Accel Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:ACEL) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Chad Beynon: Thank you. I appreciate that. And then back on North Carolina, apologies that I haven’t looked into this to the degree that I should have, but it’s a $10 million population state. And if I look at Illinois and I kind of back out Chicago where there is no product, North Carolina could actually be bigger from a population standpoint than what we see in Illinois. From a unit standpoint, within the two different bills, have they been – has it been discussed in terms of what the size could be? I mean, could this be as big as kind of present day Illinois after North Carolina matures?

Andrew Rubenstein: Yes, that’s a very interesting question. The legislation hasn’t been finalized. There’s a lot – there has been multiple iterations of it and many different proposals that we’ve seen or heard about. Some – most of them we haven’t even seen. There is the potential for equipment in the market limitations, whether it’s by individual storefront or it’s total market and a lot of that’s been negotiated. I believe because of this mentality, it may hold back the opportunity or the total market ability to earn because of legislative limitations. Again, it’s all speculative because we haven’t seen anything that’s close to final and we’ll continue to wait to for it to be worked out. All this being said, there is a real possibility that nothing happens and that’s as all of us have followed legislation in these markets for many, many years, you can, it teeters.

And any given day, it can go one direction or another in terms of the momentum. We think it’s pretty positive right now. But until the governor signs that, as we learned in what happened in Virginia, nothing is guaranteed.

Chad Beynon: Good points. Thank you. And then lastly, just thinking about the Century integration, I’m looking at $177 million of TTM EBITDA with much greater strength in the last two quarters. Is there still – are there still synergies from the Century acquisition that could come in the future? Or do you feel like that portfolio outside of macro trends is running optimally? Thanks.

Andrew Rubenstein: So as far as looking at it from a synergy standpoint, they’ve done – they’ve run a very, very good operation and we’ve extracted some synergies. But what we’re seeing is more opportunities. And they have a very good brand, they have outstanding service, they’re a leader in both markets. And with the capital that we’ve provided, they’ve really been able to upgrade and seek out new opportunities. And so, we think that they are – they haven’t reached their potential and we think they’re still on a path to keep – to continue growing their presence in each market and improve the top line performance.

Chad Beynon: Great, thank you very much. Nice quarter.

Operator: Thank you for your question. The next question is from the line of Greg Gibas with Northland. Your line is now open.

Greg Gibas: Hi, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. I guess first just to follow up on – you mentioned the back office integrations with Century being complete and now the focus is on kind of investing in some new equipment, will we see a meaningful impact on financials that we should be accounting for a result of that or is that just kind of the next step in terms of the focus on that integration?

Andrew Rubenstein: Thanks for calling, Greg. I think you’ll see a gradual improvement and growth in the revenues. It’s not going to be a big pop. It’s going to be something that will consistently happen over the next couple of years. It’s – you’re talking about a big ship and we’re adding pieces to it and it’s growing, but it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight. And we’ve got great leadership there and our market presence is significant to where we are a recognized leader. So I think we can build on that and I think you’ll see the benefit from that for a few years to come.