A convergence of troubles — a subpar Lake Tahoe ski season, Indiana flooding prompted by a rising Ohio River and debt-resolution costs —combined to widen Full House Resorts’ first-quarter loss from a year earlier.
In a statement Friday, Las Vegas-based Full House, which has properties in Nevada, Mississippi, Colorado and Indiana, said its net loss was $4.3 million, or 20 cents per diluted share, for the three months ended March 31, compared with a loss of $600,000 or 3 cents per diluted share, a year earlier.
With the per-share loss, Full House missed the average 1-cent-per-share profit analysts polled by Yahoo Finance had forecast. Full House said a $2.7 million loss related to debt refinancing hurt results.
Full House has reported a wider loss for two straight quarters. thestreet.com rates the stock “D+” or “sell.”
First-quarter adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a measure of cash flow, shrank to $3 million from $4.6 million. Weather problems and higher health and benefit costs prompted the EBITDA drop, the company said.
First-quarter revenue fell 4.3 percent to $37.9 million from $39.6 million, missing the $41.5 million estimate of Yahoo Finance-polled analysts.
Results aside, Full House CEO Dan Lee expressed optimism. In a statement accompanying the results, he said March was the strongest month in 10 years for Full House’s Silver Slipper hotel-casino in Bay St. Louis, Missouri, and that revenue rose at Full House’s Bronco Billy’s hotel-casino in Cripple Creek, Colorado.
Also, Lee said, Full House refinanced its debt and used a private stock sale to raise money to expand.
“We made significant progress in the quarter in strengthening our company and working towards our long-term growth plans,” he said.
Despite a strong March, Full House said the Silver Slipper’s first-quarter revenue fell 1.2 percent to $16.5 million from a year earlier. Icy roads and snow early in the quarter hurt results, the company said.
Revenue at the company’s Rising Star hotel-casino in Rising Star, Indiana, fell 8 percent to $11.2 million as Ohio River flooding shut down access roads and forced the hotel-casino to close for several days.
As Lee said, revenue at Bronco Billy’s was a bright spot, rising 5.1 percent to $6.2 million from a year earlier.
Net revenue in the company’s northern Nevada casinos, the Grand Lodge in Incline Village and Stockman’s in Fallon, fell 18 percent. The company blamed a loss of skiing business, adding that snowpack in mountains around Lake Tahoe was at 29 percent of normal at the end of February and 78 percent of normal in March.
During the quarter, Full House said its plans to expand Bronco Billy’s received unanimous backing from both the Creek Historic Preservation Commission and Cripple Creek City Council. Lee said he expects final approvals for the project to come in June and take effect in July.
Lee said the company has started demolishing buildings on the site to enable future construction, which he expects to start when approvals are final. A new parking garage will go up in the project’s first phase, Lee said. The second phase will include building a new hotel and spa along with convention and entertainment space.
Lee gave neither cost estimates nor construction dates for the project, but said he expects completion in 2020.
Lee also said Full House worked to secure permits to build access roads for its ferry boat service in Boone County, Kentucky, across the river from the company’s under-renovation Rising Star. Lee didn’t say how much the renovation or road building would cost.
