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Selected Results: 2017 Corporate Governance Survey of Red Rock Shareholders

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Following shareholder discontent at Red Rock’s annual meeting this July, in which 9% to 16% of equity holders withheld from the directors, we decided to survey Red Rock investors about their corporate governance issues. The survey this year measured shareholder sentiment toward Red Rock’s takeover defenses and features of its board of directors. We believe these topics are particularly important following another year of strong M&A activity in the gaming industry.

Despite the dissatisfaction expressed by shareholders and the negative voting recommendations from Institutional Shareholder Services for Red Rock’s entire board of directors surrounding the 2017 annual meeting, the company has not announced plans to remove, sunset, or put to a vote its takeover defenses. Nor has the company done anything to resolve its problematic board structure, which ISS gave its highest governance risk rating of 10 (as of June 19, 2017).[i]

The results of our survey reveal shareholder respondents expressed consensus for a hybrid format for the annual general meeting, took issue with the dual-class capital structure and other takeover defenses, and shared their preference for a more diverse board, an independent board chair, and their doubt regarding shareholder representation on the board.

See the selected results of the corporate governance survey below:

supervoting

preferred-stock tra supermajority written-consent special-meetings agms board-diversity independent-chair shareholder-representation

Notes

[i] Institutional Shareholder Services, “Proxy Alert: Red Rock Resorts, Inc.,” June 19, 2017, original publication date June 16, 2017, p. 1.

Dividends on Your Second-Class Red Rock Shares? Don’t Count on It

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Red Rock Resorts says they “intend to pay quarterly cash dividends” to Class A shareholders “initially equal to $0.10 per share” starting in 3Q16. For an investor buying second-class shares in a company facing stagnant growth and market contraction, dividends are perhaps the only upside. But how likely is it that Red Rock will pay dividends at the promised level? Will it have enough free cash flow to pay dividends? We take a closer look.

Red Rock has a number of obligations that must be met before it can pay dividends to Class A shareholders. The first obligation stems from the indebtedness of Red Rock’s affiliate, Station Casinos LLC. According to Red Rock’s S-1/A filing on April 15, 2016:

The existing debt agreements of Station LLC limit the ability of Station LLC to make distributions to Station Holdco, which effectively restricts the ability of Station Holdco to distribute sufficient funds to permit Red Rock to pay dividends to its stockholders.

On a consolidated basis, Red Rock had total long-term debt of $2.16 billion as of December 31, 2015. The company estimates that in 2016, following the public offering, it will be required to pay $209 million in principal and interest payments on this indebtedness.

The company will also have to spend a significant amount of cash flow on maintenance capital expenditures every year. For 2016, Station Casinos expects to spend “approximately $100 million to $125 million” on capex. From 2013 to 2015, capital expenditures consisted “primarily of various renovation projects at our properties, information technology equipment purchases and slot machine purchases.”

After debt obligations and maintenance capex, Station Casinos or its direct parent Station Holdco can make distributions to its members. We remind you again that Red Rock will have only one-third economic interest in Station Casinos, so any distributions upstream made will primarily go to pre-IPO owners who stay on after the IPO. And these LLC distributions will include payments to cover LLC members’ income taxes.

In addition, after Red Rock receives its one-third distributions from Station Casinos, it is required to make payments under the tax receivable agreement (TRA) to pre-IPO owners equal to 85% of its tax benefits. The company estimates it will owe a maximum aggregate payment of $28.1 to $59.0 million under the TRA, although we have seen how TRA liabilities can dramatically increase after an IPO.

For some historical perspective, let’s take a look at Station Casinos’ dividends the last time it was a public company. The following table compares Station Casinos’ historic dividends with Red Rock’s proposed dividends.

Station Casinos, Inc. Dividends vs. Red Rock Resorts Proposed Dividends

Year Annual Dividends Prior Year EBITDA

(millions)

 Total Dividend Payments (millions) Total Dividend Payments/Prior Year EBITDA
2004 $0.69 295.2 $44.3 15.0%
2005 $0.92 385.4 $62.6 16.2%
2006 $1.08 480.9 $65.4 13.6%
Red Rock (proposed) $0.40 $451.4 (2015) $15.4 3.4%

*Station Casinos paid no dividends from 1993-2002 and only two quarterly dividends in 2003.

Red Rock’s proposed 10 cent quarterly dividend at the midpoint of its pricing range ($19.50) equates to around a 2% dividend yield. For those looking for a dividend play, there are plenty of companies with higher dividend yields. Furthermore, Red Rock’s dividend as a percentage of EBITDA is significantly lower than what Station Casinos used to pay out before. Red Rock’s proposed dividend is only 3.4% of 2015 EBITDA, whereas Station Casinos paid an average 15.0% of prior-year EBITDA in dividends from 2004 to 2006.

With questionable prospects for growth and poor corporate governance, investors in the Red Rock IPO might want to look to dividends for a reason to invest in Red Rock. But, as a result of its other obligations, there is no certainty the company will be able to pay dividends at a level that satisfies public shareholders.

Red Rock Resorts is a Second-Class Gaming IPO

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Download our unauthorized roadshow presentation and presentation notes here.

Investors who buy Red Rock’s second-class shares on offer will gain a minority (33%) stake in the once-bankrupt Las Vegas casino and tavern operator, Station Casinos. The terms of the offering beg questions about company insiders’ confidence in its long-term prospects.

Prospective investors should ask management the following questions:

Should new shareholders expect significant dilution soon after the IPO thanks to Deutsche Bank’s expected exit? After the IPO, Deutsche Bank owns 16.2-18% of the company after selling very few shares in the current offering. The German lender, which is also an underwriter of this IPO, has been selling off its non-core assets at a loss, including a Las Vegas Strip resort and a New Jersey port operator as it continues to deal with its capital and regulatory challenges. Will it sell off its large Station Casinos/Red Rock stake immediately after the 180-day lock-up period, which may even be waived by Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan as underwriters?

Why is Red Rock paying $460 million in cash to insiders to internalize management with the Fertitta Entertainment acquisition? Red Rock’s prospectus does not present any specific potential benefits of this proposed transaction, yet the price represents (1) 20% of the $2.3-billion IPO valuation of Station Casinos’ equity at the mid-point of its offering price range; (2) 8.7x TTM management fees instead of the 1x TTM management fees for a potential termination of the Fertitta Entertainment management agreements covering at least 13 of 19 casinos; and (3) 31x our estimate of Fertitta Entertainment’s 2015 pro forma EBITDA of about $14.8 million. Even though it did not complete a $300-million dividend recapitalization last spring, Station Casinos has paid out over $477 million to its existing owners from 2013 through April 2016, before consummating this pricy acquisition.

How confident is management in Red Rock’s growth prospects? The Las Vegas locals market, which made up over 90% of Red Rock’s total EBITDA in 2015, has been contracting in terms of total amount wagered and number of slot units, and gaming revenue at the company’s Las Vegas operations grew at an annual compounded rate of only 1.4% from 2012 to 2015. The company has even listed hard-to-come-by potential casino sites in Nevada for sale. As for its tribal business, the company has not signed any new tribal gaming development or management agreements since 2004. Its two current contracts are due to expire in 2018 and 2020, with only one more project in development.

If the Fertitta family is cashing out, why should investors buy Red Rock’s second-class shares with uncertain prospects for dividends? The Fertitta family’s Class B Red Rock shares with 10:1 voting power make the Class A Red Rock shares second-class shares in more ways than one. Furthermore, a lopsided tax receivable agreement without a hard cap on future payments to pre-IPO owners will lead to uncertainty about Red Rock’s future free cash flow and its ability to pay dividends to Red Rock’s second-class shareholders.

It is alarming that potential investors in Red Rock’s second-class IPO are being asked to buy out an insider management company at a high, $460-million valuation, instead of paying down company debt or funding new growth initiatives. Data on the ground in Las Vegas show tepid growth in Red Rock’s core business, underscoring the contrast between an IPO that strengthens a gaming company’s finances and one that drains funds to buy a related-party management company, like Red Rock.

See more of our analysis of the Red Rock Resorts/Station Casinos IPO:

 

 

The Tax Receivable Agreement of the Red Rock Resorts IPO

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Read our in-depth analysis of the tax receivable agreement here.

Investors should demand a cap on the TRA payments to protect themselves and Red Rock Resorts against potentially unlimited exposure and draining of the company’s cash.

Tax receivable agreements are criticized by experts. TRAs found in IPOs are frequently criticized for benefiting pre-IPO owners at the expense of the public company and outside shareholders. Moreover, TRAs have been promoted by corporate tax firms as a way to monetize tax attributes for the
pre-IPO owners during an IPO even though such agreements “are not fully understood by public stockholders.”

What are the terms of the Red Rock Resorts TRA? Red Rock Resorts will be required to pay pre-IPO owners a yet-to-be-disclosed, “substantial” amount of money for the tax benefits it realizes from acquiring partnership interests in Station Holdco LLC. The January 14th amended S-1 filing states that the public corporation will pay pre-IPO owners 85% of its tax benefits in cash and keep only 15% for itself. The 15-plus year agreement will not be based on continued ownership by the pre-IPO owners and the Fertittas, who will be the controlling shareholders after the IPO, can cause Red Rock Resorts to accelerate the TRA payments at any moment.

TRA payment liabilities can increase after the IPO. An examination of other companies which have gone public with similar TRAs reveals that estimates made at the time of an IPO commonly increase, exceeding the company’s IPO proceeds and annual EBITDA. Red Rock Resorts admits its calculations will be “imprecise” and there is no guarantee the company will realize the tax benefits it is paying to insiders. Furthermore, the company discloses that payments made under the agreement will spur additional payments to insiders and may significantly impact the liquidity of the company.

Investors deserve more information and protection. Red Rock Resorts should provide justification for the 85%-15% split, clear estimates of the annual and lump-sum payments to the pre-IPO owners, and disclosures regarding how the payments will affect free cash flow and capital expenditures. Furthermore, prospective investors should demand a cap on Red Rock Resorts’ TRA payments to the Fertittas and other pre-IPO owners to avoid potentially outsized or even unlimited exposure in the future.

See more of our analysis of the Red Rock Resorts/Station Casinos IPO:

What is the Red Rock Resorts IPO?

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Download our unauthorized roadshow, “Red Rock Resorts: A Second-Class IPO”.

Red Rock Resorts, Inc. is not planning to use IPO proceeds to grow through either asset purchase or new development. It is not planning to reduce its overall indebtedness with the IPO proceeds. Instead, concurrent with the IPO, it is paying out a large sum to insiders in an “internalization” deal that will not generate any new revenues. It is not even planning to buy out the ownership stake held by Deutsche Bank.

Highlights from the report:

  • RRR to pay insiders $460 million to buy zero new revenue. The $460-million price tag of the Fertitta Entertainment acquisition is 8.9 times the trailing-12-month management fee the firm receives from Station Casinos. The non-insider cost for acquiring Fertitta Entertainment should be closer to $52 million, not $460 million because its management agreement covering 13 of the 19 managed properties provides for a termination fee of 1x TTM management fee upon third-party sale of the properties. And existing Fertitta Entertainment executives and corporate employees will stay on and become directly employed by RRR. Moreover, Fertitta Entertainment, whose only existing business is to manage Station Casinos properties, will not generate any revenues after the acquisition, which effectively “internalizes” management. The planned $460-million payout follows payments of over $1.25 billion to the Fertittas and other company insiders over the past decade. If the Fertittas are confident in the future of Station Casinos, why aren’t they taking further equity in the company instead of cashing out?
  • RRR is letting insiders cash out substantial funds through the IPO instead of reducing debt, funding growth or simplifying risks. A Fidelity fund’s filing implies that it valued Station Casinos’ equity value at approximately $1.12 billion at the end of August. This means that the $460 million to be paid for Fertitta Entertainment would equal approximately 41% of RRR’s equity based on this value. Why are the Fertittas choosing to take the new IPO money out of the company rather than strengthen its financial condition or improve its growth prospects?
  • RRR is not planning to buy out Deutsche Bank as an owner, which poses licensing risks because Deutsche Bank has a criminal affiliate. Red Rock Resorts makes it clear that Deutsche Bank is not selling all of its 25% in the company. But RRR has not disclosed the bank’s recent and mounting regulatory problems: a bank subsidiary recently pled guilty to felony wire fraud, the bank itself paid a record $2.519 billion in fines to the U.S. Treasury and world financial regulators, and Deutsche is still under ongoing criminal investigations. These regulatory problems, which are not disclosed in the registration filings, could have implications for RRR shareholders because the company primarily operates in the highly regulated Nevada gaming industry.
  • RRR’s Class A shares will be second-class shares with negligible votes and unclear prospects for dividends. The company will remain controlled by the Fertittas after the IPO. While the family will sell a portion of their equity interest in the offering, they will enjoy 10:1 super voting rights for the foreseeable future, while new public shareholders’ prospects for dividends may be hamstrung by the company’s debt restrictions and tax-benefit obligations that limit Holdco’s ability to pay dividends to the new public company. Moreover, the cost of dual class shares was recently illustrated in hospitality when Marriott prevailed in a contest to acquire Starwood Hotels over a company whose shares had disparate voting rights.
  • How confident are RRR and its controlling shareholders in the company’s core Las Vegas locals business if they are selling valuable casino sites? The company has disclosed in its registration filings that it is selling potential casino sites in spite of the “legal limitations that restrict the development of additional off-Strip gaming properties.” Those sales listings, coupled with a substantial transfer of cash from the company to the Fertittas in this IPO beg the question: Do the Fertittas and the company they control have confidence in its core Las Vegas “locals” business, which provides over 90% of its net revenue?

See more of our analysis of the Red Rock Resorts/Station Casinos IPO: