think about expanding a bit more internationally. Obviously there's some in Canada, but would you go overseas kind of in an investment or lending capacity like you've done in California recently? So opportunities where maybe not real estate ownership, but you know, Mez or however else you'd structure it in some international markets or something like that on the table. How kind of far have you explored those kind of lending international market opportunities?

Yeah, that's a good point. So we definitely would, and we actually do have some lending activity in the UK and Scotland right now with Cabot and we've done, our internal team has done a lot of work around really mapping the world and where we can invest both from a lending perspective as well as an acquisition perspective, understanding any tax leakage and really looking at what jurisdictions would be most compelling for us so that when we look at our team, we're really knowledgeable about that. So the answer to that question is yes, we absolutely can and would.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, John.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Darling of Green Street. The line's now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks, good morning. Question on the gaming side. Seems like there's been a lot more capital flowing into the historic horse racing segment of the market. A couple projects I think have been announced in New Hampshire. Is this a segment of the market that's interesting to you and how would you think about sort of the opportunities and risks involved?

Chris, nice to speak to you. Yes, if you're asking, would we make an investment into a racetrack, particularly most of these investments are adding some form of new gambling to that investment. So whether it's historical racing machines that are being added in certain markets, other markets are adding just simple class three slot machines and some, as we heard earlier today, talking about Empire City, their ability to turn a racino into a full-fledged casino. So to answer your question, there are all areas that we would have interest in placing investments if we have the right partners, if it had the right structure along the way. So we continue to study the markets that you mentioned and other markets that could, as Ed mentioned, there could be some new markets that open up over time and we'd be interested in those as well.

All right, fair enough. And then just one more quickly for me. Curious if you could walk through the rationale from a pure gaming standpoint to sell the Canadian operations to IGP. And then I think it'd be helpful as well to understand a little bit more about who IGP is, kind of their scale, where they own, the transition, and anything that you could add.

Yeah, we were very excited. We had a great relationship with the management team and the owners of Pure, but we are excited to form our new relationship with a few tribes that have, nations that have come together to form this group. We're learning more about their interests, their capacity to grow their business. That was one of the things that we were excited about, not only them acquiring the operations of the assets we own in Canada, but also our ability to continue to partner, not only in Canada, but there could be opportunities all over the world. So the more we learn about each other, this was our first opportunity to work together, the more I think you'll see us grow with them over time should the right opportunities come about.

And Chris, just to make sure I understood your question clearly, I wanna clarify that we didn't sell anything. The prior owner of Pure, Onyx, a Toronto based PE firm, sold the opco to IGP. And not only are we excited about IGP being our new partner on the Alberta asset,