Red Rock Resorts, Inc. (NASDAQ:RRR) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Scott Kreeger: Yes, I can take that. Carlo, this is Scott. Yes. Look, I think when we look at where we’ve been and where we’re headed, we’ve been mentioning that we’re up against tough comps in April, certainly was one of the tough ones. If we look at forward projections, call it, a 90-day look inclusive of July, we like where we’re headed. We like where we are at the midpoint of the year, against what we expect to do for the full year. But we all, in consensus, feel like the rest of the year has tough comps as well. So, while we are encouraged with where we are year-to-date, and our operating teams are ready to face the challenge of any necessary expense management. They’re already doing a great job of that when you’re talking about labor, cost of sales, all of these things are being managed very well, all of these inflationary pressures. But we’re very focused on what we think is going to be pretty competitive comps for the remainder of the year.

Carlo Santarelli: Great. Thank you for that Scott. And then, if I could, just as you guys start to – you’re in the kind of 90-day stretch, maybe less until Durango opens. Could you talk a little bit about the hiring environment or the experience thus far in terms of staffing up that property?

Scott Kreeger: Yes, this is Scott again. So you’re right. We’re down in the final stretch. I think we’re inside of about 100 days. So, we have done our internal recruitment campaign. We had a lot of interested team members to come over to the new properties. So that’s the base of our employment pool. And that’s an employee that understands our brand is loyal to the company and really kind of brings over the D&A of what we do. We are about to kick off the external campaign on the 14th, and we’re already getting unsolicited interest. So, we feel confident that we’re going to be able to fill our needed employment with high-quality employees. If you go back and look at what we said in previous calls, a long time ago, we right-sized our pay ranges, our benefits.

We are a best-in-class employer in the market, and we knew this was coming and we got ahead of this probably well over a year ago. So that we had competitive wages, competitive benefits. And there – not to be completely immune to – the other factors. We do have Fountain Blue coming online. We do have the sphere coming online. So, there is a competitive market out there, but we think we’re going to compete very well.

Carlo Santarelli: Thanks again. Thank you guys.

Operator: Our next question comes from Steve Wieczynski with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Steve Wieczynski: Yes. Hi guys. Good afternoon. So, it’s going to be another margin question. So bear with me. So Steve, you mentioned the majority of the margin pressure occurred in April. So based on what you witnessed in May and June and now you have July in your belt as well. Do you think it’s possible to have margins for the back half of the year be in the range of last year? Or you called out things like higher utilities or are there other factors that might not allow you to do that? And this is assuming what you saw in May, June, and I assume July is kind of status quo?

Stephen Cootey: Yes. I mean I think the top line answer is yes, we can. We’ve been very consistent with that message that we expect to be in that – the new historical range, right? And as Scott alluded to, we have a lot of the inflationary pressures already built in. The team is doing a fantastic job managing through them labor, for the most part, we are now driven by volume-based labor. So payrolls going up as we bring on more people to fill demand, particularly in our non-gaming segments. Cost of goods sold, relatively flat. And so, we are managing through those so. And then, as I mentioned, with R&M and there’s probably a variety of other levers that we can hold. So there’s a lot of controllables, that we feel we could pull out of the cost structure if need be. But right now, we feel pretty good in the business. And we don’t see any reason to change our current strategy.

Lorenzo Fertitta: Yes, Steve, I mean, this is Lorenzo. I think as we have mentioned – in prior calls as well, part of the margin question is going to be determined by gaming revenue as well, right? So, if we’re able to, and we believe that we will be able to maintain the current of our own, and we should be able to maintain the margins. As Steve said, we have a very laser focus on expenses throughout the company.

Scott Kreeger: And one last factor is acquisition costs. We still are enjoying a very stable and rational promotional market, and we don’t expect that to change through the rest of the year.

Steve Wieczynski: Okay. Got you. Thanks for that color. And then second question on the hotel side. I’m not sure, Steve, if you mentioned where ADRs were in the quarter, but it seems like they were probably up slightly as kind of my guess. And I don’t know, Scott, if you can – yes, go ahead?

Scott Kreeger: Okay. I cut you off.

Steve Wieczynski: Oh no, no. So – and I just wanted to see if Scott you kind of comment on how he views taking price action at this point in terms of – on the room side. And basically, just trying to understand if there’s been any real pushback yet on that you guys continuing to push room rates?