Operator News
US – Golden Entertainment looking to evolve customer base at The Strat
By Phil - 12 May 2023
Golden Entertainment is looking to appeal to a new customer base to the Strat in Las Vegas with a $30m investment to upgrade rooms to attract customers from conventions, F1 in November, and the Super Bowl next February.
The work will see the renovation of 537 rooms and pool at The STRAT, with the expected completion date of the second quarter. The annoucement came as it delivered another month of record revenues.
Golden CEO and Chairman Blake Sartini said: “Our business trends to start this year are encouraging and we anticipate capitalizing on the strength of Las Vegas in 2023 and beyond. We still see a lot of potential for improvement at The Strat. For the full year of 2022, we’re still missing 144,000 midweek room nights relative to 2019 when the property maintained occupancy close to 90 per cent. This implies more than $30 million in additional revenue and almost $20m in (adjusted earnings) based on current midweek room rates, guest spend, and margin flow through.”
generated revenues of $278.1m for the first quarter of 2023 increased two per cent from $273.6m for the first quarter of 2022.
Mr. Sartini, added: “In the first quarter we were able to grow revenue but elevated costs relative to last year continued to impact our Adjusted EBITDA. During the quarter, we announced the sale of our distributed gaming businesses in both Nevada and Montana, which will allow us to focus on investing in our wholly-owned casino assets and growing our tavern portfolio in Nevada. We expect the sale of our distributed gaming businesses to close by the end of 2023 and continue to expect the previously announced sale of our Rocky Gap property in Maryland to close by the end of June. Most of the sales proceeds from these transactions will further reduce leverage, which will position us well to continue investing in our owned properties, accelerate capital returns to shareholders and pursue future strategic initiatives.”
Net income for the first quarter of 2023 was $11.6m, or $0.38 per fully diluted share, compared to net income of $36.1m, or $1.12 per fully diluted share, for the first quarter of 2022. First quarter 2023 Adjusted EBITDA was $62.2m, compared to Adjusted EBITDA of $67.3m for the first quarter of 2022.
During the quarter the operator also opened one new gaming tavern in April, agreed to acquire six additional gaming taverns
