RCI Hospitality Holdings Inc (RICK) 2016 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to the RCI Hospitality Holdings FY16 fourth-quarter and year-end conference call and webcast.

(Operator Instructions)

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Gary Fishman, who handles Investor Relations for RCI. Please begin.

Thank you, Tim. Please everybody let's start by turning to slide 2. Thank you. I want to remind everybody of our Safe Harbor Statement, posted at the beginning of our conference call presentation. Remind you that you may hear or see forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties, I urge you to read it. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated, and we disclaim any obligation to update information disclosed in this call as a result of developments which occur afterward.

Please turn to slide 3. I also direct you to the explanation of non-GAAP measurements that we use, and that are included in our presentation and news release. Finally, I'd like to invite everyone in the New York City area to join us at Rick's Cabaret in New York tonight at 6:00 to meet management at Manhattan's number one gentlemen's club, and then to tour our new sister club, Hoops Cabaret & Sports Bar next door.

Rick's Cabaret in New York is at 50 West 33rd Street, that's between Fifth Avenue and Broadway, around the corner from the Empire State Building. If you haven't RSVPed, ask for me at the door. Now I'm pleased to introduce Eric Langan, President and CEO of RCI Hospitality.

Thank you, and thanks for joining us today. Good afternoon, everyone. If you'll please turn to slide 4.

After the market closed, we announced fourth quarter and year-end results. On a GAAP basis for the quarter, we earned $0.04 per share. For the year, we earned $1.10, compared to $0.90 last year. Keep in mind that these results include a number of fourth-quarter net charges, most of which are related to the expansion of our capital allocation strategy, as we had announced in October.

Adjusting our results for these and other items, on a non-GAAP basis, we experienced a strong fourth-quarter performance. EPS came in at $0.31 per share, approximately 47% higher than the $0.21 we did last year. For the year, we earned $1.32 per share compared to $1.35 last year. This reflects lower comparisons in the first half of FY16, and a rebound in the second half.

Even more important, we exceeded our free cash flow target for the year, generating $3.8 million in the fourth quarter, and $20.5 million for the year. As a result of the first full-year implementation of our capital allocation strategy, we ended FY16 in great shape. We are on track for improved revenues, margins, and profits in FY17 as well as baseline free cash flow run rate of $18 million. In addition, we have continued to apply our capital allocation strategy, as evidenced by our ongoing share buybacks in the first quarter of FY17.

If you'll please turn to slide 5, our focus at RCI is growing free cash flow per share, thus our capital allocation is critical. For those of you new to RCI, I'd like to take a minute to review the capital allocation strategy we put in place a year ago. We've updated this slide for our lower share count due to buybacks, and the pay down of convertible debt.

We have two major uses of our free cash flow. One is buying back shares. For example, at $14, where the stock price has traded recently, buying back shares generates an after-tax yield on free cash flow of 13%. We consider this yield risk-free, since we are buying our own assets, which we know very well.

Two is buying or opening new units. We target a 2 times hurdle rate to account for the risk of making a new investment, absent an otherwise strategic rationale. For example, at $14 per share, we would want a new unit to produce or return about 26% or greater, which translates into a cash-on-cash return in a little less than four years. Conversely, if a unit is not performing in line with our strategy, and efforts to improve it have not been successful, we will take action to free up as much capital as possible, for more profitable use, as we announced in October.

With regard to paying down debt, only at a much higher stock price does it make sense on a tax-adjusted basis to pay down our most expensive debt at an accelerated rate, assuming no prepayment penalty. Having said that, we are always looking for ways to refinance our higher interest debt at better rates, as we did in August.

If you'll please turn to slide 6. Our capital allocation strategy enabled us to achieve five major accomplishments in FY16. First, we improved overall performance, but most importantly, our cash generating power. This enabled us to implement the largest stock buyback in the Company's history. It also enabled us to strengthen our balance sheet.

To enhance cash generation going forward, we've began to more aggressively manage our club and restaurant portfolio. And five, we made is some selective investments that we believe will expand free cash flow in the future.

Please turn to slide 7. We restored total sales and same-store sales growth. Some of you may recall sales softened in the second half of FY15. As you could see from these charts, over the course of FY16, we restored both total sales and same-store sales growth, going into positive territory in the second half.

Looking at our major revenue lines, they generally improved over the course of the year. For example, in the fourth quarter, our higher margin service and beverage sales increased 1.4% and 0.7% over the same period a year ago.

This was the fourth quarter in a row where beverage sales were up year over year and it was the first quarter in FY16 where service revenues increased year-over-year after steadily narrowing declines the prior three quarters. We expect these up trends to continue in FY17.

If you'll please turn to slide 8, we reduced cost and expanded margins. One of the keys was using bank financing to own more of the real estate underlying our clubs. This enabled us to significantly reduce our cost of occupancy, which is the combination of rent and interest we pay, and this is one of our largest fixed costs.

Here, you can see how it has fallen from a high of 11.2% of revenues in the third quarter of 2014 to 8.5% in the fourth quarter of 2016. As a percent of revenue, occupancy costs should continue to decline due to revenue growth, refinancings, which should help reduce average interest paid on debt, and principal paydowns. As a result of this and other efforts, as you can see, our non-GAAP margin improved over the course of FY16.

If you'll please turn to slide 9, you can see this core improvement at work in the results of our two main segments. Looking at nightclubs, while sales were relatively level, non-GAAP operating margin in the fourth quarter increased to 30.2% from 22.5% in the year-ago quarter. For the year, operating margins increased to 32.3% from 31.3%. This reflects our more profitable portfolio of clubs compared to a year ago, but also the rising trend this year in the higher margin service revenues.

And looking at Bombshells, while sales were up 6% for the year, they increased 10.5% in the fourth quarter. This reflects the tougher comparisons we had earlier this year, and improvements over the course of the year. Non-GAAP operating margin was 11% in the fourth quarter, compared to 14.9% in the year-ago quarter. Even though it was non-GAAP, it still includes operating losses from Webster, which was closed at the end of the period.

A better picture is looking at operating margin for the year. It increased to 14.3% from 12%. This reflects greater operating leverage, and an increased portion of beverage sales.

Please turn to slide 10. As a result of our overall improved performance, we increased our cash generating ability. Fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA increased 25.7% year over year to $8.2 million. For the year it increased 1.2% to $34.5 million.

Fourth-quarter free cash flow was $3.8 million, compared to a negative $2.1 million in the year-ago quarter. For the year, it came in at the high end of our $19 million to $21 million target range. Please keep in mind FY16 free cash flow includes about $2 million in one-time tax benefits. Taking this into consideration, we believe we've established a new higher baseline free cash flow run rate of $18 million, compared to $15 million in FY15. As for cash, we ended the year with $11.3 million, the highest amount at September 30 in the last five years.

Please turn to slide 11. Our free cash flow generation enabled us to implement the largest share buyback in RCI's history. As a result, we reduced shares outstanding by 5% to 9.8 million, and it enabled us to pay off $2.8 million in convertible debt in FY16, and the first quarter of FY17, thus eliminating 230,000 possible new shares, and 49,000 related warrants expired.

Other than 40,000 potentially dilutive shares tied to a seller finance note, we have no other options or warrants outstanding. It has also enabled us to initiate a $0.12 per share annual cash dividend, paying $0.03 quarterly.

We have continued to buy back shares in FY17. In the first two months of the year, we bought back 68,269 shares, at an average of $11.98 per share, reducing total shares outstanding to 9.74 million. We are committed to buying back shares, as of November 30, we had $3.4 million in remaining share purchase authorization.

Please turn to slide 12. Through debt paydowns and refinancings, we have further strengthened our balance sheet. As of September 30, our average weighted interest rate is down to 7.23%. $77.5 million of debt or 73% is secured by real estate, and all other categories of debt declined.

Please turn to slide 13. We have updated our debt maturity schedule. On October call, we reported how we refinanced $14.2 million of debt at lower rates.

We changed all 2017 non-realty balloons into an amortizing note, that now balloons in 2022, and now, all of our debt is amortizing. As a result, as we pay down debt, our related interest expense should fall on a fairly steady basis. We anticipate refinancing the remaining 2018 balloons in 2017.

Please turn to slide 14. To enhance cash generation going forward, we implemented new higher-yielding financial models for new clubs and restaurants. We developed two brands that attract Millennials, and generate higher margins. During the third quarter, we opened our first Foxy's Cabaret in Austin, a combination nightclub and strip club for college on up. During the fourth quarter, we opened our first Hoops in Manhattan, a combination Sports Bar and strip club.

We started opening new units with lower cash outlays, and thus higher potential returns. For example, through our access to banks, we are financing the purchase of land and construction to create two new Bombshells for significantly less cash than in the past. This will reduce our outlay to only $1 million per unit compared to prior models of about $3 million, and we will own the property instead of leasing.

We began to sell or close underperforming units faster, to enhance our cash generation going forward, and free up capital for more profitable uses. In October, we announced the sale of two nightclubs, the majority of our interest in Robust and the closing of the Bombshells in Webster. And the settlement of the most serious lawsuit cases remaining from the indemnity insurance period. Subsequently, we've decided to impair two other properties. As previously announced, we received more than $8 million in cash and interest paying notes receivable from these sales.

The fourth quarter income statement also includes net charges of $5.2 million pretax, most of which were non-cash. Disposing of these businesses should reduce operating losses, and in some situations, turn non-performing operations into interest-generating assets.

If you'll please turn to slide 15, our fifth major accomplishment in FY16 was a series of selective investments to enhance our prospects for future growth. First was the construction and moving into our new corporate offices. We desperately needed new space for the efficient personnel management and warehousing. We moved in mid-October and are already seeing the beneficial effects.

The second is implementing our new ERP system. This starts phasing in on January 1. The key benefit is that it will connect our clubs and restaurant POS systems, as well as outside banks directly into our accounting system, thus automating many of the current manual accounting processes. This is expected to greatly enhance our efficiency, data analysis, and make it much easier to put in place a scalable plug and play platform for adding new clubs and restaurants.

Third, was recruiting Shannon Glaser to run our Bombshells franchising. Shannon put Twin Peaks on the map, literally selling 120 franchises, opening 50 of them while she was there. She has already begun setting up meetings for us with multi-unit restaurant franchise operators.

Please turn to slide 16. You can see why we are excited about FY17. We believe all the actions we've taken will help strengthen our prospects for revenue, margin, and earnings growth but most importantly, achieve our initial baseline target of approximately $18 million in free cash flow.

Key factors will be the addition of Hoops in the first quarter, Foxy's Dallas in the second quarter, and three new Bombshells sometimes during the second half. A strong sports line-up has also helped. We've had the return of the Vikings in Minnesota. In the second quarter, the Super Bowl will be in Houston, where we have five locations, both clubs and Bombshells.

Mixed martial arts events are now being held at New York's Madison Square Garden, where we have three clubs nearby. And finally expanded margins from the disposal and sale of non-performing businesses.

On a final note, if you haven't already heard, Sidoti & Company, one of the leading brokerage firms in small caps, issued an initial report on December 1. We plan to present at their conference in New York City this March. Also, on December 1, the American Association of Individual Investors added us to their model shadow stock portfolio. The Association is the largest non-profit devoted to teaching people how to invest, with 171,000 members in some 50 chapters nationwide.

We had a great set of meetings this year at LD Micro's investor conference in Los Angeles. People really like our story, and our capital allocation strategy. We know there is still more work to do, and we are dedicated to making this happen.

Speaking on behalf of RCI's management and that of our subsidiaries, I'd like to thank our loyal shareholders for their support. And with that, let's open the line for questions. Operator?

(Operator Instructions)

Our first question comes from the line of Frank Camma of Sidoti & Company.

Congratulations on everything you've achieved so far. A couple questions here: Let's start with, of course, the Bombshells. You said three, obviously slated for second-half FY17, and I know a couple of those are well under way. Could you just get a little more granular, timing, opening of those, if you can?

Sure. Currently we're hoping for April, June and August, but it's really the -- we started construction on the one that's supposed to open in April. So provided weather doesn't cause us too much delay, April should be a fairly reasonable assumption.

With June, the June opening, we go to the city with the initial set of plans hopefully by December 19, so then it's just a matter of how quickly they review, we answer their questions, get it back in, and get the final permits approved. And then once the permit is approved, securing the bank financing for the construction. All that should come within our time frame for June.

And then the third location which will open on the east side of Houston is in the preliminary drawing plans right now. We're prototyping the Pearland location. The June location is going to be our prototype store, so we're using a very similar deal, but because it's a different city, there's some minor adjustments to the plans that are in the process of being made. And hopefully in January we will submit those plans to the City of Houston for review, and get that on track.

Great, and I don't want to put you on the spot, but Shannon obviously just getting up to speed here, but you've got all of the licensing in place that you can do franchising in all 50 states; is that correct?

We are licensed in all 50 states.

Okay, so it's a matter of timing, and obviously it takes time to sign agreements and everything. Is there a frame that you have, I'm sure you have in your head, of how long it takes from when you start soliciting, or that might not be the right term, but when you start talking to potential franchisors, and when you actually open the restaurant?

Well, we've got several meetings set up in January. We've actually met with an operator in December already. And because of the holidays we've had to push a few; everybody's schedule has been crazy, so we moved everything to January.

It really varies. Once we start negotiations, I would estimate a 2- to 3-month time period, and then time for the lawyers to get everything drawn up. So I'm hoping maybe in the next quarter or the following quarter we might be able to come up with our first agreement, so sometime in the next 3 to 6 months.

Great. Can you talk a little bit about the go-forward tax rate, since obviously you had some charges here. But going forward, should we expect you to be a full taxpayer and, therefore, potentially benefit from any reduction in the US federal reduction in taxes?

Phil, we go back to the 35% or 36% this year, is that your estimate?

Yes.

I think the answer is that we will have some tax credits that we didn't used to have, but we're going to have some New York City taxes that we didn't used to have, so they will probably offset each other, and we'll still be at 34%, 35%.

Okay, great. One more and then I'll hop off: As far as occupancy costs, obviously you've made a lot of improvements there. What can that get to over time as you scale up? Are you --?

Well, if we pay off all of our debt, it would be about 3% (laughter) but I think we are going to see it -- .

Modify?

[Not] a lot of room, I don't think, at this point, for reduction. We do have the $9.9 million at 12% that's now amortizing, so that will start going down a little quicker. As we pay off some of this higher interest debt, you're going to see our overall weighted rate come down, which will bring down the occupancy cost.

Great, thanks.

Our next question comes from the line of Mike Mork of Mork Capital Management.

I've got two questions -- one, opening of the Hoops and Foxy's Cabaret. Your stock is at $15. That would mean that you'd have to get a 25% return on that, and how accurate have you been, say, when you open a unit, and what the return is?

Well, Foxy's was a unit that we had purchased that we had not met the returns on, that we converted, and now we are doing very well with it. Hoops is really still too new. We opened, I think, the last day of September, so we've really only got October and November's numbers here. The next quarter I can probably give you an idea through the first quarter.

I know that our gross revenues are ahead of what we thought they would be, but I don't know where our costs are at the same time, still waiting as we move through this quarter. We get November numbers, I'll have a little better idea.

We have pre-opening costs in October. And then we did a big promotion for the first UFC deal here, too, so I have to see how that equated, what our return was on the investment we made on that as well. Like I said, I do know the gross revenues at Hoops are above what we anticipated though.

That sounds good. And then, the unemployment rate overall in the country is low. In the past, when the oil prices collapsed, some of your Joe Sixpack guys got hurt there, working on oil rigs and whatnot. Has that stabilized now with the oil prices coming back up, and are they coming back in the units?

We are seeing Odessa and Longview, which are basically the only two markets that we were really affected by oil at, we are seeing a little rebound in there. We're seeing, compared to last year, we bottomed out, and now we're seeing a slow increase in the revenues in those markets. But I think we're still a far cry from where we are.

I think, from what I hear from the people out there, a $60 to $70 oil price will put those markets back in full swing now. So that's what we are watching for, to see what happens with this OPEC cut and whatnot, we'll see where oil prices head here. So if we see oil prices up, then I think those two markets come back.

But you've got to remember, those are a very small portion of our revenues. I think they were 3.8% or something of revenues at their peak, so they are even less than that now.

Sounds good. Thank you.

(Operator Instructions)

Our next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Benton of Fairfield Advisors.

Congratulations on another great quarter. My question is political. Republicans from the top down to local elections seem to have done really well. That's a double-edged sword, in that they are probably going to be a lot friendlier to business, but perhaps a little bit more prudish. How do you see this all playing out? Do you --?

I think the nice thing is, yes, there's some Supreme Court issues, but there's not really a lot of cases in front of the Supreme Court right now affecting zoning and operations, so I'm not too overly worried there. What we were more worried about and what we're very excited about is the Secretary of Labor is definitely a good benefit for restaurants, and some of the other appointees I think are very strong, very positive for us. And of course, as a 35% taxpayer, as we were just discussing, if I get a 15% or 20% rate, I'm going to be a lot happier with that.

I think the pros are going to outweigh the cons. The medical, the Obamacare costs were significant when we had to initiate that. And for all of our executive employees that we provide full insurance coverages for, costs are skyrocketing. So it will be interesting to see how all of that plays out.

But I think overall the election is turning out to be very positive for us, so far. We'll have to see. Those first 100 days are going to be very important, for the whole country.

That's great, thank you. And just one other question is: Have you seen any penalty at Rick's from having Hoops right next door? Do you --?

No, we've seen benefit. (Multiple speakers) every time Hoops -- I'm sorry go ahead.

Go ahead. You're not seeing the customer might have been at Rick's at Hoops instead?

No, what we are seeing is Hoops -- we've been doing some promotions, like we had Nick Diaz at Hoops for UFC. The place was so packed that Rick's got overflow from Hoops. Same thing with some of the other weekend nights. Hoops is not a very large place, so when there's big games and stuff, if they get too busy, Rick's is actually getting a benefit from it. So far, so good.

Great, congratulations. I'll let somebody else get on.

Our next question comes from the line of [Bill Brown], a private investor.

Yes, great quarter. I just wanted to get a little more color, if you will, in terms of the tax rate. Just to get a sense of the difference between, if you know if next year they dropped it to 20% or 25%, what would -- approximately what would that translate into, in terms of cash?

Phil, you got that handy?

No, but you can probably take pre-tax income, and take that 10% difference and assume that's going to turn into cash.

Okay, and that's how much? What is the pre-tax income for the year, for 2016?

This year is around $14 million.

Okay, great. So it could be as much as $1.5 million or so plus next year. Great, thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Evan Tindell of Bireme Capital.

So, in Q4, Bombshells had, I think it was an extra $500,000 or $600,000 of revenue, but operating income, adjusted operating income was flat or down a tiny bit, down $100,000. Do you expect Bombshells, as it continues to grow, you had seen a lot of operating leverage in the past. I know it's just one quarter, but do you expect to have more operating leverage there?

Webster was a big hit in that quarter because of the -- we knew we were closing it. Once it was rumored, the sales got even worse. We tried to reduce hours first to try to make it work, but that didn't help either so we finally just closed the location. You'll see in this quarter, the October, November, December quarter, you're going to see a much better run rate of the Bombshells.

The Webster location was a drag from day one. We didn't make money there, so we probably should have closed that location much sooner. We tried a B location out that was a destination location that ended -- for restaurants, that just doesn't work.

Okay, and for your capital expenditure plan, so you -- obviously, your maintenance CapEx is only a small fraction of the overall capital that you have spent the last few years, like last year you acquired $22 million of real estate, and I know a lot of that was one or two clubs. But my question is, going forward, do you see yourselves making that kind of big acquisition of real estate, where you trunk off $10 million -- or $8 million or $10 million?

It depends on -- if we do an acquisition of clubs, yes. In other words, if we do a multi-club acquisition where we buy six or seven locations from another operator, and we can buy that underlying real estate, we will buy that underlying real estate as well, so you'll see that.

But as far as from our own locations, we do lease two of our locations in New York City still; they are very long-term leases, but if, for the right price, we would buy either of those locations. You may see a difference, but overall, I think it will be like the Tootsie's transaction and the New York transaction. You'll see that, through those, our overall costs will actually decline.

Okay.

Because of our access to bank financing, we can actually, at 5% money we can typically buy it, and basically own it cheaper than we can rent it right now.

Okay, and there was $5.4 million, I think the 10-K said, of general corporate CapEx. Was that all related to the headquarters move, or was there anything else in there?

I believe that was all the corporate office. Is that correct, Phil?

Yes.

I don't think we did anything else this year. We didn't buy anything else this year, other than our own stock.

Okay, great. That's all I've got. Thanks.

There are no further questions of the audio portion of the conference. I'd now like to turn the conference back over to Management for closing remarks.

Thank you, Eric; thank you, Tim. Please, everybody, turn to slide 17. Here is our reporting calendar for the balance of this year.

Again, tonight you can meet Management at Rick's Cabaret in New York from 6:00 to 8:00. If you haven't RSVP'ed, ask for me at the door. We will also be giving tours of Hoops that we talked about on the call. We currently plan to announce first-quarter club and restaurant sales on January 10, and first-quarter results on February 9.

On behalf of Eric, the Company, and our subsidiaries, thank you and good night. We would also like to say a special thanks to our growing number of retail and institutional investors. And as always, celebrate the holidays by visiting one of our clubs or restaurants. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Have a wonderful evening.