Accel Entertainment - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Executive Summary

• Q4 revenue reached $317.5M (+6.9% YoY), with Adjusted EBITDA of $47.4M (+6.2% YoY). Full-year FY24 revenue was $1.231B and Adjusted EBITDA $189.1M, both records.
• Net income declined 47.5% YoY to $8.4M in Q4, driven by higher “other expenses,” interest expense, and tax, despite solid top-line and EBITDA growth.
• Strategic expansion executed: Louisiana route acquisition closed Nov 1 (expected ~$6M 2025 EBITDA) and Fairmount (Collinsville, IL) closed Dec 2; Phase 1 casino opening targeted for Q2 2025; Phase 2 by end of 2027.
• Capital allocation catalyst: Board replenished the share repurchase authorization back to $200M; Q4 buybacks totaled ~$4M; FY24 buybacks ~$25M.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Record revenue and Adjusted EBITDA for Q4 and FY24 underscore resilient local gaming demand; Illinois, Montana, and Nebraska posted healthy hold-per-day growth in Q4.
  • Expansion milestones on track: Louisiana integrated in Q4 with $979 hold-per-day and expected ~$6M 2025 EBITDA; Fairmount Phase 1 casino planned for Q2 2025 with long-term upside (full-run $20–$25M EBITDA; temp ~1/3).
  • Portfolio optimization: Ongoing pruning of underperformers to lift FCF per location and returns; management emphasized rotating assets to higher-return accounts and “choiceful” allocation. “We have identified a subset of locations within our bottom decile performers that we will phase out over coming quarters”.

• What Went Wrong

  • GAAP profitability compressed: Q4 net income fell 47.5% YoY to $8.4M as “other expenses, net,” interest expense, and tax increased YoY despite higher revenue and Adjusted EBITDA.
  • Nevada softness persisted (Q4 hold-per-day -6.7% YoY), reflecting local market supply increases; management has cited this headwind since mid-2024.
  • Illinois unit count flat-to-down near term as tax and wage pressures catalyze pruning; growth remains more mix/quality-driven, potentially muting near-term location count momentum even as profitability per site improves.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining the Accel Entertainment Q4 and full year 2024 earnings call. My name is Kate, and I will be the moderator for today's call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode and will be until the question-and-answer portion. If you would like to queue up for a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to turn the call over to Derek Harmer, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer. Please proceed.

Derek Harmer (General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer)

Welcome to Accel Entertainment's fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings call. Participating on the call today are Andy Rubenstein, Accel's Chief Executive Officer; Matt Ellis, Accel's Chief Financial Officer; and Mark Phelan, Accel's President of U.S. Gaming. Please refer to our website for the press release and supplemental information that will be discussed on this call. Today's call is being recorded and will be available on our website under Events and Presentations within the Investor Relations section of our website. Some of the comments in today's call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those discussed today, and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements unless required by law.

For more detailed discussion of these and other risk factors, investors should review the forward-looking statements section of the earnings press release available on our website, as well as other risk factor disclosures in our filings with the SEC. Any projected financial information presented in this call is for illustrative purposes only and should not be relied upon as being predictive of future results. The inclusion of any financial forecast information in this call should not be regarded as a representation by any person that the results reflected in such forecasts will be achieved. During the call, we may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. For reconciliations of the non-GAAP measures, as well as other information regarding these measures, please refer to our earnings release and other materials in the Investor Relations section of our website. I will now turn the call over to Andy.

Andy Rubenstein (CEO)

Thanks, Derek, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's call. I'm pleased to report we had another record-setting year with total revenue of $1.2 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $189 million, proof of the resiliency of our convenient local gaming offering. It was a busy quarter for us. We entered into Louisiana on November 1st and acquired Fairmont Park outside St. Louis on December 2nd. Our teams are hard at work integrating Louisiana and preparing for the phase I opening of the Fairmont Casino in the second quarter of this year. In terms of financial performance, Illinois, our largest market, posted market-wide GGR growth of 4% year-over-year, outperforming Illinois casinos, which were down 3% year-over-year on a comparable basis.

We are proud of the strong foundation we have built in our home state, leading in a model that's a win, win, win for our state, our partners, and local convenience-based gaming providers like us. During the quarter, our location count in Illinois was down again sequentially. This was due to the strategic closures of 16 underperforming locations. Without these closures, our location count would have been flat for the quarter. For the full year, we strategically closed 54 underperforming locations, which helped us right-size our operations in response to the 1% increase in the state gaming tax on July 1st, 2024. We expect this process to continue as we review our portfolio and look for opportunities to improve financial performance. We've identified a subset of locations within our bottom decile performers that we will phase out over coming quarters.

Given we have an attractive pipeline of promising locations, we expect near-term Illinois net unit growth to potentially be flat, with planned positive impacts to EBITDA and greater returns on invested capital as we rotate locations. Across our footprint, we continue to refine our sales and operating model, focusing on the highest hold-per-day locations. The improvement in the composition of our portfolio will help drive both top-line and bottom-line growth, driven by choiceful segmentation and resource allocation. In addition to what I just mentioned, we've leaned into our continuous process of reviewing our markets and operations to find areas of improvement. As a result, we've identified additional efficiencies and opportunities for growth that will result in improved performance and an increase in free cash flow.

On the regulatory front, Illinois continues to lay the groundwork for ticket in, ticket out, also known as TITO, which should make cash processing more efficient. More importantly, it will create a more convenient experience for our players, allowing them to switch between games in our locations without cashing out and cashing in each time, making our sites more akin to a casino experience. We're hopeful TITO will be rolled out in 2025. We continue to monitor regulation related to this. Before I turn it over to Mark, I'm going to take a few minutes to talk about Accel's value proposition and where we see our greatest opportunities for growth.

For both our customers and players, we provide a high-quality slot gaming experience at a low price point that can be accessed by our players at a local, convenient retail location of their choosing in 15 minutes or less from their home. We support retail gaming partners by providing them with high-margin revenue gaming products and labor-light self-service technology. We instill player loyalty through our rewards programs by creating memorable player experiences with our diverse gaming selection. Finally, we maintain collaborative and reliable partnerships with regulators across 11 different regulatory structures, all while generating attractive returns on capital in the low teens. In our core route-based business model, our steady growth algorithm is both simple and compelling. We target low single-digit revenue growth, mid-single-digit EBITDA growth, and high single-digit free cash flow growth, assuming normalized CapEx levels, which Matt will address later.

Looking ahead, the primary levels for growth in our core route business are: one, growing organically in Illinois, Nebraska, and Georgia through both newly licensed establishments and converting competitors' locations; two, driving profitability in Nebraska and Georgia through operational execution and strategically positioning ourselves in the face of favorable legislation; three, collecting a greater share of location economics through selectively owning establishments in markets where this is permitted and is otherwise profitable; and four, preparing ourselves for future opportunities in new states likely to legalize local gaming in the future. Outside of our core business, our M&A pipeline remains active, as demonstrated by the Fairmont and Louisiana acquisitions. We are confident that we can leverage our proven capabilities as a local gaming operator to convert opportunities in the attractive and sizable nationwide $15 billion+ GGR local gaming market.

Most assets in this market are unconsolidated and sit at EBITDA levels that are below the radar of larger gaming companies, conditions that play to our strengths. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Mark to provide an update on Fairmont.

Mark Phelan (President of U.S. Gaming)

Thanks, Andy. We closed the Fairmont acquisition on December 2nd for approximately $40 million in Accel stock after adjusting for working capital and the price of Accel stock at close. The acquisition includes a master sports betting license with a long-term partnership with FanDuel, a horse racetrack, off-track betting facility opportunities, and the ability to develop a best-in-class, locally focused casino. This transaction builds on our core capabilities in local gaming that we've honed over the last 15 years with attractive returns on capital and free cash flow. We are combining our local gaming expertise with key partnerships in areas outside our core business to create an exceptional customer offering. As a reminder, we expect to develop this project in two phases.

Immediately after closing, we started construction on phase I of our casino, which will be built in the existing grandstand with approximately 255 electronic gaming devices, four electronic table games, and significantly improved food and beverage amenities. As of now, we expect to open phase I during the second quarter of 2025, and we look forward to welcoming players once the facility is open. For phase II, we'll build a permanent casino on site with detailed plans for 600+ slot machines, 24 table games, food and beverage amenities, and a new and improved FanDuel sports bar. With that, I'll pass it over to Matt to go over the fundamentals of the quarter.

Matt Ellis (CFO)

Thanks, Mark, and good afternoon, everyone. For the fourth quarter, we had total revenue of $318 million, a year-over-year increase of 6.9%, and adjusted EBITDA of $47 million, a year-over-year increase of 6.2%. For the full year, we set a new Accel record with total revenue of $1.2 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $189 million, year-over-year increases of 5.2% and 4.2%, respectively. As of December 31st, we had 26,346 terminals in 4,117 locations, year-over-year increases of 5% and 3.9%, respectively. Revenue per location for the quarter in our core states was as follows: Illinois was $868 per day, an increase of 3.5% year-over-year; Montana was $614 per day, an increase of 4.6% year-over-year; Nevada was $786 per day, a decrease of 6.7% year-over-year; Nebraska was $253 per day, an increase of 5.9% year-over-year; and Louisiana was $979 per day.

The increases in Illinois, Montana, and Nebraska really emphasized the strength and resilience of both our business model and, more importantly, consumers who continue to choose our high-quality, local, and convenient offering. Capital expenditures for the fourth quarter were $11 million of cash spend, and capital expenditures for 2024 were $67 million of cash spend. For the full year, we spent $2 million on Fairmont and Louisiana, leaving $65 million of cash spend in our existing markets. At the end of the fourth quarter, we had approximately $314 million of net debt and $425 million of liquidity, consisting of $281 million of cash on our balance sheet and $144 million of availability on our credit facility.

Looking ahead, we are forecasting $75 million-$80 million of CapEx for 2025, comprised of $39 million-$41 million in our existing markets, $5 million-$7 million in Louisiana, and $31 million-$32 million for Fairmont. I'd like to note the CapEx for Fairmont includes both phase I and initial construction for phase II. After Fairmont and the initial CapEx in Louisiana, we expect company-wide normalized CapEx to return to $40 million-$45 million, which will be an encouraging boost to free cash flow and returns on capital. On our capital allocation strategy, we continue to favorably view share repurchases as an effective way to return capital to our shareholders. During the quarter, we repurchased 361,000 shares at an average purchase price of $11.14 a share for a total of $4 million.

For the full year, we repurchased approximately 2.4 million shares at an average purchase price of $10.42 for a total of $25 million. Earlier this week, our board of directors authorized replenishing our share repurchase program back to $200 million. With our strong balance sheet and low leverage, we are in a unique position where we can grow our business and continue to return capital to shareholders. With that, I'd like to turn it back over to Andy.

Andy Rubenstein (CEO)

Thanks, Matt. As I mentioned earlier, we are very pleased with our strong performance this year and the fact that our teams are working hard to complete construction on phase one of the Fairmont casino. For the immediate term, we remain focused on executing our growth algorithm with improving cash flow and returns. Long term, we look forward to capitalizing on the significant growth opportunities ahead of us as an aligned and incentivized Accel team. Accel remains strong, as evidenced by our results and healthy balance sheet, enabling us to pursue a multi-pronged approach to capital allocation, making us a compelling investment. Local gaming is an attractive growing niche within the broader gaming market, with multiple opportunities to generate strong and consistent revenue and EBITDA growth, as well as strong free cash flow and returns on capital. We will now take your questions.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to queue up for a question, please press star, followed by a one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove yourself from the queue, please press star, followed by a two. As a reminder, if you are using a speakerphone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking your question. Again, to ask a question, please press star, followed by a one. The first question will come from the line of Steve Pizzella with Deutsche Bank. Steve, your line is now open.

Steve Pizzella (Gaming, Lodging, and Leisure Equity Research)

Thanks, Matt and Andy. There are a lot of moving parts with adding in Louisiana to the model for 10 months in 2025, everything that comes with Fairmont and the added temporary casino. How should we think about the contributions to the model?

Matt Ellis (CFO)

Thanks, Steve. It's Matt. Let's start with Louisiana. You look back to when we disclosed closing it, and we disclosed $6 million of EBITDA. I think for the full year, 2025, you should add that. Like you called out, two months of them in 2024's results. For Fairmont, as Mark said, we're planning to open in Q2. We might want to split the difference there. As we sort of talked about earlier, full-run Fairmont, all built out, all said and done, we forecasted $25 million of EBITDA, and we've sort of guided that the temp would do about a third of that. You've got a third of that $25 million, and then you need to prorate it for opening in, we'll call it, the middle of Q2.

Steve Pizzella (Gaming, Lodging, and Leisure Equity Research)

Okay, thanks. That makes sense. Just looking in Illinois in January, it looked like it started off pretty strong, at least looking at the data we can see. Did you see similar trends in other markets? Are you able to comment at all on February?

Andy Rubenstein (CEO)

Yeah, I mean, it's Andy. Thanks, Steve. We had very favorable weather in January this year, where last year it was a bit rough. The weather in February here has been not as good as it was last year. I wouldn't say we don't know whether they'll actually balance themselves out. Elsewhere in the country, we haven't seen the extremes that we've experienced here in Illinois on the weather factor. Overall, I think there's been a well-received demand for our gaming product. I think we're seeing good results early from some of the remodels we're doing in Louisiana, some of the new product we're introducing in some of the other markets to kind of upgrade our routes. It's all been very positive from a consumer perspective.

Steve Pizzella (Gaming, Lodging, and Leisure Equity Research)

Okay, thank you. Appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for your questions. The next question comes from the line of Chad Beynon with Macquarie. Chad, your line is now open.

Chad Beynon (Gaming, Lodging, and Theatre Equity Analyst)

Hi, good afternoon. Andy and Matt, thanks for taking my question. Andy, you mentioned just the pruning of the Illinois units, really to focus on free cash flow per location. I definitely appreciate the discipline there. At what point will you be through this, and then we should expect for some growth in the market? Thanks.

Andy Rubenstein (CEO)

Yeah. I do not think they are totally tied together. The pruning is really the very bottom of our portfolio. There will always be some that need to be pruned. We make investments, or we kind of have confidence in our ability to either reignite poor-performing locations or locations that we think will be decent performers. The owners of the facilities are not that committed to gaming, and therefore we are not getting the returns that we need. That part of our business will be a constant process. I think as we have been a little more aggressive in the pruning, as we have seen costs increase from labor, we have seen a tax increase last summer, our focus is to obviously increase the free cash flow. I think the growth will be continuous because our assets will be redeployed into better accounts.

I think you see it constantly, but I think it will really kind of manifest itself probably later this year, into next year, where the average profitability of a location will be noticeably better.

Chad Beynon (Gaming, Lodging, and Theatre Equity Analyst)

Okay, great. Thank you. Last week, one of the big manufacturers in the space acquired an E-Pull tab company in the charitable gaming space. They were able to shine some more light on that sector. I believe when you guys talked about the potential areas of expansion for Accel, E-Pull tabs was in there. I do not think a lot of investors or analysts had a full appreciation of the sector. Now that another company in the space has shined light on that, and they talked about potential expansion and, yeah, how large the sector is, is that something that you think is a little bit more front and center in the near term, just given some of the heightened awareness for that sector? Does that kind of weigh on the scale equal to some of the other opportunities for future growth? Thank you.

Mark Phelan (President of U.S. Gaming)

Hey, Chad, Mark, good question. That market is a really interesting one. By the way, it was a great outcome for the company that was purchased, Grover. We are friendly with that management team and happy that they were able to realize the value they did. That is a real content market. It is less of a product and service market that we are familiar with. It made a lot of sense for Light & Wonder to purchase them because of the superiority of their content. In terms of Accel participating in that market, we would really have to have a partner who could provide that kind of superior content, and we could complement that with our ground game. It is an interesting market, but it is one where we would have to partner with someone to really participate in.

Chad Beynon (Gaming, Lodging, and Theatre Equity Analyst)

Okay, thanks, Mark. Lastly, if I can sneak in one more, there's been some legislation here in January and February. I think most of it has been around just moving tax rates around. There's been some that would potentially bring in iGaming or sports betting. We haven't seen as much in your sector. Is that something that you think still could come maybe in this legislative session here, kind of early in 2025, that we're just not aware of at this point? Do you think a lot of future expansion in the route market kind of gets pushed into a later period in terms of legislation? Thanks.

Andy Rubenstein (CEO)

Thanks. Yeah, this is Andy. It's something that we are always aware of. We haven't seen any real iGaming legislation bubble up in this legislative session. Inevitably, we'll see it, whether we'll gain any traction. Not as likely as in the past, but I believe it will continue to see iGaming legislation in certain markets. I don't think it's as likely to be in some of the route gaming markets first. I think it's more likely to appear in markets that don't have route gaming or have kind of minimal casino presence. Illinois, with extensive bricks-and-mortar route gaming, I wouldn't say it would be the first market that would pass legislation going forward, nor would Nevada. We're constantly monitoring it. We're trying to educate the legislators that the route gaming market is a much better solution with much more regulation and consumer protection than the iGaming product.

Chad Beynon (Gaming, Lodging, and Theatre Equity Analyst)

Appreciate it. Thanks, Andy.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for your questions. The next question comes from the line of Greg Gibas with Northland. Greg, your line is now open.

Greg Gibas (VP, Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, Andy, Mark, and Matt. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to ask, I guess, if you could speak to the growth opportunities you see in Louisiana. Do you expect to continue to be acquisitive in that market or focus more on organic growth there?

Andy Rubenstein (CEO)

Thanks, Greg. It's Andy. We see it's almost kind of a contradicting market, a mature market, one that's been around for 30+ years, but at the same time, a market that's not that sophisticated and well-developed. You still have an incredibly fragmented market. There are two markets in that that we're looking at in Louisiana. The truck stops, which I think there's like 197 truck stops in the state, and it's still heavily fragmented. Even more fragmented is the bar market, which most bars in the state of Louisiana are utilizing very old legacy equipment, 20+ years old. We see the opportunity to improve our truck stops. We've done pretty well so far. We're evaluating what needs to be done with the routes that we've purchased. I believe that we'll grow organically over time.

The truck stops, as some of the ownership transitions over the next 10 years, one or two a year may be available for us to acquire and grow our presence.

Greg Gibas (VP, Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. That's helpful. One of the follow-ups on Fairmont, I guess, one, could you maybe remind us of the timing of phase two development? I think you already kind of spoke to the uplift you expect to see with maybe phase I being a third of that. I wonder if you could maybe break out what piece relates to the FanDuel component in that. If not, could you maybe break that out?

Mark Phelan (President of U.S. Gaming)

In terms of timing, I think we've got it to sort of end of 2027 for the phase II. As Matt pointed out, we're planning to go live with phase I in Q2. That would give us a little over 2+ years to build a more permanent facility. We're not allowed to break out the annual revenue, but.

Matt Ellis (CFO)

Greg, it's Matt. We can't fully break it out. If you think back to when we announced it, the track was around break-even, maybe making a little. That would sort of imply without just racing, F&B, and the sports book, sort of how the track was doing pre-Racino.

Greg Gibas (VP, Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. That's helpful. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for your questions. At this time, we do not have any further questions registered in the queue. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We will pause here briefly to allow any remaining questions to be registered. At this time, we do not have any further questions registered in the queue. I will turn the call back over to Andy Rubenstein for any final remarks.

Andy Rubenstein (CEO)

Yeah, just wanted to thank everyone for joining us today. We will be connecting with you in about two months. I think the year is off to a really good start. We will be excited to share some of the progress we've made when we talk again in May.

Operator (participant)

That concludes today's call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.