Eldorado Resorts (ERI) Q3 2019 Earnings Call Transcript

Eldorado Resorts (ERI)
Q3 2019 Earnings Call
Nov 06, 2019, 4:30 p.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Eldorado Resorts' 2019 third-quarter earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Joe Jaffoni, investor relations.

Please go ahead.

Joe Jaffoni -- Investor Relations

Thank you, Stephanie. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Eldorado Resorts' 2019 third-quarter conference call. Joining us today from the company are chief executive officer, Tom Reeg; president and chief operating officer, Anthony Carano; and chief financial officer, Bret Yunker. On today's call, we'll review the company's third-quarter financial results and the company's ongoing progress against the key strategic priorities, including the status of Eldorado's proposed acquisition of Caesars Entertainment.

We will then open the call to participants for questions. This afternoon Eldorado issued a release announcing its third-quarter financial results for the period ended September 30, 2019. The release is available in the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.eldoradoresorts.com. Before we get started, I'd like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded, and a webcast replay will be available for 90 days, the details of which are included in today's press release.

During today's call, we may make certain forward-looking statements about the company's performance. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and therefore one should not place undue reliance on them. Forward-looking statements are also subject to the inherent risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed. For additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ from those discussed in our forward-looking statements, you should refer to the cautionary statements contained in our press release, as well as the risk factors contained in the company's filings with the U.S.

Securities and Exchange Commission. Eldorado Resorts undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the call. Also during today's call, the company may discuss non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G. The GAAP financial measures most directly comparable to each non-GAAP financial measure discussed and the reconciliation the differences between each non-GAAP financial measure and the comparable GAAP financial measure can be found on the company's website at www.eldoradoresorts.com by selecting the press release regarding the company's 2019 third-quarter financial results.

Thank you for your patience with that, and at this time it's now my pleasure to turn the call over to the company's CEO, Tom Reeg. Tom, go ahead, please.

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Joe. Good afternoon, everyone. We're pleased to report strong third-quarter results. EBITDA up about 8% on a same-store basis to just under 198 million for the quarter against a plus 12.5% comp from last year.

So I think we were facing the most difficult comp in this space and we posted the strongest same-store EBITDA growth. Our margins increased by over 300 basis points to just under 30% consolidated EBITDA margin for the quarter. We hit our integration -- I'm sorry, our synergy targets in both the Tropicana and Grand Victoria acquisitions during the quarter and had some notable standouts in the central region, in particular that's the cleanest region in terms of looking at what happened with properties as we bring them into our system. Those are assets, the longest of which in Elgin we owned since August of last year.

So we're quite pleased with the performance there. You can see that we had some -- we still had some weather impact in the South, although not enough to make a material difference to the consolidated quarter -- not as material difference to the first couple of quarters of the year, but you can see the South was hit by tropical storms and you see that in the numbers. But generally speaking, very pleased with the quarter from a performance perspective in our business. We spent the bulk of the last four months since we announced the Caesars acquisition, digging further into Caesars organizational operations, we were quite pleased with the quarter that they reported yesterday, particularly in Las Vegas.

Their Las Vegas operation is performing extraordinarily well, cash revenue, RevPAR growth basis generating solid EBITDA gains versus its peers. You have seen that they've started to make some moves on the cost side that are similar to things that we might do as we enter the fray there. In terms of timing of the transaction, our shareholder vote on both sides is November 15, a week from Friday. We continue to work through regulatory and antitrust, you can see in our release.

We're still targeting first half of 2020 closing date. If I were to place a bet today, I'd be betting on a first-quarter close versus a second-quarter close, but we're going through regulatory and antitrust in real-time. In terms of what we're finding, we thought we would find strength at the operating management level in the properties in Caesars. We spent the last couple of months visiting every Caesars property and meeting their management teams, letting them take us through the properties and their views on where the properties are today, where they can go.

We are pleased to report that their property level management team across the board is generally quite strong, it should adapt well and quickly to our operating style where they have much more of a say in what happens in the business, and we're excited to get there. In terms of our announced synergy targets, we've announced 500 million of synergies post closing, as most of you are aware. We are supremely confident in that number, growing increasingly confident as we dig deeper into the organization, and indeed we think that those synergies will be heavily front-end loaded. So we feel very good about where we're headed with Caesars, about where Caesars is on its own and on where our own business is.

I can tell you also in Caesars, we're excited to see areas what we think we can drive shareholder value that is not just generating more free cash flow or EBITDA at the property level. We see opportunities to monetize assets in Caesars that we've started on a path toward in other transactions in some unique areas within Caesars that we think will drive material incremental value to shareholders beyond just the multiple of EBITDA or the free cash flow yield. So we're very pleased with how the quarter finished. The consumer remains strong for us.

As you go into fourth quarter on our side of the ledger, fourth quarter is always the most difficult to forecast because so much of the business is collapsed into a handful of weeks around the holidays, and we are facing a plus almost 22% same-store sales comp. So we're facing a difficult comp, but we feel good about where the consumer is and good about what we'll post in the fourth quarter. So with that, I will turn it to Anthony for more specifics on the properties.

Anthony Carano -- President and Chief Operating Officer

Thank you, Tom, and good afternoon to everyone on the call. I'd like to take a few minutes to provide you with some third-quarter operational highlights. The third quarter was strong, with four out of our five regions delivering adjusted EBITDA growth led by the central region at 22.3% growth year over year. Looking at our five operating segments, I'll begin with the E segment where adjusted EBITDA increased 5.3% year over year to 57.2 million, and the adjusted EBITDA margin rose 190 basis points to 30.7%.

All three properties in the east generated year-over-year growth in adjusted EBITDA during the quarter. Scioto's adjusted EBITDA rose for the 19th consecutive quarter. LTM EBITDA in Atlantic City is now ahead of the LTM period preceding the Hard Rock and Ocean openings. Adjusted EBITDA for the south region was down 7.2% to 24.7 million on a 10.6% decline in net revenue.

Results in the south segment were negatively impacted by hurricane Barry and Dorian, which impacted Pompano and Lake Charles during the quarter. Our property level operating teams reacted quickly, and despite the weather headwinds in the south regions, adjusted EBITDA margin improved 85 basis points to 22.9%. Now turning to the west region, EBITDA improved 1.4% year over year to $49.5 million. Results improved sequentially in the third quarter in the West Region following the completion of our Black Hawk renovations late in Q2 of '19.

The West Region's adjusted EBITDA margin improved 200 basis points to 32.7%. Revenues in the Midwest declined 4%, and segment adjusted EBITDA rose 1.2% to $35.7 million. four of the six properties in the Midwest achieved year-over-year increases in adjusted EBITDA. The Midwest adjusted EBITDA margin increased 190 basis points to 37.2%.

Finally, similar to Q2, our central region delivered an exceptionally strong third quarter with EBITDA growth of 22.3% on a 2.4% decline in net revenues. All three assets in this segment delivered double-digit year-over-year gains in adjusted EBITDA. Our ability to run these assets more efficiently is evident in the 630 basis point improvement in the segment's EBITDA margin to 31.4% during the quarter. As I reflect upon our Q3 results, our diversified portfolio of 26 regional gaming assets had a solid quarter, delivering 8% same-store adjusted EBITDA growth.

Our recently acquired assets are performing well, and our property level teams continue to find ways to improve operating margins as evidenced by the 330 basis point improvement in consolidated margins this quarter. I'm excited about the opportunities ahead as we look forward to closing the Caesars acquisition. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Bret for some additional insights on the third-quarter financial performance and details on our balance sheet and capital structure. Bret?

Bret Yunker -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Great. Thanks, Anthony. Third quarter was very productive from my perspective.

We ended the quarter with 2.95 billion of debt and over 200 million of cash on the balance sheet. During the quarter we paid down 70 million on our term loan, and year-to-date we've repaid over 300 million of debt. In the third quarter we spent 38 million on capex, and we continue to estimate full-year 2019 capex of 200 million. We expect to begin construction on our Lake Charles land-based project later this quarter.

We anticipate receiving 385 million of gross proceeds from the Century asset sale before the end of this year and 230 million from Twin River proceeds in the first half of 2020. We plan to use these proceeds to pay down debt. And with that, I'll turn the call back to Tom.

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Bret. We'll turn it back to the operator for any questions.

Questions & Answers:

Operator

[Operator instructions] Our first question is coming from Carlo Santarelli with Deutsche Bank.

Steve Pizzo -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

Hey, it's Steve Pizzo on for Carlo. Last night, Caesars CEO Tony Rodio mentioned that they now see 75 to 100 million of cost saves. How do you think about that in terms of your $500 million synergy target and the time line for realization of your synergies?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Well, what I will tell you is, as in any merger agreement, there are operating covenants in terms of what each company can do between signing and closing. Both of us are operating our business as independent entities at this point. So Caesars is making those decisions as they make material decisions -- if it reaches a certain threshold in materiality, we opine as well. Tony has been with us through all of our due diligence in the last four months, both property and in Las Vegas.

He's heard a lot of the same things that we've heard, we've been discussing publicly and privately what we would intend to do once we take over. So you should expect that some of what Tony is tackling are things that we would have started tackling at closing, so we get to accelerate that a little bit and see the benefits quicker than we have in other transactions.

Steve Pizzo -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

OK. Great. And then just one follow up, given the value Caesars brings to you with respect to their sports partnerships, how do you foresee the monetization of said value?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Can you repeat that question? Get closer to the mic, we can't hear you.

Steve Pizzo -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

Yeah. Given the value Caesars brings to you with respect to their sports partnerships, how do you foresee the monetization of said value?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

I'll tell you, we have our partnership with William Hill, Caesars has a lot of its own sports betting partnerships. As we come together, it's an obvious time to figure out how are we going to tackle sports going forward. That's clearly a much higher growth business than the core casino operating business. And I think if we can find a path where we can spotlight that value so that it's not buried in a giant casino operating company, you should expect that we'd explore the ability to do that.

Steve Pizzo -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

OK, great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from David Katz with Jefferies.

David Katz -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Hi, afternoon, everyone. Tom, I mean, I think a lot of the operating discussion is quite clear. But you did mention in your opening remarks about other embedded value. I assume that the previous question would be under that heading of other value drivers within the combined entity.

And I would assume that the Pompano discussion, which we've had, would be under that heading also. What other kinds of things would you include, either generally or specifically, under that heading? And if there is any incremental update since G2E on Pompano that's discussable, I'd love to hear it.

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Sure. Take the second one first on Pompano. We still expect zoning to be complete in early 2020. That's just been bureaucratic in terms of how long it takes.

There's no controversy in terms of what we are doing. Third-party interest in the project has been meaningfully stronger than either of us or Cordish anticipated going in, so the scope has expanded a bit. You've seen some public meeting data that's come out of Florida and a lot of what's in there is accurate in terms of what we're pursuing. You should expect to see construction in earnest in 2020.

And in terms of what else is out there, yes, sports is an opportunity. Caesars has a lot of excess real estate both in and out of Las Vegas that could be used for future development, both for ourselves or in a partnership. There's lots and lots of entities that would like to get close to or on the Vegas Strip. As you know, Caesars owns a lot of land in that area and there could be opportunity.

Caesars has payment streams embedded in the business that others in the past have monetized at particularly attractive capitalization rates, so you have those sorts of opportunities as well. So not just improving free cash flow and operating casino EBITDA, but extracting value from the pieces of Caesars, we think this will be an even more target rich environment than we have seen historically.

David Katz -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Got it. I think that's it for me. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Steve Wieczynski with Stifel.

Steve Wieczynski -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

Yeah, good afternoon, guys. So Tom, you talked about your property business, the Caesars assets and you touched on the management side of things, but are there any other high level takeaways in terms of what you guys learned, maybe they're -- what needs fixing, if anything, or even what those guys might do better than you guys, that's even possible?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. I'd say, the specter of, is there a ton of capex out there that hasn't been spent today, there's really not a material amount. There's some hotel towers that we'll touch in the non-Vegas markets, but nothing that's an extraordinarily big number. So we were generally pleased with the shape of the assets.

In terms of what they do better than us, their rewards program is light years beyond ours, what they do in e -commerce and social is well ahead of what we do. Their table games business generally is far more developed than ours, all of which I think can drive substantial incremental value through our own properties while at the same time we're converting their operating style to ours in their property. So we think there's going to be synergy opportunities from an operating cash flow standpoint on both sides in this transaction.

Steve Wieczynski -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

OK. If I can add on that a little bit, Tom, I think you guys have talked about that 500 million synergy target does not include any real contribution from rightsizing of player reinvestment spend across their portfolio, and I just want to make sure that's still a fair statement and if you still think there's upside as you go through that process?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

That's still a fair statement, Steve.

Steve Wieczynski -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

OK. And then last question, real quick, I know you talked about on this call, the $500 million synergy target, but I don't think -- if I missed this, I apologize, but I don't think I heard you talk about the $10 free cash flow number. Is that still a fair number in play?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. We still see a path to 4 , $4.5 billion of EBITDA out of the combined portfolio, which would lead to free cash flow in excess of $10 a share.

Steve Wieczynski -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

OK. That's it for me. Thanks, guys, appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Harry Curtis with Instinet. Harry, you're ready to go, please unmute.

Harry Curtis -- Nomura Instinet -- Analyst

Sorry about that. Can you hear me?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Yes.

Harry Curtis -- Nomura Instinet -- Analyst

OK. Very good. The -- a twist on the last question about giving property managers more autonomy, when you visit with them, where there any consistent strategy that they are likely to adopt with less corporate influence?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

I mean I think the opportunity is, there's a tremendous amount of inefficiency in their system and it's very difficult to target the local customer from thousands of miles away. So as an example, it takes them considerably longer, let's say, somewhere between two and three times as long for them to produce direct mail to their customers than us. That's really a function of all of the sausage making that it has to go through. I will tell you that at the -- that one piece is marketing, another other piece is the food and beverage operations.

There we take a different tack than they do. There's an opportunity there. What else would we say, the property level guys taking control would be considerably different than the way that we're doing it?

Bret Yunker -- Chief Financial Officer

Mostly marketing.

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Mainly marketing. And that's like I said, both time to market and the way that you attack your customer base is going to be very different if it's driven by the local level than out in Las Vegas. And Caesars also runs as almost like a Vegas and a non-Vegas company. So as you have needs in the corporate infrastructure of Caesars, when you're outside of Las Vegas, it's difficult to get the attention that you need on a timely basis because understandably they're focused on Vegas where more of their cash flow is generated.

That speaks to why it needs to be -- a lot of the stuff needs to be relocated to the local level.

Harry Curtis -- Nomura Instinet -- Analyst

OK. So following up on that, it sounds to me like the key functions that they -- that Caesars corporate has maybe have their thumb on the scale, that's the right term, has been marketing and food and beverage. Are there any other ones that you think really need to be more at the property level?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

I mean they've had it everywhere. The way I would characterize it is noncustomer facing responsibilities can -- in our estimation effectively be consolidated at the corporate level. When you're talking about customer-facing responsibilities, those need to be as close to the customer as they can be. And in Caesars case, everything is centralized at this point effectively.

Harry Curtis -- Nomura Instinet -- Analyst

OK, very good. That clarifies it. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator instructions] Our next question comes from Jared Shojaian with Wolfe Research.

Jared Shojaian -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. So Tom, I heard you on your comments about just fourth quarter being a little bit more difficult to forecast than a typical quarter, but maybe you can walk us through some of the puts and takes as to why fourth quarter should be better or worse than the 8% same-store growth rate that you put up in the third quarter. And I guess, maybe talk me out of why fourth quarter shouldn't be better than that, just given some of the weather challenges you had in the third quarter and then you also have the Reno housing agreement for the full quarter and the fourth quarter?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Well, in a low volume quarter where there's going to be, the lower your volumes the more volatility you have generally. The biggest reason I would caution you on fourth quarter expectation is the comp. We're up against plus 22% on a same-store basis. And there was -- in that number there was some positive hold in Atlantic City.

So I would say, to expect us to accelerate from here in this quarter is aggressive, given the comp.

Jared Shojaian -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

OK. Thank you. And then just shifting gears to, I guess, the asset sale topic, can you help us think about how you're thinking about that in the next few years and what I'm really trying to understand is your thought process on if there's a gross number that you're targeting, if it is a property count that you're targeting or if it's a mindset that you're just going to keep selling assets if the multiples are attractive enough. How do you think about that? How do you size up that opportunity?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Well, you have some preclosing activities. You saw Caesars announce the Rio transaction. We've announced the sale of Kansas City and Vicksburg to Twin Rivers since we announced the Caesars, you should expect some additional modest sales announcements pre-closing. The ultimate impact of that is, we'll be borrowing, presuming all those transactions close, over $1 billion less to fund the transaction than we presented at the time of the announcement of the deal, because Rio was not in there, Twin River was not in there and then any subsequent asset sales were not in that.

You should expect us to be always looking at noncore assets, so the smaller assets in the portfolio. We've talked about, we intend to sell one Las Vegas asset on the strip postclosing. That remains the case. And then our intention is to see how did that sales process go? How did that impact the system once that property was removed from it? And we'll make decisions from there.

I would generally say, personally, I think the propco opco model will prove itself out through a cycle. I think that once it does, I think multiples will start to expand because the specter of what happens to opco in a downturn will be answered, and I think it'll be in our interest to own as much of our portfolio as we can at that point. We'll be about 50-50 owned and leased at closing. We like to maintain in that area for the foreseeable future.

But outside of what I've described in terms of the smaller noncore stuff and a Vegas Strip asset sale, I'd say we're not contemplating anything beyond that. But I'd also tell you, in our company everything is for sale every day. So if somebody came to us with an offer for any asset that was in the best interest of our stakeholders, we would be listening.

Jared Shojaian -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

Great. Thank you. One quick follow up, if I may, and I apologize if I missed this, but what was the weather impact to EBITDA in the quarter?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

We didn't quantify that, Jared. You can see in the south numbers, we were down for the quarter. You should presume we wouldn't have been down, say, for weather.

Jared Shojaian -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

OK. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Barry Jonas with SunTrust.

Barry Jonas -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

Hi, guys. tom, that was some good color on potential sales. Just curious, from an FTC perspective, any additional color you can give in terms of any potential forced divestments?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

We're working through the process. We've talked to you about markets where you should expect us to be active in Northwest Louisiana and in the Tahoe area. And beyond that we're not expecting any divestitures preclosing that are related to closing the transaction.

Barry Jonas -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

So nothing in Atlantic City then?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

We don't know at this point, Barry.

Barry Jonas -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

OK. And then just a housekeeping, corporate came in meaningfully below our model in Q3. Just curious if that's driven by permanent cost savings or if just something shifted around?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Well, keep in mind that's corporate and others. So sports betting activity through the JV flows through there now, too. You can look at our -- the corporate number that's in the income statement in the back of the earnings release and in the 10-Q will give you a straight corporate number and you'll see a -- in the Q you'll see the stock compensation that's noncash against that.

Barry Jonas -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

Got it. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you . [Operator instructions] Our next question comes from John DeCree with Union Gaming.

John DeCree -- Union Gaming -- Analyst

Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. Tom, or maybe Bret, one up our alley about net leverage. You've talked about some of the moving parts with asset sales heading in, I was wondering if you give us a little bit of color on where you expect net leverage to be on the existing business at the end of the year, when you get to closing kind of pro forma for the pending asset sales and then what's your thoughts on net leverage kind of post-closing and you're kind of thoughts on targets and when you might get to your target net leverage ratio?

Bret Yunker -- Chief Financial Officer

Hey John, it's Bret. Still expecting to be mid-five on net rent adjusted basis once your pro forma for closing asset sales and expected synergies.

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Ultimately John, our intention would be to drive leverage toward three times and below on a gross lease adjusted basis. Our primary use of free cash flow will be to pay down debt.

John DeCree -- Union Gaming -- Analyst

OK. And then just switching gears a little bit, we spent some time talking about synergies with integration of Caesars on the horizon, but you've mentioned you've -- we're anniversary-ing Tropicana and Elgin here, reached synergy targets there. In prior acquisition you've been able to exceed those, arguably their synergies are just ongoing operational improvements. I was wondering, Tom, if you could talk a little bit about what you see across the existing portfolio today and how much opportunity do you think there is with what you have today, not including Caesars?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. I would tell you that we continue to see opportunity in assets that we've owned for a very long time. We've got growers that we've owned back to basically the 1970s in the case of Reno. But Scioto continues to be high single digit, low single digit grower every quarter.

We're now seeing growth out of Atlantic City. You're seeing continued strong results out of the Midwest. I should have pointed out, in the Midwest you had some lingering flooding issues early in the quarter as well, otherwise the Midwest looked a little better as well. So we really look across the entire portfolio and see continued opportunity across the board just from basic blocking and tackling. And then you add on projects like we've talked about in Pompano moving land based in Lake Charles, our recent activity in Colorado in terms of operating that facility that should bear fruit.

And then you plug that system into Caesars rewards where you have markets like Denver and Columbus and St. Louis and South Florida where Caesars really didn't have a feeder into their system. Those are very large markets. We think those are markers that should benefit the most from plugging into Caesars rewards.

John DeCree -- Union Gaming -- Analyst

Got it. If I could -- wanted to follow up on your comments about real estate a little earlier to a prior question, we saw a big print with the Bellagio on the strip and a general view I think across the markets that their valuation are on the rise, particularly in Las Vegas, and what you might be able to do with the Caesars portfolio, has that changed your view or expectations on valuation for the strip asset that you might be looking to market or sell at some point and/or the timing of when you may want to do that? Is there I guess any sense of urgency to delever or will you kind of take it as the market goes?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

It doesn't change the timing of what we're looking to do. We certainly were very happy to see where MGM printed Bellagio real estate. We're even happier that there's new capital in the real estate investment arena that's coming into the space. We think that that's the tip of the iceberg.

We think there's going to be others that are interested as well. We think that will improve the value of our assets, but we want to manage our leverage down, that's why we are talking about selling an asset quickly postclosing the transaction, but we're not in a hurry to run and sell assets. We think that the value of Vegas real estate is going to continue to climb as you have more capital that becomes interested in making those types of investments. But both the Bellagio trade and the Circus Circus trade were spectacular trades from our standpoint.

We feel very good about what we're buying and our ability to create value from those assets moving forward.

John DeCree -- Union Gaming -- Analyst

That was good. Thanks for the additional color, guys, and congratulations on the solid quarter.

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Tom.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from David Bain with ROTH Capital.

David Bain -- ROTH Capital -- Analyst

Great. Thank you. I just had one question, it was a quick follow up on, I believe, the initial question, just for clarity, the additional 25 to 50 million of the announced cost reduction run rate estimate by Caesars, can you just give us a broad range of what may overlap from a quantitative standpoint with your year one $500 million synergy target?

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

I mean I don't want to get to that level of granularity, David, but you can see that the categories that were mentioned yesterday by Tony very similar to what we've been talking about since June. You should expect that there's a fair amount that we would have done at closing that's going to start to get done a little bit earlier.

David Bain -- ROTH Capital -- Analyst

OK. All right, great. Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you. There are no additional questions at this time. I would now like to turn back to presenters for closing remarks.

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, everybody, for your participation. We'll speak to you soon.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 0 minutes

Call participants:

Joe Jaffoni -- Investor Relations

Tom Reeg -- Chief Executive Officer

Anthony Carano -- President and Chief Operating Officer

Bret Yunker -- Chief Financial Officer

Steve Pizzo -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

David Katz -- Jefferies -- Analyst

Steve Wieczynski -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

Harry Curtis -- Nomura Instinet -- Analyst

Jared Shojaian -- Wolfe Research -- Analyst

Barry Jonas -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

John DeCree -- Union Gaming -- Analyst

David Bain -- ROTH Capital -- Analyst

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