VICI Properties (NYSE:VICI), a prominent player in the Specialized REITs industry with a market capitalization of $32.7 billion, reported mixed financial results for the fourth quarter of 2024. Earnings per share (EPS) of $0.58 fell short of the forecasted $0.68, while revenue exceeded expectations at $976.1 million versus $968 million forecast. The company maintained its impressive 99.18% gross profit margin. Despite the earnings miss, VICI’s stock rose by 0.93% to $31.04 in after-hours trading, reflecting investor optimism about the company’s strategic initiatives and revenue performance. According to InvestingPro, VICI has several strengths, including a 7-year consecutive dividend increase streak and attractive valuation multiples. Subscribers can access 5 additional exclusive ProTips and comprehensive analysis.
Key Takeaways
- VICI Properties reported a revenue beat but missed on EPS.
- Stock price increased by 0.93% after the earnings release.
- Strategic partnerships and investments highlight future growth potential.
- Achieved investment-grade credit rating, enhancing financial stability.
Company Performance
VICI Properties demonstrated solid revenue growth, surpassing expectations with $976.1 million in Q4 2024. This marks a positive trend in sales performance, despite the EPS shortfall. The company continues to expand its portfolio beyond traditional casino real estate, investing in high-profile projects like One Beverly Hills and ongoing developments at the Venetian and Great Wolf Northeast.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: $976.1 million, above the forecast of $968 million.
- Earnings per share: $0.58, below the forecast of $0.68.
- Full Year 2024 AFFO per share: $2.26, up 5.1% from 2023.
- General and administrative expenses: $20.7 million, 2.1% of total revenues.
Earnings vs. Forecast
VICI Properties’ Q4 2024 EPS of $0.58 missed the forecast by $0.10, a significant deviation from expectations. In contrast, the revenue surpassed projections by $8.1 million, reflecting strong sales performance. This mixed result highlights the company’s challenges in maintaining profitability while achieving growth.
Market Reaction
Following the earnings release, VICI Properties’ stock rose by 0.93%, closing at $31.04. This increase suggests investor confidence in the company’s strategic direction and revenue growth, despite the EPS miss. The stock trades at an attractive P/E ratio of 11.61 and offers a compelling 5.62% dividend yield. InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis indicates the stock is currently trading near its fair value, with detailed valuation metrics and future growth projections available to subscribers through the comprehensive Pro Research Report.
Outlook & Guidance
For 2025, VICI Properties projects AFFO per share to range between $2.32 and $2.35, representing a 3.3% year-over-year growth. The company, which achieved 6.53% revenue growth in the last twelve months, is exploring opportunities in both gaming and non-gaming sectors, with potential international expansion in lending and investment. InvestingPro’s analysis reveals a "GREAT" Financial Health Score of 3.56, suggesting strong operational performance and financial stability. Subscribers can access detailed financial health metrics across growth, profit, momentum, and cash flow dimensions.
Executive Commentary
CEO Ed Petoniak emphasized the company’s focus on expanding its total addressable market without compromising quality, stating, "We are very, very focused on widening our TAM without diluting our quality." President John Payne highlighted the benefits of strategic partnerships, noting, "Creating partnerships... opens other potential partners that are around the world."
Risks and Challenges
- Profitability concerns due to the EPS miss.
- Potential risks associated with diversifying beyond traditional casino real estate.
- Limited deal flow in 2024 may impact growth prospects.
- Macroeconomic pressures could affect future performance.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about VICI’s limited deal flow in 2024 and its investment strategy. The company emphasized its relationship-driven approach and potential in historic horse racing and international markets, providing insights into its future growth plans.
Full transcript - VICI Properties Inc (VICI) Q4 2024:
Conference Operator: Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the VICI Properties Fourth Quarter and Full Year twenty twenty four Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Please note that this conference call is being recorded today, 02/21/2025.
I’ll now turn the call over to Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel with Avicii Properties. Please go ahead.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties: Thank you, operator, and good morning. Everyone should have access to the company’s fourth quarter and full year twenty twenty four earnings release and supplemental information. The release and supplemental information can be found on the Investors section of the VICI Properties website at www.dicciproperties.com. Some of our comments today will be forward looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward looking statements, which are usually identified, are 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 a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact future operating results and financial conditions. During the call, we will discuss certain non GAAP 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 GAAP. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is available on our website in our fourth quarter and full year twenty twenty four earnings release, our supplemental information and our other filings with the SEC.
For additional information with respect to non GAAP measures of certain tenants and or 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 will open the call to questions. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Ed.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Thank you, Samantha. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Over the course of the next few minutes leading into our Q and 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 ’20 ’20 ’5 earnings guidance. I’ll start the call with a few words about the announcement we made Wednesday morning, initiating a new Beachy strategic and financial relationship with Cain International and Eldridge Industries through an initial investment in the financing of the 1 Beverly Hills development.
Like most of Vici’s growth activities, this Vici 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 Cain 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 Cain and Vici 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 Cain, which as of year end twenty twenty four had nearly $18,000,000,000 in assets under management, it was founded in 2014 by Jonathan and his partner Todd Boley and is affiliated with Eldridge Industries, an investment company founded and led by Todd Boley. Kane and Eldridge have made investments in iconic experiential brands that include Aman, 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 at One Beverly Hills might be our first opportunity to work together. These discussions enabled Cain, Eldridge and Vici 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 Veatchy 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 Aman brand, among the world’s most venerated luxury hospitality brands. One Beverly Hills will be the largest realization of Amman branded hospitality, wellness and living today 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 (NYSE:HLT), longtime 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. Cain stands among the most ambitious placemakers we have come to know, and yet Cain 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 Cain and Elders 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 Cain 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?
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: Thanks, Ned, and good morning to everyone. I’ll start by reiterating Ed’s enthusiasm around the new strategic relationship we formed with Cain and Eldridge. As we said time and time again, deep relationships are at the core of Beachy’s investment strategy. Through the development of a new relationship with Homefield Kansas City and the strength of existing relationships with Great Wolf and the team from Venetian, we were able to commit approximately $1,100,000,000 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 VICI team attended the NAREIT conference in Las Vegas. The conference provided a great opportunity to physically showcase our Las Vegas Strip assets and convey the incredible scale of operations happening at these properties every single day. For example, the Venetian to which we committed up to 700,000,000 in 2024 through our partner property growth fund strategy sprawls over 17,000,000 square feet and is being proactively reimagined 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 R. J.
Milligan’s NAREIT recap note, he observed that, With all the events in and around Las Vegas, it was hard to ignore the quality of VICI’s real estate, which we don’t think the market is giving them enough credit for. It’s just so hard to comprehend that Vici was able to purchase The Venetian at the same cap rate as a well located Dollar General (NYSE:DG). Well stated, RJ. Las Vegas tourism also continues to hit records. According to the LVCVA, twenty twenty four saw record airline passengers through Harry Reid Airport at $58,000,000 for the year and visitation to the city increased 2% year over year to approximately $42,000,000 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 $300,000,000 remodel of all of their 4,200 hotel rooms to be completed in December of twenty twenty five and launched their Palm Tree Beach Club outdoor music and entertainment venue, which will open in May of twenty twenty five. Caesars (NASDAQ:CZR) New Orleans just opened following a comprehensive $435,000,000 renovation and the property hosted many Super Bowl builders a couple of weeks ago. And in November of last year, Harvey’s Lake Tahoe also announced $100,000,000 all encompassing transformational project. Just since the fourth quarter, our operators have announced nearly $1,000,000,000 of investments in our real estate. That is reflective of our shared conviction around the value of high quality experiences at high quality properties.
Vici 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.
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: Thanks, John. I’m going to start with our balance sheet. As we begin 2025, ’7 years after our IPO in 2018, I want to highlight 2024 and reflect on how far our balance sheet has come since, well, going way back to our pre emergence in December of twenty seventeen when VICI had total leverage of roughly 10.5 times debt to EBITDA. We were born with a very unnatural balance sheet for a REIT, short tenure secured debt, second lien debt, a $1,600,000,000 CMBS 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 twenty seventeen, 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 $498,000,000 in February 2020. In connection with the Eldorado (SO:ELDO11B) Caesars merger, we retired the CMBS debt. And with our acquisition of MGP, we were able to retire all of our remaining secured debt and received an investment grade credit rating from S and P and Fitch in April of twenty twenty two. There was one straggler at that time, Moody’s (NYSE:MCO). Through the leadership of Aaron Ferrari (NYSE:RACE) 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 11/18/2024, 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 the REIT landscape with total debt of $17,100,000,000 of which we have unsecured debt of $14,100,000,000 This creates liquidity in our unsecured notes, and we saw this in our December refinancing, where we had several new institutional credit investors come into 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 quarter end with a new $2,500,000,000 facility. We had strong sponsorship from our bank group 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 $3,300,000,000
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: in total liquidity comprised of approximately five twenty five million dollars in cash, $376,000,000 of estimated proceeds available under our outstanding forwards and $2,400,000,000 of availability under our revolving credit facility. Our net debt to annualized fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA, excluding the impact of unsettled forward equity, was approximately 5.3 times within our target leverage range of five times to 5.5 times. We have a weighted average interest rate of 4.41% taking into account our hedge portfolio and a weighted average six point four 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, AFFO per share was $0.57
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: for the quarter, an increase of 3.6 compared to $0.55 for the quarter ended 12/31/2023. For the full year 2024, AFFO per share was $2.26 an increase of 5.1% 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 G and A was $20,700,000 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 REITs.
Turning to guidance, we are initiating AFFO guidance for 2025 on both absolute dollars as well as on a per share basis. AFFO for the year ending 12/31/2025, is expected to be between $2,455,000,000 and $2,485,000,000 or between $2.32 and $2.35 per diluted common share. Based on the midpoint of our 2025 guidance, PG 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.
Conference Operator: Thank
John Decree, Analyst, CBRE (NYSE:CBRE): you.
Conference Operator: Our first question for today comes from Anthony Paolone from JPMorgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Anthony Paolone, Analyst, JPMorgan: Yes, 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 2024 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 outright property purchases. And so any color there would be great.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Yes, I’ll start Tony and then I’ll turn it over to John. The 2024 for us was a 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 Homefields at the very beginning of the year, whether our ongoing work with Great Wolf, our ongoing work with Canyon Ranch and Cabot (NYSE:CBT), and now our new work with Cain and Eldridge 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
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties: will see in 2025. John?
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: Yes. A little bit, Dan. 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 we started the company, as David walked through some of that history in his opening remarks, we really were born simply a casino triple net lease REIT.
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 twenty twenty five, I’m as busier, busier than I’ve been in a very long time. And we continue to be very thoughtful of where we put our capital to work, the type of partners that we want to do business with, the type of growth potential. So that’s a long way of saying we’re quite busy.
The funnel is wide. We’re looking at a variety of things in the experiential and the casino gaming space.
Anthony Paolone, Analyst, JPMorgan: Okay. Thanks. And then just a 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?
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: 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 ten 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 really it’s a little bit hard to get pricing certainty on permanent assets, weather 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.
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: And remember, on the Strip Company, 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.
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: Okay. Thank you.
Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Caitlin Burrows of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Caitlin Burrows, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Hi, good morning, everyone. Maybe just following up on the development funding talk, Ed. I know you mentioned that when you look through the opportunities of 2024, 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 acquisitions and what that means for the future of the portfolio and like recurring nature of income?
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Yes. No, it’s a very good question, Caitlin, and it’s one we think and talk about a lot at the management table at VICI. We, as a starting point, in this particular case with Cain 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 Cain. And in this particular case, I obviously need to be careful here, but I do want to say that in the particular case of One Beverly Hills, we are working we continue to work with Cain.
And I should note the money for One Beverly Hills, that $300,000,000 has already gone out the door, but we continue to work with Kane at 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 Cain across their various verticals that could enable us to continue to roll our capital into new Cain Ventures. When they talk for example about the growth opportunity for Aman 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
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: how long, David, five years?
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: Yes, about five years, right.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: 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, Caitlin. 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.
Caitlin Burrows, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Got it. Okay. Yes, that makes sense. And then maybe more like 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?
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: Yes. Caitlin, as we’ve done for many years now, we have outstanding forward equity on a quarter by quarter and an 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 dilution 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 those outstanding forwards because we use those to match fund potential acquisitions, which are not in our guidance. So, this is very common across the REITLAN and we’ve been doing it.
I know a lot of other triple nets have done it for years.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: And maybe I’ll just add to what David said, Caitlin, 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.
Caitlin Burrows, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Got it. Okay. Thanks.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Thanks, Caitlin.
Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Barry Jonas of Truett Securities. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Barry Jonas, Analyst, Truett Securities: Hey guys, good morning. In September, you’ll have the right to call the Caesars Forum Convention Center at the same cap rate you had on the Indiana properties. Any thoughts you can offer on the puts and takes to exercising that option? Thanks.
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: Barry, John Payne, good to talk to you. It’s definitely an asset that we’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 Harrah’s facility that we own the real estate in the building and then lease it back to Caesars. 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 we’ll continue to study it in time period as it approaches. Understood. Understood.
And then just as
Barry Jonas, Analyst, Truett Securities: 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.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Well, as a starting point, any casino and 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 REIT legislation that would forbid the inclusion of a casino with hotel rooms in ATRS. 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.
Barry Jonas, Analyst, Truett Securities: Understood. All right. Thanks guys.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties: Thank you.
Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Greg McGinnis of Scotiabank (TSX:BNS). Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Barry Jonas, Analyst, Truett Securities: Hey, good morning. Given the non binding can you hear me?
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties: Yes.
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: Hello?
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Sorry. Yes, we can. Just give us a non
Barry Jonas, Analyst, Truett Securities: binding letter of intent on the new partnership with Cain and Eldridge. How would you describe your competitive positioning relative to other capital providers, especially as they consider more permanent financing options upon completion of that development?
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Yes. 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 and with Todd Boley, we see opportunities to work across the portfolio.
For example, in the Kane Eldridge 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 peers 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 Cain, Eldridge and Vici 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 explained 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.
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: Okay. Good to hear.
Barry Jonas, Analyst, Truett Securities: I guess thinking about investing in the assets that you already have, one, curious, is Venetian kind of 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 Grand. What’s your kind of general sense for how 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 regionally? And then also how does that compare to the contractually obligated CapEx?
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: 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 they had over 17,000,000 square feet. That’s bigger than some company’s 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, we over the past year, we announced the amount of money up to $700,000,000 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 regionals. But we do have conversations with our regional partners about all their opportunities to build hotels, other opportunities to bring casinos that happen to be on river boats 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 Caesars organization putting over $1,000,000,000 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.
Barry Jonas, Analyst, Truett Securities: Great. Thank you.
Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Rich Hightower of Barclays (LON:BARC). Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties0: Hey, good morning, everybody. And congrats again on the new partnership with Cain 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 AFFO number, as presented last night.
Can you walk us through what precisely is included dollars, cadence, timing, etcetera, just so we have a kind of a clear understanding of funding throughout the year as currently contemplated?
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: Yes, Rachael, in my comments or the specific comment was we do not include in guidance any funding or development funding that does not have an 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 $15,000,000.20000000 dollars a month or so. Great Wolf Northeast completes in May of twenty twenty five, Canyon Ranch is sometime in 2026, Citrus Farms is working through later this year, early next year. So it’s there’s not a specific number per month because it’s all based on the timing of the draws and the amount of the draws and then obviously as the installments are completed, we have a construction loan fully from the construction loans outstanding.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties0: Okay. That’s actually helpful. And just to be clear, Venetian PPG (WA:IBSP) funding is kind of separate from that. Is that, what’s the timing on that one as well, if I have that correct?
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: Yes. So we announced a total commitment of $700,000,000 They drew $400,000,000 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 $300,000,000 of that commitment over time. And they’re going through the budgets right now and their 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 $300,000,000
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: And needless to say, Rich, given that they have not firmly committed to using any of that, none of that is in guidance.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties0: 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 of that quarter to quarter
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties1: swing? Yes. Hey, it’s Gabe Lawson here. I can take that. So in the fourth quarter, most of this allowance is really driven
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: by
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Moody’s,
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: which is the service provider that
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties1: 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 higher for longer interest rate potential tariffs and some headwinds economically and that was going through our projection. So that was really the driver of the increase in the allowance in the fourth quarter. Which Gabe would
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: another way of saying it is, it was more general than specific
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties1: to any single or credit, more macro as opposed to micro to any of those specific tenants.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties0: Perfect. Very helpful. Thank you guys.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: And Rich, you get an award, Rich, for asking about CECL.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties0: I knew we had addressed CECL on prior calls, but I just I think it’s been a little while. So again, I appreciate the color. Thanks.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties1: Yes, yes.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: There you go.
Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Jim Kamat of Evercore. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties2: Thank you. Good morning. I know David, obviously guidance excludes new capital markets activities, but given the $1,300,000,000 that’s rolling or maturing, I should say, of notes in Q2, how is VICI leaning right now, repay part of that or remodel? And what would the cost be?
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: I think, just to your question, you didn’t break it up a little bit. Yes, we’ve got a main maturity and June maturity and we don’t make any assumptions and guidance on those refi’s, but we’re seeing on a ten year kind of 120, one hundred and 20 five spread over the ten year, which was at 4.48 a few early this morning, but obviously bounces around. So you look at mid 5.5 to 5.75 area for a ten year refinancing.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties2: Great. Thank you. And then obviously, early innings with the new relationship with Todd Bowley and otherwise, but has his relationship or ownership of Chelsea helped give you a little insight to kind of view as to how those owners and consortiums think about attracting additional capital and opportunity for VGU?
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Well, certainly, in this specific case at 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. We’ve had, I would say, Samantha, very preliminary chats with Todd around their vision for what Chelsea FC can become in terms of its placement in London, but not much more than that.
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: Okay. Thank you.
Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Smedes Rose of Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties3: Hi, thank you. I just wanted to ask you if maybe you could provide any sort of update on the licensing process that seems to be kind of lurching forward in New York for full on casinos. And just kind of as part of that, if your MGM property were not selected for license, does it just remain as essentially a slots only facility or is there some other change that would take place?
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: Mahesh, it’s John. I probably should be asking you what you think about the New York process. Look, I think there’s news almost every day. We’re sitting here in New York altogether. I read an article yesterday about one of the groups that is potentially bidding on the license.
It does seem like there’s progress being made on all the different steps it takes to win one of the three licenses. It does still seem like they’re shooting for a decision at the end of this year, but your guess is good as mine. Same with the last part of your question you asked about the MGM property at Empire City. We’re excited about that that group has 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 with the slot facility? But I think as this whole process plays out with the gaming commissions, how they make their decision, we’ll continue to learn more. But it does seem like there’s more progress in quarter one hundred and twenty five than there has been in a while, but it’s hard to determine ultimately when the final stage is.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties3: 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 is incremental demand for more multimillion dollar condominiums and more Chanels 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.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Yes. I think, and I’m priming Samantha, she’s going to need to speak here in a moment because she actually has experience of Aman. I think, Smedes, to answer your question, we really have to do all we can to help everyone understand the brand power of Aman. Aman obviously is not a public company. There are no Aman’s within hotel REIT portfolios.
But if I were you, I would just do a price check on the rates that Aman gets location by location around the world because Aman is in a league of its own. Correct, Samantha? Yes.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties: I think just to add a point, you’re talking ultra high end luxury. 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 they’ll bring to Beverly Hills, which I don’t think they have up here.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Yes. And it’s so much to the credit of the Cain team. They were able to get entitlement and permitting for that 17.5 in comparable acres for incremental hotel supply in Beverly Hills. And some of you may have seen over the course of 2024 that LVMH (EPA:LVMH) was unable to get entitlements and permitting for a Cheval Blanc on Rodeo Drive. There is supply there to your point, Smedes, but again, I would 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.
Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from David Katz of Jefferies. Your line is 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 kind of 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? But 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 to add just your thoughts and comments around how we underwrite those or whether it’s rate math?
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Yes. 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 the spot and I’m not going to do it, David. I was going to say like the TAR, the total amount of the relationship. That’s not very good, is it?
Exactly. What I’m getting at is
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: On the fly.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Yes, 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 Cain and Eldridge, we very quickly dissolved very high conviction that this has the potential to be a multibillion 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 I in my answer to Caitlin 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 relationship to give our stockholders participation in what we think is some of the most compelling place making taking place right now.
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties: Thank you, David.
Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from John Kielczkowski of Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC). Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties4: 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 the deals with Cain 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?
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Yes. 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 1 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 net lease. But beyond that, as you look across the Eldridge Cain portfolio, I think you will see, again, citing that really good slide in the transaction deck, businesses, current businesses within Cain and Eldridge that involve real estate that very, very much resembles real estate that we already own.
And I would cite the example of Chelsea Piers as the type of real estate we already own and are very excited to continue to invest in.
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: Can I add one thing to that as well? Creating partnerships like we have with Cain 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, Hi, 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 that you’re just that gaming rig, which we love casino gaming, but it really has opened the funnel for conversations about other opportunities for us around the world.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Yes. And I just want to build on what John is saying too that there’s actually another dimension of partnership in what we’ve 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 JPMorgan, 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 Vici. And we’re really, really appreciative 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.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties4: 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. And 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?
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: It’s been the same since we started the company. This is 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 want to continue to be out there as well.
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: Got it. Thank you.
Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from John Decree of CBRE. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
John Decree, Analyst, CBRE: Hey, everyone. You’ve got a lot of ground, but maybe two more. One on the casino M and A environment, I think we discussed it a little bit earlier, pointing to the volatility in the ten year. But Ed or John or David, curious if you have any thoughts as to what else is kind of influencing, I guess, I would say the lack of M and 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?
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: I don’t hey, 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 going to just make this a better place. I mean, the results that you saw out of Las Vegas, I mean, Wynn’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 if there are, we will see if there’s an opportunity for us.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: And John, I’ll just add to that, 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 supply growth across much of The U. S. Regional landscape. And I think if you’re going to invest incremental capital in regional gaming, you want to be highly conscious of new competition and new supply and what that would mean for same store sales at 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 want to own? Again, we are very much in this for the long term and, and thus we are going to be by nature selective.
John Decree, Analyst, CBRE: Thanks. John, that’s helpful. Maybe one more on the discussion of kind of Amman hotels as a good example. A lot of those ultra high end international hotels. I’m curious 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, mezz or however else you would structure it in some international markets or something like that on the table? How kind of far have you explored those kind of lending in international market opportunities?
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties: Yes. This is Samantha. 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 TAM, we’re really knowledgeable that. So the answer to that question is yes, we absolutely can and would.
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: And have. And have. Right.
John Decree, Analyst, CBRE: Thank you very much.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Thanks John.
Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Darling of Green Street. The line is now open. Please go ahead.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties5: Thanks. Good morning. Question on the gaming side, it seems like there’s been a lot more capital flowing into the historic horse racing segment of the market. A couple of 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?
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: Chris, nice to speak
David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer, VICI Properties: to you.
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: 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 III slot machines and some as we heard earlier today talking about Empire City, their ability to turn a casino into a full fledged casino. So to answer your question, they’re all areas that we would have interest in place and investments if we have the right partners, if we have 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
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties5: 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, future ambitions, anything that you could add?
John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer, VICI Properties: Yes. 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.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: And Chris, just to make sure I understood your question clearly, I want to clarify that we didn’t sell anything. The prior owner of Pure, Onex, 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 assets, it also signifies that opcos are marketable, that there are buyers for opcos, which I think there has been some questioning around. But this is a clear example of gaming opcos and opcos having value.
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties5: Got it. And, yeah, that point was understood, Ed, but I appreciate the clarification. That’s all for me. So thanks for the
Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel, VICI Properties1: time. Thank you, Chris.
Conference Operator: Thank you. At this time, I’ll turn the call back to Ed Petoniak for any further remarks.
Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer, VICI Properties: Thanks, Alex, and thanks all of you. We know you’ve got many of you have another call coming up here just momentarily. So we wish you the best, and thanks again for attending this morning. Bye for now.
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