VICI Properties Inc. Price & Performance (VICI)

Some of our comments today will be forward looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward looking statements are usually identified are the use of words such as will, believe, expect, [indiscernible] [indiscernible] [indiscernible] [indiscernible] projects or other similar phrases are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results differ materially from what we expect. Therefore, you should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on them. I refer you to the company's SEC filings, a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact future operating results and financial condition. During the call, we will discuss certain non GAAP measures. Which we believe can be useful in evaluating the company's operating These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is available on our website our fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings release our supplemental information and our other filings with the SEC For additional information with respect to non GAAP measures of certain tenants and our counterparty discussed on this call please refer to the respective company's public filings with the SEC.

Hosting the call today, we have Ed Petoniak, Chief Executive Officer John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer Gabe Wasserman, Chief Accounting Officer and William McCluskey, Senior Vice President of Capital Markets. Ed and team will provide some opening remarks then we will open the call to questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ed. Thank you, Samantha. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Over the course of the next few minutes, leading into our Q and A session, you'll hear from John Payne on our growth activities and you'll hear from David Kieske on our financial results financing activities and initial 2025 earnings guidance. I'll start the call with a few words about the announced initiating a new Beachy strategic and financial relationship with Cain International and Eldridge Industries through an initial investment in the financing of the One Beverly Hills development. Like most of Beachy's growth activities, this VICI investment is a result of our growing and new relationship. This relationship began last May when on a trip to London, I spent time with John the founding CEO of Caine International, a diversified global real estate development and investment company.

By the end of our hour, Jonathan and I agreed that we should find ways to work together. Our urge to work together grew out of the recognition that we share convictions, and we share values. We share conviction in the secular strength for years to come, of experiences, We share cultural and ethical values around partnership.

Put another way, the meeting of Cain and VICI is a meeting of minds and a meeting of ambitions particularly the shared ambition to invest in differentiated place based experiences, whether those experiences are entertainment, hospitality, wellness or sport based. Excuse me, For those of you not familiar with Cain, which as of year end 2024 had nearly $18,000,000,000 in assets under management, It was founded in 2014 by Jonathan and his partner, Todd Bole. And is affiliated with Eldridge Industries, an investment company founded and led by Todd Boehly. Cain and Eldridge have made investments in iconic experiential brands that include Aman, Delano, St. James Sports Clubs, Cirque du Soleil and Flexjet. Todd is an owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles Lakers, and both Todd and Jonathan are owners of Chelsea FC and the English Premier League. As 2024 went by, Johnson asked if Kay's development at One Beverly Hills might be our first opportunity to work together. These discussions enabled Cain, Eldridge and VICI get to know each other better And over the last few months, we all came to believe that our shared conviction compelling opportunities to work together in the years to come.

And that's why as well as announcing our One Beverly Hills investment on Wednesday, Kane, Eldridge and Vichi also announced their joint signing of a letter of intent expressing our intention to work collaboratively to identify and pursue experiential investment opportunities that meet our respective investment objectives. As you would have seen if you reviewed the investment deck we posted to our website, One Beverly Hills stands to rank among the most compelling American luxury hospitality, retail and residential developments in recent history. Development is currently rising out of over 17.5 of the best located acres in Beverly Hills, a triangle bordered by Wilshire Boulevard, Santa Monica Boulevard, and the LA Country Club. This development is centered on the Aman brand. Among the world's most venerated luxury hospitality brand. One Beverly Hills will be the largest realization of Aman branded hospitality, wellness and living to date. With an Amman Hotel, an Amman Wellness Spa, an Amman Club, and two Oman residential towers. Development will also include a full renovation of the legendary Beverly Hilton longtime host site of the Golden Globes and the Milken Conference. As well as 10 acres of botanical gardens and open space with high end retail and dining offerings.

Capital is a key fuel for ambitious placemakers and experienced creators. Kane stands among the most ambitious placemakers we have come to know and yet Kane balances that ambition with what we've seen to be strong capability in development risk management We believe multi generational multinational demand for the differentiated experience within the differentiated place will create abundant opportunities for Cain and Eldridge in the coming decades, and we're excited about the prospect of becoming a long term partner in their growth. This announcement of our new partnership with Cain and Eldridge represents our first new venture in what we hope will be a year of new For more on that, I'll now turn the call over to John. John? Ed, and good morning to everyone. I'll start by reiterating Ed's enthusiasm around the new strategic relationship. We formed with Cain and Eldridge. As we said time and time again, deep relationships are at the core of Veatchy's investment strategy. Through the development of a new relationship with Homefield Kansas City and the strength of existing relationships with Great Wolf, and the team from Venetian, we were able to commit approximately $1,100,000,000 of capital in 2024 an initial yield of 8.1%.

The quality and scale of our existing portfolio also accrues to the value of our platform. Since our last earnings call in early November, the VICI team attended the NAREIT Conference in Las Vegas. The conference provided a great opportunity to physically showcase our Las Vegas Strip assets and convey the incredible scale of operation happening at these properties every single day. For example, the Venetian to which we committed up to $700,000,000 in 2024 through our partner property growth fund strategy sprawls over 17,000,000 square feet and is being proactively reimagined across several business verticals, including conventions, food and beverage, hotel rooms, gaming floor optimization, entertainment and more to drive the continued growth of the operating business. As well as capitalize on the spear which sits behind the Venetian. In R. J. Milligan's NAREIT recap note, he observed that I quote with all the events in and around Las Vegas, it was hard to ignore the quality of VICI's real estate which we don't think the market is giving them enough credit for. It's just so hard to comprehend that VICI was able to purchase The Venetian at the same cap rate as a well located Dollar General. Well stated in our Las Vegas tourism also continues to hit records.

According to the LVCVA, 2024 saw record airline passengers through Harry Reid Airport at $58,000,000 for the year and visitation to the city increased 2% year over year to approximately $42,000,000 Our up and reinventing experiences at our assets to capitalize on demand. For example, MGM Grand recently announced a $300,000,000 remodel all of their 4,200 hotel rooms, to be completed in December of twenty twenty five and launched their Palm Tree Beach Club outdoor music and entertainment venue which will open in May of twenty twenty five. Caesars New Orleans just opened following a comprehensive $435,000,000 renovation and the And in November of last year, Harvey's Lake Tahoe also announced a $100,000,000 all encompassing transformational project. Just since the fourth quarter, our operators have announced nearly $1,000,000,000 of investment in our real estate, That is reflective of our shared conviction around the value of high quality experiences at high quality properties. VICI believes that the quality and scale of investment opportunity in our existing properties as well as our ability to cultivate and maintain deep relationships with our partners will provide springboards for future growth. Now I will turn the call over to David who will discuss our financial results and guidance.

Thanks, John. Will start with our balance sheet. As we begin 2025, seven years after our IPO in 2018, I want to highlight 2024 to reflect on how far our balance sheet has come since going way back, to our preemergence in the summer of twenty seventeen, VUMICI had total leverage of roughly 10.5 times debt to EBITDA. We were born with a very unnatural balance sheet early. Short tenure, secured debt, second lien debt, a $1,600,000,000 CMBS loan that matured in 2022 all instruments that we knew were not consistent with becoming the blue chip we knew we should and could become After we emerged in October 2017, we got to work on fixing our balance sheet. We started to chip away at the second lien notes with our IPO and retired the remaining $498,000,000 in February 2020. In connection with the Eldorado Caesars merger, we retired the CMBS debt And with our acquisition of MGP, we were able to retire all of our remaining secured debt and received an investment grade credit rating from S and P and Fitch in April of twenty twenty two. Was one straggler at that time, Moody's. Through the leadership of Aaron Ferri and our team, we put our heads down and work with Moody's over the next two years to educate them on the merits of gaming the resiliency of our tenants business and the quality of our balance sheet.

That work paid off with the Moody's upgrade we received on November 18, 2024, giving us an investment grade credit rating across all three agencies. The ratings upgrade should accrue to our benefit with an improved access to and cost of cap We believe our balance sheet and unsecured debt complex is one of the more liquid debt complex to across the REIT landscape with total debt of 17,100,000,000.0 of which we have unsecured debt of $14,100,000,000 This creates liquidity in our unsecured notes and we saw this in our December refinancing where we had several new institutional credit investors coming to our offering. Quality of our balance sheet was also highlighted during our recent recast of our unsecured revolving credit facility. Which we closed subsequent to quarter end with a new $2,500,000,000 facility. We had strong sponsorship from our bank group and want to thank each every institution that committed to that facility and the Gavic the conviction they all have in our balance sheet and business. We have approximately $3,300,000,000 in total liquidity comprised of approximately $525,000,000 in cash $76,000,000 of estimated proceeds available under our outstanding forwards and $2,400,000,000 of availability under our revolving credit facility. Our net debt to annualized fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA excluding the impact of unsettled [indiscernible] is approximately 5.3 times within our target leverage range of five to 5.5 times.

We have a weighted average interest rate of 4.41% taking into account our hedge portfolio and a weighted average six point four years to maturity, Again, thank you to Aaron and the entire team for the work that has been completed. But know that we are not done with a continual focus on improving our balance sheet. Touching on the income statement, AFFO per share was $0.57 for the quarter, an increase of 3.6% compared to $0.55 for the quarter ended 12/31/2023.

For the full year 2024, AFFO per share was $2.26 an increase of 5.1% compared to $2.15 for the full year 2023 Our results highlight our highly efficient triple net model, given the increase in adjusted EBITDA as a proportion of the corresponding increase in revenue. Our margins continue to run strong in the high 90% range when eliminating non cash [indiscernible] Our G and A was $20,700,000 for the quarter, and as a percentage of total revenues was only 2.1% which continues to be one of the lowest ratios in not only the triple net sector, but across all REITs. Turning to guidance, we are initiating AFFO guidance for 2025 in both absolute dollars as well as on a per share basis. AFFO for the year ending December 31, 2025 is expected to be between $2,455,000,000 and $2,485,000,000 or between $2.32 and $2.35 per diluted common share. Based on the midpoint of our 2025 guidance, PG expects to deliver year over year AFFO per share growth of 3.3% a very solid starting point as we begin 2025. As a reminder, our guidance does not include the impact of operating results from any transactions that have not closed interest income from any loans that do not yet have final draw structures, possible future acquisitions or dispositions capital markets activity or other non recurring transactions or items.

With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Thank you. Our first question for today comes from Anthony Paolone from JPMorgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Yes, thanks and good morning. I guess my first question is, from our side, we obviously just see the things that you close, but wondering if you could talk about kind of what deal flow looked like in 2024 and what it looks like currently in contrast to maybe in prior years, whether you're seeing a lot of stuff and it's just not making it past the finish line or you're not seeing as much as you'd like in terms of the outright property purchases. And so any color there would be great.

Yes, I'll start, Tony, and then turn it over to John.

The 2024 for us was a year in which we did not see Anything resembling a plentiful flow of compelling high quality real estate acquisition opportunities. We did see a very compelling opportunity to further invest in one of our marquee properties, the Venetian. And what we also saw is that while high quality existing assets don't appear to be widely for sale or at least didn't in 2024. Highly compelling high quality developments were there And a lot of the work we've done, whether whether with Homefields at the very beginning of the year, whether our ongoing work we've Great Wolf our ongoing work with Canyon Ranch and Cabot and now our new work with Cain and Eldridge is about identifying and providing capital to great experiential placemakers and getting very, very good yields on it, especially when comparing those yields to the incredibly high quality of the developments we're helping to fund And beyond that, I'll turn it over to John who can give you further color on what what we saw in 2024, but maybe more importantly, what we believe we will see in 2025.

John? Yes. A little bit bad. Tony, good to talk to you this morning. One of the parts of your question was how does it compare to years before. Remember when you started the company, as David walked through some of that history in his opening remarks, we really were born of simply a casino triple net lease REIT.

Today is with Ed's announcement and our announcement the other day, you can see we continue diversify our portfolio. So the funnel continues to get wider of things that we look at. And would say the beginning of twenty twenty five on the as busier, busier than I've been in a very long time. And we continue to be very thoughtful with where we put our capital to work the type of partners that we want to do business with, the type of growth potential. So that's a long way of saying we're quite busy. The funnel is wide. We're looking at a variety of things in the experiential and the casino gaming space. Okay.

Thanks. And then just follow-up, any comments on where you think cash yields would be right now for some of the various buckets that you're looking at, whether it would be where high quality asset on the strip might be versus regional versus some of the other categories?

Not a lot of visibility into that, Tony, on the strip. Obviously, we haven't seen any meaningful trades recently on the strip. And I think with the volatility well, what are we now, the last three years, and this year has not really represented a meaningful change from that volatility I think it's really it's a little bit hard to get pricing certainty on permanent assets. Whether on the strip, regional, I think there's been more trading activity, John. So there's probably somewhat more clarity there. So again, quality for us is a key consideration.

And remember on the strip, Tony, the world is pretty good out there. I'm not sure there's a market that had such great success again in 2024 after following a record of 2023. So operators looking to sell those assets on the Stripes is not likely at this time because the business continues to be strong. Across many of the different segments in Las Vegas.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Caitlin Burrows of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning everyone. Maybe just following up on the development funding talk. Ed, I know you mentioned that when you look through the opportunities of 2024, it seems like that's what made sense at the time.

So I guess how do you think of that development funding that eventually gets paid back versus acquisitions and what that means for the future of the portfolio and like recur income?

Yes. No, it's a very good question, Caitlin, and it's one we think and talk about a lot. At the management table at VICI. As a starting point, in this particular case with Cain and Eldridge, much has been the case with Great Wolf. We are not overly concerned about the money coming back because of the depth and and time extent of the pipeline we believe we could have with Kane. And in this particular case, I obviously need to be careful here, but I do want to say that in the particular case of One Beverly Hills, We are working we continue to work with Cain And I should note the money for One Beverly Hills, that $300,000,000 has already gone out the door, but we continue to work with Kane at potentially participating in a larger and longer with One Beverly Hills. But beyond that, to really get to the heart of your question, we see a pipeline of opportunities with Cain across their various verticals that could enable us to continue to roll our capital into New Kane Ventures. When they talk for example about the growth opportunity for Aman globally, especially across Europe in the coming decade.

We see an opportunity to continue to be a funding partner in that particular example, much in the way David and the team have been now a steady partner to Great Wolf for how long, David?

Five years? Yes, about five years, right.

So we we obviously are mindful of the fact that this money will come back. To us at some point or could come back to us at some point, Caitlin.

But we really do focus on relationships we think could enable us to continue to basically roll that capital into new manifestations of a given partnership.

Got it. Okay. Yes, that makes sense. And then maybe more like nerdy question. But on the share count, you guys have a lot of forward equity. So can you go through over what time period you're required to settle those shares under what conditions you would choose to settle them and what assumptions for your own share price are assumed in guidance? [indiscernible] As we've done for many years now, we have outstanding forward equity on a quarter by quarter and an annual basis. And those contracts are Typically one year contracts, but they are extended and amended to to go beyond that initial period of time and that is very common places with banks and with the counterparties. And then in our guidance, in our share count, we use the treasury stock dilution method in making some estimates around reasonable projections around future stock prices and incorporating a level of dilution into our guidance range, but do not obviously take into consideration the entirety of outstanding forwards because we use those to match funds potential acquisitions, which are not in our guidance [indiscernible] this is very common across the reland and we've been doing it. I know a lot of other triple nets have done it for years.

And maybe I'll just add to what David said, Caitlin, by emphasizing that the way we did it for 2025 guidance is the way we have always done it. There's been no change in the methodology.

Got it.

Okay.

Thanks.

Thank you. Next question comes from Barry Jonas of Tuohy Securities. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. In September, you'll have the right to call the Caesars Forum Convention Center at the same cap rate you had on the Indiana property. Any thoughts you can offer on the puts and takes to exercising that option?

Thanks. Barry, John Payne.

Good to talk to you.

It's definitely an asset that we're well aware of. They built a great facility there. It anchors the empty acreage that we have in Las Vegas So we'll continue to see how it's performing when that time comes up. Obviously also connects to one of our assets in the Harrah's facility that we own the real estate in the building and then we lease it back to Caesars. So definitely on our radar. It's definitely something that we've been looking at over the years and well aware of this this opportunity that we could have and we'll continue to study it in time period as it approaches. Understood. Understood. And then just as a follow-up, I'm not sure you've talked about this before, but you've obviously operated golf courses. But is there a scenario where you would consider operating casinos or other assets in a TRS? Thanks.

Well, as a starting point, any casino and Samantha and David help me out here. Any casino that went into a TRS would have to be a casino with zero Repeat zero hotel rooms.

There is an intricacy or nuance of REIT legislation that would forbid the inclusion of a casino with hotel rooms in ATRS, Beyond that, I would say we don't see that happening. We would not [indiscernible] to have that happen.

I guess it's always a possibility that we would be silly to rule out a priori with 100% certainty, but not in our plans.

Understood.

All right. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Greg McGinnis of Scotiabank. Line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning.

Given the non binding can you hear me? [indiscernible] Sorry. Yes, we can. Just given the non binding letter of intent on new partnership, with Cain and Eldridge. How would you describe your competitive positioning relative to other capital providers especially as they consider more permanent financing options on completion of that development. Yes. Yes, it's a very good question to ask, Greg.

I would say that in the case of one Beverly Hills so again, we shouldn't rule out anything ever a priori. We do not But having said that, based on the discussions we've already been in with Jonathan Goldstein opportunity to We see opportunities to work across a portfolio For example, in the Caine and Eldridge portfolio, you will see that one of the investments they have is St. James Clubs.

And again, I really emphasize looking at that slide and the wonderful deck that Hayes put together, [indiscernible] St. James' Club can represent an example of us to further capitalize on knowledge we've gained through our investment in Chelsea peers into these kind of sports and recreation complexes. And absolutely, they will always have the ability to seek other forms, other sources of capital. But I will emphasize that there is a a cultural union between or among Cain, Eldridge and VICI that gives us a lot of confidence that we will always have a chance to be a partner of choice to them as they seek to capitalize the really compelling experiential investments they are making. And I will say to that regard, Greg, Greg, I'll just say to that regard, it was Todd Bully who proposed, hey, let's let's do an LOI. I mean, Samantha, I'm explaining why in a case like that, you kind of have to make it non binding. But it was a sign of Todd's commitment to the partnership.

Okay, good to hear. I guess thinking about investing in the assets that you already have. One, curious is Venetian kind of looking for more of the capital you potentially committed? And then MGM guided slightly lower growth CapEx funding for this year. It does appear they're allocating some funding to MGM Grand. What's your kind of general sense for how CapEx budgets trending for casinos compared to the last few years? What might that mean for your investment opportunities with them? And Vegas and regionally?

And then also how does that compare to the contractually obligated CapEx?

Very good question. I'll start in Las Vegas. One of the advantages of our portfolio and having such a big presence in that market is the assets are absolutely incredible. In my opening remarks, I I talked about Venetian and I said that they had over 17,000,000 square feet That's bigger than some companies' whole portfolio and it's one of our one of our assets in one market. Why I bring that up is that it provides opportunity for us to brainstorm with the operator about how to use our capital to continue to have them grow. And obviously, we past year, we announced the amount of money up to $700,000,000 we've been putting in with the Apollo team into the Venetian. We have those same conversations with our other partners and operators. Obviously, Las Vegas has bigger boxes, than the regionals, but we do have conversations with our regional partners about other opportunities to build hotels, are there opportunities to to bring casinos that happen to be on riverboats on the land? So you continue to have those discussions. I think there continues to be an excitement about putting new capital into Las Vegas. In fact, there was an article I saw this morning about the Caesars organization putting over $1,000,000,000 in the [indiscernible] So that should get you and our investors excited about the opportunities that could be presented in that market.

But I think '25 is very similar that we saw in 2024 and even 2023 that operators continue to reinvent themselves and they need capital to create new experiences.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Rich Hightower of Barclays.

Line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everybody.

And congrats again on the new partnership with Keene Eldridge.

Good morning, Ed.

Let me go back to the guidance really quickly, if you don't mind. David, I think you mentioned in the prepared comments [indiscernible] are not included in the AFFO number as presented last night. Can you walk us through what precisely is included dollars cadence timing, etcetera, just so we have a kind of a clear understanding of funding throughout the year? As currently contemplated? [indiscernible] the specific comment was we do not include in guidance any funding or development funding that does not have a identified draw schedule. As we sit here today, we're continuing to fund Great Wolf Northeast for funding Canyon Ranch Austin, and Cabot Citrus Farms and it's $15,000,000 $20,000,000 a month or so of that Cray Wolfe Northeast completes in May of twenty twenty five, Canyon Ranch is sometime in 2026, Citrus Farms is working through later this year, early next year. So it's there's there's not a specific number per month because it's all based on the timing of the draws and the amount of draws and then obviously as installments are completed, we have a construction loan fully from the construction loans outstanding.

Okay. That's actually helpful. And just to be clear, Venetian PPG funding is kind of separate from that. Is that what's the timing on that one as well?

If I have that correct?

Yes.

So we announced total commitment of $700,000,000 They drew $400,000,000 in 2024. And that is all converted to rent and embedded in the lease. Now they have the option, but not the obligation to draw an incremental $300,000,000 of that commitment over time. And they're going through the budgets right now and their plans and John talked about putting a lot of new as you may have seen, a lot of new restaurants and a lot of new experiences in the Venetian. And so that they're working through and when they would draw that incremental 300.

And needless to say, Rich, given that they have not firmly committed to using any of that. None of that.

Okay. That's very helpful. And then one last kind of small one, and I think you guys have addressed this on prior calls, but just so we all have it clear. You do see some pretty swing pretty big swings in I guess the change in allowance for credit losses the income statement, obviously a non cash number most of the time, we hope there aren't any actual credit losses But just, David, help us understand the drivers quarter to quarter swing? [indiscernible] it's Gabe Wasson here. I can take that. So in the fourth quarter, most of the allowance really driven by It's really driven by Moody's, which is the service provider that we use to help us model out and project future losses.

The fourth quarter, their economic scenario, which is scenario condition and a requirement of the model and the banks are using similar forward projections. They were kind of forecasting a higher for longer interest rate, potential tariffs and some headwinds economically and that was going through our projections. That was really the driver of the increase in the allowance in the fourth quarter. Which Gabe would another way of saying it is it was more general than specific to any single recurrent, more macro and opposed to micro to any of the specific tenants.

Perfect. And Rich, you get an award, Rich, for asking about CECL.

I knew we had addressed CECL on prior calls, but I just I think it's been a little while. So again, appreciate the color. Thanks. [indiscernible] There you go.

Thank you. Next question comes from Jim Kamat of Evercore. Thank you. Good morning. I know, David, obviously guidance excludes new capital markets activities, but given the $1,300,000,000 that's rolling or maturing, I should say, of notes in Q2, How is VICI leaning right now? Repay a part of that or repo had? And what would the cost be?

I think I answered just your question to break it up a little bit. Yes, we've got a main maturity and June maturity and we only get in some and guidance on those refis, but we're seeing on a ten year kind of $120,000,000 $125,000,000 spread over the ten year, which I know it was a 04:48 a few early this morning, but obviously bounces around. So [indiscernible] 5.5% to 5.75% area for a ten year refinancing.

Great. Thank you. And then obviously, early innings with the new relationship with Todd Boehly and otherwise, [indiscernible] has his relationship or ownership of Chelsea helped give you a little insight the tent kind of view as to how those owners and consortiums think about attracting additional capital and opportunity for V2?

Well, certainly, in the specific case at Chelsea, one, as is true with so many of the Premier League teams, they're very focused on making sure that they are doing everything they can to maximize game day revenue. And obviously, maximizing game day revenue involves making sure you have the optimal stadium and to a great degree now increasingly the right surroundings around the stadium. We've had I would say, Samantha, very preliminary chats with Todd around their vision for what Chelsea FC can become in terms of its placement in London, but not much more than that.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Smedes Rose of Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you. I just want I wanted to ask you if maybe you provide any sort of update on the licensing process that seems kind of lurching forward in New York for full on casinos.

And just kind of as part of that, if your MGM property were not selected for license, does it just remain as essentially a slots only facility or is there some other change that would take place?

Steve, it's John. I probably should be asking you what you think about the New York process.

Look, I think there's news almost every day. We're sitting here and in New York altogether. I read an article yesterday about one of the the groups that is potentially bidding on the license It does seem like there's progress being made on all the different steps it takes to win one of the three licenses, It does still seem like they're shooting for a decision at the end of this here, but your guess is good as mine. Same with the last part of your question, you asked about the MGM property at Empire City.

We're excited about that, that group has put together a very a very healthy bid for the full license I don't know the exact answer to your question. Should they not receive one of the three licenses, how that ultimately plays out with the slot facility But I think as this whole process plays out with the gaming commissions, the how they make their decisions, we'll continue to learn more. But does seem like there's more progress in quarter one hundred and twenty five there has been in a while, but it's hard to determine ultimately when the final stages.

Okay. And then in terms of the one Beverly Hills and maybe this doesn't make any difference in terms of your loan to them. But I just wanted to ask you, I mean, Los Angeles has a lot of luxury retail readily available, it has a lot of luxury lot of luxury hotels. And I guess from their perspective, what I guess is giving them confidence that there's incremental demand for more multimillion dollar condominiums and more Chanels and whatnot and just don't know, maybe that's sort of a dumb question, but I'm just kind of wondering how they're thinking about the demand factor there.

Yes. I think and I'm pribing Samantha. She's going to need to speak here in a moment because she actually has experience with Aman. I think Smedes, to answer your question, we really have to do all we can to help everyone understand the brand power of Aman. Aman obviously is not a public company.

There are no Aman's within hotel REIT portfolios. But if I were you, I would just I would just do a price check on the rates that Aman gets location by location around the world, because Oman is in a league of its own.

Correct, Samantha?

Yes.

I think just to add to point, you're talking ultra high end luxury. It truly is above and beyond really what you see almost anywhere else in the world and they've been able to do it in cities throughout the world. And I think that's what they'll bring to Beverly Hills, which I don't think they have up here. Yes. And it's so much to the credit of the Caine team they were able to get entitlements and permitting for that 17.5 in comparable acres four incremental hotel supply in Beverly Hills and some of you may have seen over the course of 2024, that LVMH was unable to get entitlements and permitting for Cheval Blanc on Rodeo Drive. There is supply there. To your point, Smedes. But again, I would we will do all we can to help everyone very, very differentiated position of Aman in every market in the world.

That it operates in which it operates.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from David Katz of Jefferies. Line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. I wanted to ask a little bigger picture question First, congratulations on your announcement of the new partnership. But putting it all in context, the discussion we have with investors frequently is around thinking about underwriting the various aspects of your TAM. And obviously, a deal like this adds to your TAM in some ways. Right. To an earlier question about the duration of the capital you have out, now and how we think about that strategically. Potential expansions embedded in your current portfolio and how we think about underwriting those versus a new casino partner to be named later so to speak, right? They're across a spectrum and I'd love to add your just your thoughts and comments around how we underwrite those or whether it's straight math, [indiscernible] it's a great question, David. And one of the ways in which I'll answer it is that when we when we think about TAM, we really also think About the I'm trying to come up with an acronym on the spot and I'm not going to do it, David. I was I was going to say like the TAR, the total amount of the relationship That's not very good, is it?

Exactly. What I'm getting at is On the cloud. Yes, there you go. Thank you, David.

Yeah, on the fly. I'll do better next time, I promise. [indiscernible] As we began to get to know Cain and Eldridge, we very quickly developed very high conviction that this has the potential to be a multibillion dollar to within that relationship for us to ultimately own permanent real estate. But also the opportunity to continue as I my answer to Caitlin indicated, the opportunity to numerous funding opportunities and thus opportunities to continue to roll our capital behind their initiatives. And so we are very, very focused on on widening our TAM without diluting our quality of relationship and our quality of investment. And again, at a time like this, when the gaming deal flow is what it is, We believe we serve our stockholders very well by developing these kinds of relationships to give our stockholder participation in what we think is some of the most compelling place making taking place Okay. Thank you, David.

Thank you. Our next question comes from John Kulicovsky of Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Good morning. Maybe if I could just Circle back on that last comment. Ed, you said that eventually owning some of the real estate and these deals with Cain and Eldridge could you specify specifically maybe what types of real estate you'd be looking to own here? Obviously, in this project, it's multi use. We have the hotel the residences, the retail, the food and beverage. Just curious what you would be considering owning versus is not earning.

And just to be clear, and as I've indicated earlier in my remarks, we are not optimistic that we would eventually own any real estate within One Beverly Hills. This is real estate that if it if and when it trades, it will trade at stratospheric values. And also is real estate of a nature that doesn't exactly fit our investment criteria, which obviously mainly well, does involve net lease.

But beyond that, as you look across the Elders Caine for portfolio, I think you will see, again, citing that really good slide in the transaction, deck, businesses current businesses within Cain And Eldridge involve real estate at very very much resembles real estate that we already own and I would cite the example of Chelsea Piers the type of real estate we already own and are very excited to continue to invest in.

I have one thing to that as well. Creating partnerships like we have with Cain and Eldridge also opens other potential partners that are around the world that are seeing what we are doing with our capital to help other experiential companies grow. I mean, we've just made this announcement and there are folks that are reaching out saying, I very interesting way that you are getting involved with that project. We'd like to talk to you about X, Y and Z. So don't underestimate that as we continue to build these world class developers and partners that it also opens new ones for us. And doesn't keep us as, hey, you're that just that gaming rate, which we love casino gaming, but it really has opened the funnel for conversations about other opportunities for us around the world.

Yes. And I just want to build on what John is saying too that there's that another dimension of partnership in what we've just announced and though it may not have been visible in our releases, This marks the fourth time in which we will have partnered with JPMorgan in participating, working together on a capital structure for a very compelling development. And as you all know, we are a very small team. We have over 25% of the company sitting at this table and that's seven people.

And so we are always very focused on opportunities to force multiply what we are able to achieve at VICI. And we're really, really appreciative partnership that David and his team have formed with Brian Baker and his team at JPMorgan when it comes to identifying opportunities to work together and put our capital to work in Got it. I appreciate that. And then then maybe jumping back to one of the first comments you made today was just on the pipeline really picking up. And I'm curious on the other side of that equation, how is the competitive landscape changed? I feel like across most of our our earnings discussions this quarter, we've heard competition is has certainly spiked from the private side. I'm curious if you're seeing the same It's been the same since we started the company. This is a space, particularly the casino space where there's a lot of interest There's great operators. There's great real estate The buildings perform like no other. In the experiential sector. So as we look at any opportunity we go in with our eyes open that there's others that are looking at this. And that's why we we pride ourselves on building deep relationships ring the ties, and grow the company in that fashion.

So I wouldn't say we see an increase in competition. I'd say it's always been there and We want to continue to be out there as well.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from John DeCree of CBRE. Line is now open.

Hey, everyone. Took a lot of ground, but maybe [indiscernible] One on the casino M and A environment. I think we discussed it a little bit earlier.

Pointing to the volatility in the ten year, but add or John or David, curious if you have any thoughts as to what else is kind of influencing I guess, I would say, the lack of M and A in the space whether it involves real estate or not, it seems like it's still kind of quiet. So curious if you see any other factors in there that are maybe causing that?

John, it's nice to talk to you. You hit on a few. Again, in my remarks earlier, while I was answering one question, I just talked about Las Vegas. And if you're an operator in Las Vegas and you're performing the way you're performing, you have to say, well, where else would I like to operate? And you land on, I'd rather own this asset I can continue to invest in it, There are new customers coming through my door every day. And I'm going to just make this a better place. I mean, the results that you saw out of Las Vegas, I mean, Wynn's result were absolutely incredible. We saw there's incredible results coming out of the buildings that we own.

So John, I don't see a lot of trading in Las Vegas at this time. It comes to the regionals, I think it's just a matter of they like out operating those business right now. There could be some trades over time. And if there are, we will see if there's an opportunity for us.

And John, I'll just add to that that I think when it comes to regional gaming, we're in a period where investing in regional gaming has to be done with precision market by market, asset by asset. Obviously seeing supply growth across much of The U. S. Regional landscape. And I think if you're going to invest incremental capital in regional gaming, you want to be highly conscious of new competition and new supply what that would mean for same store sales at existing assets. So again, it's not solely a case of what's available. It's also a case of what do you really want to own? And thus we are going to be by nature selective Thanks, John. That's helpful. Maybe one more on the discussion of kind of Amman hotels as a good example.

A lot of those ultra high end international hotels. I'm curious your thoughts on how you think about expanding a bit more internationally. Obviously, there's some in Canada, but would you go overseas kind of in a in an investment or lending capacity like you you've done in California recently. So opportunities where maybe not real estate ownership, but mezz or however else you would structure it in some international markets or something like that on the table? How far have you explored those kind of lending in international market opportunities? [indiscernible] So we definitely would and we actually do have some lending activity in The UK and Scotland right now with Cabot. And we've done our internal team has done a lot of work around really mapping the world and where we can invest both from a lending perspective as well as an acquisition perspective understanding any tax leakage and really looking at what jurisdictions would be most compelling for us, so that when we look at our TAM, we're really knowledgeable that. So the answer to that question is yes, we absolutely can and would Thank you very much. Thanks, John.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Darling of Green Street. Line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. Question on the gaming side. It seems like there's been a lot more capital flowing into the historic horse racing segment of the market, a couple of projects I think have been announced in New Hampshire. Is this a segment of the market that's interesting to you? And how would you think about sort of the opportunities and risks involved?

Chris, nice to speak to you. Yes, If you're asking, would we make an investment into a racetrack particularly most of these investments are adding some form of new gambling to that investment. So whether it's historical racing machines that are being added in certain markets, Other markets are adding just simple Class III slot machines and some as we heard earlier today talking about City, the ability to turn a casino into a full fledged casino. So to answer your question, they're all areas that we would have interest in placing investments if we have the right partners, if we have the right structure along the way. So we continue to study the markets that you mentioned other markets that could as Ed mentioned, there could be some some new markets that open up over time and we'd be interested in those as well.

All right. Fair enough. And then just one more quickly for me. Curious if you could walk through the rash rationale from a pure gaming standpoint to sell the Canadian operations to IGP?

And then I think it'd be helpful as well to understand a little bit more about who IGP is, kind of their scale, where they own, future ambitions, anything that you could add Yes, we were very excited We had a great relationship with the management team and the owners of Pure, but we are excited form our new relationship with few tribes that have come nations that have come together to form this group. We're learning more about their interest, their capacity, to grow their business. That was one of the things that we were excited about, not only them acquiring the operations of the assets we own, in Canada, but also our ability to continue to partner not only in Canada, but there could be opportunities all over the world. So the more we learn about each other, this was our first opportunity to work together the more I think you'll see us grow with them over time should the right finish come about. And Chris, just to make sure I understood your [indiscernible] clearly, I want to clarify that we didn't sell anything The prior owner of Pure Onyx, a Toronto based PE firm, sold the OpCo to IGP And not only are we excited about IGP being our new partner, on the Alberta assets, it also signifies that OPKO's are marketable.

That there are buyers for OpCos, which I think there has been some questioning around But this is a clear example of gaming OpCos as OpCos having value. Got it. And yes, that point was under Thank you, Chris.

Thank you.

At this time, our call turn the call back to Ed Petoniak for any further remarks.

Thanks, Alex, and thanks all of you. We know you've got many of you have another call coming up here just momentarily.

So wish you the best and thanks again for attending this morning. Bye for now.

Thank you all for joining.