Red Rock Resorts - Earnings Call - Q1 2020
May 19, 2020
Transcript
Speaker 0
Good afternoon and welcome to Red Rock Resorts First Quarter twenty twenty Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Stephen Cudi, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of Red Rock Resorts. Please go ahead.
Speaker 1
Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today on Red Rock Resorts first quarter twenty twenty earnings conference call. We hope that all of you and your families are staying safe and healthy. Joining me on the call today from Red Rock Resorts are Frank Fertitta, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rich Haskins, President Bob Finch, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and Rodotamian, Executive Vice President of Development and Strategy. Before we get started, I'd like to remind everyone that our call today will include forward looking statements under the Safe Harbor provisions of The United States federal securities laws.
Developments and results may differ from those projected. During this call, we will also discuss non GAAP financial measures. For the definitions and complete reconciliation of these figures to GAAP, please refer to our financial tables in our earnings press release and Form eight ks, which were filed this afternoon prior to the call. Also, please note that this call is being recorded. The impact of COVID-nineteen has been swift and severe, and our thoughts and well wishes go out to all those who have been directly or indirectly impacted by this profound crisis.
We'd also like to recognize our and offer a heartfelt thank you to all of our medical professionals and first responders serving on the frontlines of this battle. Most importantly, we would like to thank our team members for their commitment, patience and understanding as we navigate together through this period of uncertainty. As you would expect, this call will be different from the ones we've had before. While we will briefly discuss our first quarter results, most of our time today will be spent reviewing the decisive actions we have taken to prepare for a new operating environment with a focus on health, safety, cost reductions and liquidity. So let's begin with the first quarter.
2020 was off to the front of the strongest start our strongest start since 2008 at our core properties. In January and February, we experienced very solid growth on both the top and bottom lines, carrying over the momentum from Q4 of last year. During the two month period, net revenues at our Las Vegas operations, excluding the Palms, increased 5.5% and adjusted EBITDA, excluding the Palms, increased 9.9. All that changed though in March, with revenues gradually slowing in the first half of the month and then stopping entirely on March 17 when the government of Nevada ordered a statewide shutdown of all nonessential businesses, including casinos in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-nineteen. Similarly, the Great and Resort, which is managed by the company closed on March 17.
What originally began as a thirty day shutdown on March 17 here in Nevada has now been extended to at least May 31, while the shutdown at Grayton Resort has now been extended to at least June 15. When those shutdowns are finally lifted, what our business will look like is highly uncertain, as we have no real visibility regarding the impacts that this crisis will have on our company moving forward. Despite the complete loss of revenue, we have remained committed to supporting our team members and our community during this period On the team member front, just as we did after September 11, we retained our entire team for as long as we could. To that end, we are proud to be have been one of only three companies in Las Vegas that continue to pay all full time team members regular pay and health benefits from the March 17 shutdown date through May 16 at a cost of the company of over $72,000,000 Ultimately though, between the shutdown, the need to reopen our business in phases and the expected impact of the state mandated occupancy and social distancing restrictions, we were forced to lay off a significant portion of our team members.
This was an extremely difficult and painful decision and one we did not take lightly as we understood the impact that it would have on the affected team members and the community. We remain hopeful that Las Vegas and our business will rebound quickly and allow us to rehire many of these valued team members when we reemerge on the other side of this crisis. We are also hopeful the state and federal unemployment safety net together with the extension through September 30 at our expense of health benefits for all those impacted team members with those team members through the worst of this crisis. And for those who are not impacted by layoffs, we've extended their regular pay and benefits through at least the May. We've also maintained our involvement on the community front.
In early April, we were among the first to support the COVID-nineteen Emergency Response Fund by contributing $1,000,000 to purchase personal protective equipment and critical medical supplies, including test kits for those used by first responders and healthcare professionals throughout Nevada. In addition, we have expanded our partnership with Three Square Food Bank during this crisis by donating over 120 pallets of food and allowing our properties to be used for emergency food distribution throughout the Las Vegas Valley. And just today, Clark County began using our Fiesta Henderson property to provide COVID-nineteen testing to residents of the Las Vegas Valley. The good news is that the gradual reopening of Nevada is now underway with Phase one having begun on May 9. While the first phase did not include casinos based on everything we are hearing, we remain hopeful that the casinos will be permitted to reopen in the coming weeks.
And we are also hopeful that Graton Resort will be permitted to open in late by late June or early July. As expected, the loss of revenue beginning in mid March had a substantial negative impact on overall quarter. On a consolidated basis, first quarter net revenues decreased 15.6% to $377,400,000 adjusted EBITDA decreased 48.8% to $74,300,000 and margins decreased twelve seventy seven basis points to 19.7%. With respect to our first quarter Las Vegas operations, net revenues for the quarter decreased 15.6% to $356,500,000 adjusted EBITDA decreased 49.2% to 68,500,000.0 and margins decreased twelve sixty nine basis points to 19.2%. These numbers reflect a number of one time charges related to the impact of COVID-nineteen on our business.
The charges include a $27,000,000 accrual in the quarter related to our commitment to provide regular pay and benefits to all full time team members after quarter end from April 1 to April 30, which was offset in part by an approximate $20,000,000 payroll tax benefit we received under the CARES Act. Let's now turn to what we've been doing during the closure. As noted earlier, we've taken a number of decisive steps to prepare for a new operating environment with a focus on health, safety, cost reductions and liquidity. As recently announced, we will be reopening our properties in phases. First to reopen will be our Red Rock, Green Valley, Santa Fe, Boulder Station, Palace Station, Sunset Station and our Wildfire properties.
You exclude Palms from both 2019 net revenue and EBITDA, these first to reopen properties generated over 80% of our Las Vegas net revenue and over 90% of our Las Vegas EBITDA during that same period. Based upon the anticipated mix of gaming and non gaming revenues of these properties and our dramatically reduced cost structure moving forward, which we'll discuss in a minute, we believe we can reach EBITDA breakeven at 35% to 45% of our overall twenty nineteen ex Palms Las Vegas revenues. As for our other four properties, Palms, Fiesta Henderson, Fiesta Rancho, Texas Station, we will look at reopening these properties once we've had a chance to fully assess how our first three open properties are performing post crisis as well as the recovery of the Las Vegas market and economy as a whole. As we prepare for the reopening of our properties, our number one priority has been and will continue to be the health and well-being of our team members, guests and the entire Las Vegas community. To that end, and working closely with outside medical experts, we have put together a very comprehensive health and cleanliness guidelines for our properties moving forward.
Simply put, we are committed to providing the most safe and secure environment possible for both our team members and guests. Here are a few highlights of what we have planned. All team members are currently undergoing FDA authorized COVID-nineteen testing, which testing will be completed in full prior to reopening and such team members will also be tested at regular intervals thereafter. All guests and team member entrances at our resort properties will be equipped with state of the art thermal scanners. All team members will be required to wear PPE consistent with health authority guidelines and masks will be available to guests upon entering the property.
Touch free hand sanitizing stations will be installed throughout the property. Enhanced cleaning technologies such as electrostatic sprayers and hospital grade disinfectants will be utilized throughout the property. The visibility and frequency of cleaning will be significantly increased throughout the public public areas of the property. And all team members will receive rigorous training on the company's new health and claim standards and protocols. Importantly, our new guidelines will meet or exceed the highest standards by federal, state and local authorities and will be adapted as circumstances require.
When our guests walk through our reopened doors, we want them to know that their health and safety is our first priority. At the same time, we also want our team members to know that these changes will help safeguard their health as well well, as whether interacting with guests or each other. For those who are interested, a copy of these guidelines are available on our website. Another primary focus of the company during this closure was to reexamine and challenge every aspect of those things we can control, including our cost structure. Based upon that review and the uncertain business environment we face going forward, we had to make some very difficult but necessary decisions in order to manage the size of our workforce for expected business levels in addition to instituting other cost mitigation measures that we outlined in a moment.
As we talked about earlier, our plan is to reopen phases. That approach along with the expected impact of state mandated occupancy and social distancing restrictions meant that we had to make meaningful staffing level reductions, both at the property and corporate level. All told, workforce reductions reduced our number of full time team members by just under 40%. In addition to these workforce reductions, we have also taken a number of other proactive steps to streamline our cost structure and reduce cash outflow, including significant salary cuts for senior executives across the company led by Frank and Lorenzo Fortita volunteering to forgo 100% of their salaries for the duration of the crisis, suspending our quarterly dividend, eliminating nonessential CapEx spending for the remainder of the year and reducing general overhead expenses and significantly reducing related costs related to our outside services through the termination or renegotiation of vendor and other agreements. We are confident that these actions will position us as a much leaner and more efficient company that is better able to manage the uncertainty as we move forward.
By the time this exercise is over, we expect to have reduced our operating expenses by approximately $150,000,000 on an annualized run rate basis. Notably, that amount does not include any labor expense savings related to those properties that will not open as part of our first opening phase nor does it include savings related to any amenities that will not be initially provided. But we estimate that those additional labor expenses are approximately $175,000,000 on an annualized run rate basis. That amount would decline to the extent that our closed properties were to come back online or those amenities were to again be provided. These cost mitigation efforts will enhance our already inherently resilient business model as over 60% of our costs are variable in nature.
Importantly, that operational flexibility will allow us to quickly adjust to increases and decreases in business levels as we move into the recovery phase. Our estimated burn rate, including corporate and operating expenses, cash interest expenses pro rated sorry, let's now turn to liquidity. As a precautionary measure, drew down almost the entirety of our $1,000,000,000 credit facility mid March. As of May 18, we had approximately nine fifty million dollars in cash on our balance sheet. As such, we believe that we have ample liquidity to withstand an extended zero revenue environment.
Our estimated cash burn, including corporate and operating expenses, cash interest expenses, prorated principal repayment and prorated CapEx is approximately $49,000,000 a month. Keep in mind that this number includes fully loaded labor costs for our first three open properties and corporate labor expenses. In the event that we are required to continue in or return to an extended zero revenue environment, the vast majority of our continued laboring expenses would fall away and our go forward burn rate could be reduced by to approximately $24,000,000 a month. And that reduced burn rate or current cash current cash on hand will allow us to operate without need for additional capital for over thirty six months in a zero revenue state, giving us one of the longest runways in the gaming industry. In addition, we believe we'll be in a position to continue to comply with all of our financial covenants for the foreseeable future, and we have no significant debt maturities until 2025.
For all these reasons, we believe we will be well positioned financially to handle the uncertain times ahead. Finally, two Native American items. First, as you will recall, our plans to develop the casino in North Fork Drive have been stalled the last several years by litigation brought by opponents of this project. We are pleased to share that the Supreme Court of California has scheduled oral arguments for 06/02/2020 in a very similar case involving Enterprise Tribe, which we hope will result in a decision that clears the way to finally develop this very attractive project on behalf of the North Fork Tribe. Also with respect to the great management agreement, while the extension has not been determined yet, the management agreement does provide for an extension of the term of the agreement as a result of the current shutdown.
Throughout our forty year plus history, we have weathered a lot of challenges and we will weather this one as well. Although these are unprecedented times, we feel very confident in our ability to manage through this crisis and succeed thereafter. Operator, this concludes our prepared remarks for today, and we're now ready to take questions from participants on the call.
Speaker 0
We will now begin the question and answer Our first question comes from Joe Greff with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Speaker 2
Good afternoon, everybody. Steve, thanks for providing us an EBITDA breakeven metric. I just wanted to take that one sort of operating sensitivity a step further. When you think of free cash flow breakeven or free cash flow usual levels as a percentage of prior year revenues, where would you peg that roughly?
Speaker 1
You have when I started at EBITDA breakeven about 35%, you'd add basically 10% to that to cover interest costs.
Speaker 2
Got it. And then when you think about the locals market right now, you have sort of counterbalancing things. You have a large number of retirees whose spend in visitation levels are independent of job security, but then you also have potential for high unemployment for, you know, strict employees that might frequent your local establishment. How do you think about the mix and how sensitive are you to that maybe that latter at risk category?
Speaker 3
Well, look, our business model is, as you know, very different than the Las Vegas Strip. The majority of our revenues do come from the local gaming market. Most of our customers live within three miles of our properties. You are correct that a big portion of our slot revenue does come from retirees and baby boomers that are not necessarily reliant on employment. I think in the short to midterm, the government has definitely been out there bridging employees that don't have jobs right now, which in the short to midterm, we should be okay.
Of course, the long term, the health of the Las Vegas Strip is very important to the health of the overall Las Vegas economy. So we're hopeful that the government unemployment checks and all will be able to bridge to the other side of a good strong recovery on the Las Vegas Strip.
Speaker 2
Great. Thank you for that, Frank. And then, while I have you here, as you sit here now, what do you think the future of the Palms Casino is? I mean, do you reopen or do you keep close and try to monetize yourself later on? How are you presently thinking about that?
Speaker 3
Sure. First, we can dispel the rumors that the Palms is for sale. That is a rumor. It's not correct. The way we're evaluating the foreclosed properties is we felt that we took a very hard look at how much of our customer database we can cover in Phase one and be most efficient as possible to generate as much revenue as possible, right?
So the tourist part of the recovery is going to lag the recovery in the local gaming market, which we think we should be able to lead the recovery in the local gaming market given the geographic distribution of our properties, the quality of our properties and frankly, the quality of our team members who are so important to have relationships with the repeat customers in our business that typically come to our properties three plus times a week. The Palms will be reopened based on what we see from initial demand with the six properties and then what we're able to see in terms of tourists coming back to Las Vegas, how the Strip is doing and everything else. But our plan is to reopen the Palms, but it's going to be dependent on what we see in the marketplace.
Speaker 2
Thank you.
Speaker 0
The next question is from Carlo Santarelli with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Speaker 4
Hey guys, thank you. And Steve, thanks so
Speaker 5
much for all the color that
Speaker 4
you provided in the opening remarks. If I could, just in terms of how you're thinking about the six assets that you will open and in terms of how you guys would kind of position the headwinds, I. E, the what keeps you up at night a little bit more. Is there tremendous concern or any concern at all about kind of the stipulations around social distancing in it? Or are you more thinking about this as what's going on in the local economy?
And even with some supply taken out of the market, what's the demand curve look like?
Speaker 3
Look, I think there is definitely unknowns. We're not sure what this is exactly going to look like on the other side. I think some of the new guidelines definitely will have friction in terms of the customer experience. We have gone out and done quite a bit of research with our customers. And I can tell you that about 80% of them were very positive about returning to visit our properties within two weeks of reopening.
But we also learned that they're very concerned about safety and health. And that's why we have gone to the greatest lengths that possibly could in terms of testing all of our team members, installing thermal cameras at all of our entrances and trying to reduce the amount of friction to the most that we possibly could to make for a good guest experience. There is going to be social distancing and there is going to be capacity restraints in terms of how many people you can have in a restaurant or casino floor. We're going to frankly have to work through that. And hopefully, as we get more testing and information, we'll see that the disease is under control and slowly but surely be able to return to a normal operating environment.
Speaker 4
Great. That's helpful. And then Steve, if I could just double back to the comments on the cash burn. I just want to make sure I understood fully what you were saying. The $49,000,000 a month run rate with fully loaded labor cost that includes wildfire and the six other casinos, that's a $49,000,000 just expense run rate with those properties open.
But then you went on to say that if in fact those properties remain closed, you would then that would then drop to a $24,000,000 So implying that the labor aspects and the aspects of opening those properties again adds $25,000,000 revenue agnostic. Is that correct?
Speaker 1
That's right. But in addition, I just want make sure that it's clear that that doesn't include just labor. There's also OpEx, interest costs and CapEx. Yes. That's correct.
From the 49,000,000 to $24,000,000 effectively that implies about $20,000,000 of labor would fall away.
Speaker 4
Understood. Okay, great. Thank you both very much.
Speaker 0
The next question is from Barry Jonas with SunTrust. Please go ahead.
Speaker 6
Hey, guys. Any sense what the promotional environment could be as the casinos reopen? I just want to get a sense if you think it will be elevated given potentially less demand or if folks will be more focused on costs and margins? Thanks.
Speaker 3
Look, I think this is a very unique situation and a very unique environment. And fortunately or unfortunately, we all find ourselves in a similar situation all at the exact same time. And while we have been had been focused on eliminating redundant marketing expenses and being more efficient in our marketing spend, I mean, the crisis has definitely accelerated and made us much more focused on what a reopened business would look like. And the fact that we're going to have to be much more disciplined in what's important to our customers. And we believe the market is going to be rational because it's going to have to be that way for people to survive in this new environment.
So I don't know if you have anything to add to that,
Speaker 1
Steve or No, think that was perfect, Frank.
Speaker 6
Great. And last quarter, we talked a little bit about exploring land sales. Presumably, the world is a lot different now. But where is that those process is? Is that something you're still entertaining?
Or is the market just turned and that's on hold?
Speaker 3
No. Look, I think we have gotten some fairly good traction on several of the pieces of land that we have. We have a significant amount of value in undeveloped real estate. And we were making pretty good progress. But as you know, in this environment, everybody's pretty much gone on pause, I think, until people see what happens in the economy and where things settle out.
So we're hopeful if things get going again and everything, we can restart that process.
Speaker 6
Great. And then last one for me. As we
Speaker 0
think
Speaker 6
about reopening strategies and likely reduced gaming supply for social distancing and reduced occupancy, maybe just talk about what the impact ultimately to gaming could be given the fact, I'm guessing you're not at 100% on your gaming floor. Maybe just help frame what a reduced supply ultimately could translate to on the revenue line item.
Speaker 3
Look, let's go through it a little bit. I think that in the slot department, we're going to be reduced to 50% of capacity. I think the reality of getting over 50% capacity is really a peak period short window situation. So I think for the most part on slot machines, you typically have people social distancing anyway. We have pretty good sized casino floors and slot operations.
I think when you come to table games, which is more labor intensive and you cut the occupancy down to say three positions per table, I think we're going to be a little bit more challenged on table games to actually be profitable there. We're going to do our best. And then I think when you look at restaurants and bars and things like that again, it's going to be a bit more challenging. The restaurant business is a very firm margin business at the end of the day. And to be reduced to 50% capacity in restaurants and bars is not going to be helpful.
But I think the good news is that our primary profit generator, which is slot machines, other than short periods of time on peak occupancy, we should be okay.
Speaker 6
That's really helpful. Thank you so much, guys.
Speaker 0
The next question is from Harry Curtis with Instinet. Please go ahead.
Speaker 7
Hello, everyone. Just a couple of follow-up questions on the same issues. Can you go back to the mix? Maybe it would be helpful to get a sense of what percentage of your frequent player cards or card system you believe would be retirees and maybe less exposed to the risk of job loss?
Speaker 1
Harry, just for competitive reasons we're not going to go parse the database on the call.
Speaker 7
I mean can you give us a sense of a broad brush? I'm not I guess where I'm going with this and this is I mean, might be encouraging or is there anything encouraging that would lead you to believe that the mix of your business is more retirees or ex retirees that are less likely to be hunkering down more? I'm giving you an opportunity to
Speaker 1
No, I understand Harry. So yes, think a large chunk of our database is boomers and retirees. And we feel those folks are fairly insulated from the downturn.
Speaker 7
All right. You mentioned how well you guys were doing across the portfolio ex PoNS in January and February. Can you give us some perspective on how the Palms was doing relative to not only your expectations but also the last couple of quarters? And what were the what were you What trends were moving in the right directions so that we can get a sense of when it does reopen, how that what the expectations ought to be?
Speaker 1
Sure. I mean, I break down the Palms and again, we've disclosed the numbers in the past. And so from a revenue perspective, we had about $37,000,000 in net revenue in the quarter, which we thought was pretty good. On the EBITDA front, actually EBITDA upright negative $487,000,000 But what you have to take into consideration when you adjust for negative hold, we actually showed a positive EBITDA of $1,800,000 for those first two months. So we were trending in a very positive manner.
Speaker 7
Got it. And my last question is can you speak to amenities that really weren't all that profitable that could be slow to come back. And at the end of the day, it actually could lead to a higher margin on a lower comparable level of gaming revenue.
Speaker 3
Sure. I mean, for one, we will be opening none of our buffets. Buffets did generate traffic, but they were definitely loss leaders. Those will not be operating in Phase one as well as some other specialty restaurants. So we're going to narrow it down to basically the restaurants that were the most popular and have the most throughput.
We're going to leave some of the other ones unopened in Phase one. We're not going to open poker rooms in Phase one. We just didn't think it made sense with only three players per table or so that, that would be a profitable venture. So that will be on hold. And then movie theaters, which actually are good for our business, those are going to probably lag what would be a Phase one opening only because I don't think there's a lot of product out there right now, Harry.
So we're going to have to wait for the distribution of the movie houses to have good product out there that people want to go see.
Speaker 7
Got it. All right. That's helpful and good luck. Thank you, everyone.
Speaker 0
The next question is from Jared Shojaian with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.
Speaker 8
Hi, good afternoon everyone. Thanks for taking my question. So you touched on Graton a little bit, but can you just talk more thinking about the November expiration date, the opportunity to extend that, how you're thinking about that?
Speaker 1
Well, I mentioned in the remarks, right, we know it's going to be extended due to the closure, but at this time, we don't know the length of that extension.
Speaker 8
Okay. Thank you. And then you talked about the 35% to 45% of ex Palms revenue to get to breakeven. You've taken out a lot of costs, some of which will come back as demand returns. Do you have a sense for how much of prior peak revenue you need to get back to the prior EBITDA level?
Because presumably some of these costs are true permanent reductions. Is that a fair way to think about it?
Speaker 1
Yes, that's right. But as I mentioned on the call, I'd say about $150,000,000 we would view as pretty permanent.
Speaker 8
Okay. Thank you. And I guess just one last one for me. Has your thinking on the sale leaseback model changed at all whether you have a more favorable, less favorable view of it after this crisis? How are you thinking about that?
Speaker 1
I think arguably, it's just another way to raise capital. I think the fortunate thing unlike 02/2008, all capital markets are open to the company, whether it's the debt markets or equity markets. I think the positive here throughout this crisis and what we've learned is we own all our real estate. So we as a company have maximum flexibility in what to do with it.
Speaker 8
Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 0
The next question is from Chad Beynon with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Speaker 9
Hi, afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Against the competitive Las Vegas locals market during the last downturn. Can you talk about how your, I guess, Phase one portfolio performed against that group? Just looking for if you gained some market share.
And then secondarily on that, and I think I know the answer, but was it more of just kind of a spend per visitor situation where you actually were getting the visits, your customer just was coming with a smaller wallet? Thanks.
Speaker 1
You're going back to 02/2008? In 02/2008, I think your second point is absolutely correct in terms of I'll have to go back and take this offline in terms of how those companies actually those individual six properties performed during the crisis and get back to Chad.
Speaker 9
Okay. On the Red Rock's refurb, could you give us I don't know if I missed this an update in terms of where that is from a spend standpoint and just a finishing standpoint?
Speaker 1
Well, it's complete. It's just waiting now for a guest to occupy them. We have probably about $8,000,000 retainage left to spend, but the work has been done.
Speaker 9
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0
The next question is from Shaun Kelley with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Speaker 10
Hi, good afternoon everybody. Just two quick ones. Steve, you mentioned on the Graydon extension, but could you just let us know, is it really just a what's the mechanic? Is it a just a kind of a extension based on the amount of time that the property is closed kind of thing? Is that the basic idea of it?
You just don't know how long it's going to remain closed? Or how does the mechanic work? If you can share.
Speaker 3
Yes. I'm going to have Jeff Welch, our General Counsel, answer that question for you.
Speaker 11
Hi, Sean. The management agreement provides that the period of the closure will effectively measure what the business was doing when it closed and does it get back to substantially all of the business that it was doing prior to closure. So it's actually not a defined period that could be measured by date of closing to date of reopening to determine the extension.
Speaker 10
Great. So if I'm understanding it correctly, then that actually means that it's almost like a business interruption style kind of make whole for the amount that you would have been making in that period that was lost, am I understanding that correctly?
Speaker 11
I'm not sure I would characterize it as working exactly that way. I think you should think about the closure effectively being ending at the time when the Graton resort gets back to the level that it
Speaker 3
was operating before it closed. Basically, when it gets back to substantially able to operate the facility the way it was operated before.
Speaker 10
Okay. Understood. Thank you for the extra detail on that. And then a second question, and it's fairly high level, I think you've tackled this in a few different ways. But just broadly, could you speak maybe about during your experience during the last downturn, what does tend to happen out there on the strip and we've seen I think some major operators already removing things like parking fees and whatnot.
Or do you expect to see some enhanced competition from the strip for some of the marginal local dollars? And just maybe a sense of how that played out, how successful some of those initiatives were or were not during 02/2008, 02/2009? You probably saw some very similar behaviors back then as well.
Speaker 3
Yes. I mean, look, we've been doing this for over forty years. And it's no secret that from time to time, whatever the Strip decides to try to go after local business. And it's not to say that locals never go down to the Strip, they do once in a while. But the reality is local gaming is based on number one, convenience number two, the quality of the product.
Our product is specifically designed to cater local customers' ingress, egress, convenient parking, the way the slot floors are laid out, the value of the slot floor, value proposition. And most importantly, these are repeat customers. They want people to know them, recognize them, know what they want. And that's why our team members are really our most valuable thing that we have. They're the most valuable asset that we have.
And that's why we have gone to extra lengths to keep our team members on that have the relationships with all these customers. I can tell you, I know when I go places, and I'm sure you guys do as well, you go to where you recognize and people take care of you and they know you and it's convenient and it's the same thing here. So I mean, we're in the suburbs. Our primary customers live within three miles of where we are. So I would not anticipate any material change.
Speaker 10
Thank you, everyone.
Speaker 0
The next question is from Stephen Grambling with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Speaker 5
Thank you. Two quick follow ups. First, I realized it's perhaps early to fully think through this, but how do the recent events alter your thinking about the right capitalization of the business in a more normalized environment? Do you generally anticipate holding more or less cash and or carrying less levels of leverage?
Speaker 3
Look, think it's apparent to everyone that unforeseen events mean that you need to have flexibility and you need to have runway and less leverage is better and more flexibility is better. I mean
Speaker 5
Fair enough. And then second, what are you watching to get comfortable with to open the Palms relative to the other assets? Is there a specific milestone related to visitation on the strip or more the read from those other properties and your ability to get your other properties and your ability to get higher value players?
Speaker 3
It's going to be number one dependent on what we see at the six properties, what we see in terms of profitability at the six properties. And we will be looking at whether we think we can be profitable on any additional properties that we reopen. I think that's going to be the metric.
Speaker 1
Fair enough. Thanks so much.
Speaker 0
The next question is from John DeCree with Union Gaming. Please go ahead.
Speaker 12
Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Steve, I think you've answered this one a couple of different ways, but to ask it a little bit more directly perhaps. When you think about getting revenue back to 35% and breaking even on EBITDA, how are you thinking about the flow through beyond that 35%? Is there kind of a range?
It probably depends on mix and what amenities are open, but is there a like broad range that you're thinking about for flow through?
Speaker 1
I mean I think in the past we've given 50% to 70%. We expect a little bit higher. But you've answered your own question really. I mean a lot of it's going to depend on how the business opens once we Yes. Open up the revenue from where the revenue
Speaker 12
Fair enough. That's helpful. And lastly, you've talked about the $20,000,000 receivable from the CARES Act and it may be a little soon and probably still waiting for some guidance. But have you been able to quantify any additional benefits that you might get from CARES Act in the future?
Speaker 1
Yes. Think the CARES Act has been very helpful for us. We expect to get, if all goes well, another additional $15,000,000 through the payroll retention. There's also the ability to defer about $10,000,000 what I would call from FICA, from a FICA excuse me, FICA. And then we also have QIP came back.
As you know, that was we were a big beneficiary of that for the Palms. There was a technical correction in the bill and the CARES Act that allowed us to get another $28,000,000 related to the acceleration of depreciation. And then there's also adjustable taxable income deductible moved from 30% to 50%. So those main four benefits are the big ones right now.
Speaker 12
Great. Thanks, Stephen. Good luck on the reopening everyone.
Speaker 1
This
Speaker 0
concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Stephen Coote for any closing remarks.
Speaker 1
Thank you everyone for joining us and please stay healthy and safe and look forward to hearing from you talking to you again in ninety days. Take care.
Speaker 0
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.