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Red Rock Resorts’ deficient board diversity claims [updated]

Updated: Red Rock Resorts Inc. disclosed a revised diversity policy on April 26, 2022. Based on those changes, Red Rock Resorts seems to make the goal of diversifying the Board even harder to reach. In the revised policy, Red Rock Resorts stated that, while it is open to recruiting diverse candidates, it would continue to evaluate the benefits of adding new Board members against the additional costs and impact on efficiency that may result from a larger Board—a consideration that it had not stated in its prior policy. See those revisions here and the 2022 policy here. We originally published the content below on January 31, 2022.

Red Rock is the only one of the nine publicly traded Nevada-based casino gaming companies with zero women on its board of directors. Its five-person board has been the same white men since its 2015 IPO and its justification to shareholders for its board composition relies on deficient claims.

See our letter to the SEC about Red Rock’s deficient board diversity claims here here.

In the Corporate Governance – Diversity section in its 2020 and 2021 proxy filings, Red Rock tells investors that it considers gender among its diversity characteristics and then explains that:

“Gaming regulatory agencies in certain of the jurisdictions in which we operate may require our directors to maintain licenses. The licensing process is onerous, invasive, time consuming and expensive. Because of this, it is difficult to identify well-qualified candidates willing to subject themselves, as well as their families, to the rigorous and intrusive process necessary to obtain a gaming license. As a result of the limited pool of potential directors and the strong qualifications of our present Board, we believe that the current composition of our Board is in the best interest of the Company. We remain continuously open to recruiting well-qualified diverse candidates to our Board.”

There isn’t a limited pool of potential directors for Nevada-based gaming companies

There are several indicators that suggest there is not a limited pool of potential directors for Nevada-based gaming companies. Every publicly traded Nevada-based casino gaming company except Red Rock has at least one woman serving as a director, amounting to 20 out of 76 directors, or 26%, with half of them joining these boards since 2018 [1].

Nationally, women now make up 30% of all directors in the S&P 500, which is up from 28% last year and 16% a decade ago. And in the Russell 3000 index, women of all races account for 27 percent of all directors, up from 24 percent.

The pool of female directors for Nevada casino gaming companies appears to be no smaller than national averages so it is concerning Red Rock justifies its board composition through the problematic idea that if only there were a larger pool of candidates then the Board might look different.

[CHART JANUARY 27, 2022]

A gaming license is not a justifiable obstacle to board diversity

Red Rock’s claims about board diversity also rely on the problematic assumption that the pool of potential directors is too small because of the gaming license process. The gaming license process is not a justifiable obstacle to board diversity, as evidenced by the presence of women on the boards of every publicly traded Nevada-based gaming company except Red Rock.

In fact, at least in Nevada, the licensing process should present no obstacle. Nevada gaming regulation 16.415 does not require licensing of every director of a publicly traded corporation, only of directors who are actively and directly engaged in the administration or supervision of gaming activities. The regulation identifies the board chair and chair of the audit committee as among the directors who must normally be licensed.

Meaning Red Rock can elevate directors to the Board without their undergoing the rigors of the licensing process where they do not require licensing.

Red Rock has an obligation to assess the effectiveness of its diversity policy

Red Rock shareholders deserve to know whether the Company’s diversity policy is effective or not. SEC rule 229.407(c)(2)(vi) states that “if the nominating committee (or the board) has a policy with regard to the consideration of diversity in identifying director nominees, describe how this policy is implemented, as well as how the nominating committee (or the board) assesses the effectiveness of its policy.”

So, what does Red Rock mean when it states in its diversity policy that “we remain continuously open to recruiting well-qualified diverse candidates to our Board”?

Red Rock’s three independent directors, Mr. Robert Cashell Jr., Mr. Robert Lewis, and Mr. James Nave, have been on the Red Rock board since its IPO, comprise the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, and were board members of Red Rock’s predecessor company since 2011.

What can the Company disclose to back up the claim that the recruitment of diverse candidates is active and ongoing?

NOTE 1:

COMPANY DIRECTOR YEAR JOINED
Full House Resorts Inc. 1 Kathleen M. Marshall 2007
Golden Entertainment Inc. 2 Ann N. Dozier 2019
Monarch Casino & Resort Inc. 3 Yvette Landau 2010
Las Vegas Sands Corp. 4 Micheline Chau 2014
5 Nora M. Jordan 2021
6 Yibling Mao 2021
Caesars Entertainment Inc. 7 Bonnie Biumi 2020
8 Jan Jones Blackhurst 2019
9 Sandra Douglass Morgan 2021
Boyd Gaming Corp. 10 Marianne Boyd Johnson 1990
11 Christine J. Spadafor 2009
12 Veronica Wilson 2003
MGM Resorts International 13 Mary Chris Jammet 2014
14 Alexis M. Herman 2002
15 Rose McKinney-James 2005
16 Jan Swartz 2018
Wynn Resorts Ltd. 17 Betsy S. Atkins 2018
18 Patricia Mulroy 2015
19 Margaret J. “Dee Dee” Myers 2018
20 Winifred “Wendy” Webb 2018

Red Rock Corrects Violation of Securities Law in Proxy Statement

On June 8, 2017, we sent a letter to the SEC regarding Red Rock Resorts proxy statement filed on May 1, 2017 and its amended proxy statement filed on May 26, 2017. We noticed that Red Rock did not provide shareholders with the ability to withhold votes on its director elections even though the company uses a plurality voting system.

Under 17 C.F.R. § 240.14a-4(b)(2), a proxy that provides for the election of directors must provide means for security holders to withhold authority to vote for each nominee.  The proxy may do so by providing: (1) a box indicating that authority to vote is withheld; (2) an instruction that indicates a vote may be withheld by striking out the name of any nominee; (3) a blank space in which the voter may enter the names of nominees for whom votes are withheld; or (4) any similar means, provided that clear instructions are provided about how to withhold authority.

By not providing shareholders with the ability to withhold votes, the company was effectively preventing investors from registering their dissatisfaction with director nominees.

On June 16, 2017, Red Rock filed an amended proxy statement that corrected the voting options by providing shareholders with the ability to withhold their authority to vote.

Questions about the Palms Acquisition

When will Red Rock disclose the Palms purchase agreement?

Since the May 10 press release announcing the acquisition, Red Rock has not filed the definitive purchase agreement with the SEC yet. Investors should be able to review and evaluate the details of this significant transaction, which, at $312.5 million, cost nearly 70% of the company’s 2015 Adjusted EBITDA ($451 million) and is expected to be financed with new debt.

What will Red Rock have to do to bump up Palms’ EBITDA by 25% in one year?

Back in May, Red Rock management stated that they expect the Palms to generate “over $35 million” in EBITDA in the first full year of ownership by Red Rock. At the same time, they say the property’s EBITDA run rate is at “approximately 60% below its peak level.”

The Palms reportedly had EBITDA of about $70 million before the Great Recession, according to Debtwire/Financial Times. If one assumes that was the peak, then “60% below peak” would imply current annual EBITDA of about $28 million. Will Red Rock be able to expand Palms’ EBITDA by 25% (to $35 million) during its first full year of ownership? What kind of revenue growth and/or cost cutting will be required to achieve such a large increase in EBITDA in one year?

Will “Palms Station” cannibalize Palace Station?

Also back in May, Red Rock management described Palms as being “located in one of our most underpenetrated areas in the Las Vegas Valley from a boarding pass member standpoint.”

But the Palms is only 2.3 miles away from Red Rock’s Palace Station, and if you draw a five-mile-radius circle around each of these two properties, there is a 71% overlap between the two circles. How will the company ensure that its efforts to grow the business of Palms will not come at the expense of Palace Station?

 

Questions about the Audited Financial Statements of Red Rock Resorts

Last week, we wrote to the SEC with questions concerning the audited financial statements of Red Rock Resorts. In our letter, we ask two specific questions:

  1. Did Fertitta Entertainment, which will be acquired by Red Rock for $460 million, provide audited financial statements with an unqualified opinion by its auditor – also Ernst & Young – after it agreed to be acquired by Red Rock?
  2. If Fertitta Entertainment did not provide audited financial statements, how did Ernst & Young handle the inclusion of Fertitta Entertainment when it produced the audited consolidated financial statements of the Station Holdco holding company?

Our questions were based on this disclosure from the Fertitta Entertainment purchase agreement:

With respect to [Fertitta Entertainment LLC’s] consolidated financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2012, 2013 and 2014 and for the six months ended June 30, 2015, the Company did not record share-based compensation expense associated with equity incentives issued to current and former executives of the Company from FI Station Investor LLC.  FI Station Investor LLC is an entity that is owned by the parent entities of the Company.  Pursuant to GAAP, this non-cash share-based compensation is required to be recorded as a component of the Company’s statement of operations since these executives were employees of the Company and FI Station Investor LLC is a common-controlled entity of the Company’s equity holders.  The Company’s auditor, Ernst & Young LLP, has determined that each of the foregoing financial statements would require to be restated and has withdrawn its opinions for each audit period that are dated March 25, 2015, May 14, 2014, April 16, 2013 and May 15, 2012, respectively.

This disclosure makes one question how the unnamed financial advisor to the special committee of Red Rock was able to provide a fairness opinion on the Fertitta Entertainment acquisition, if the target company’s auditor had withdrawn its opinion on its financial statements.

It is possible that, since last October, when the purchase agreement was signed and the above disclosure was made, Fertitta Entertainment restated its financial statements for the named periods and Ernst & Young has since audited and provide an unqualified opinion on its restated financial statements. But if that is what has transpired and new financial statements acceptable to the auditors are available now from Fertitta Entertainment, should the $460-million agreement signed last October be revisited to ensure the deal is still fair to Station Casinos and its current and future investors?

See our full letter to the SEC here.


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

“Too-Big-To-Regulate”

We recently sent a letter to Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval  to provide the governor with “specific examples of problems related to the approval of the Station Casinos/Red Rock Resorts IPO by the Nevada Gaming Commission on January 21, 2016 in order to illustrate the challenges Nevada faces in regulating a ‘too-big-to-regulate’ significant owner of one of the major gaming companies in Las Vegas.”

The entire letter can be viewed here.

In the letter, we discuss the rushed nature of the approval of the IPO by the Gaming Control Board and Nevada Gaming Commission, Deutsche Bank’s accountability as the parent company and affiliate of a felon, federal regulators’ reactions to the bank’s misconduct, and the relationship between the bank and its designated director at Station Casinos, Mr. Robert A. Cashell, Jr. We also ask whether Nevada’s gaming regulators are too permissive toward “too-big-to-regulator” investors.

Our letter concludes with the following:

We cannot help but worry that Nevada gaming regulators appear unwilling to confront head-on the admittedly complex issues related to a “too-big-to-regulate” investor like Deutsche Bank, which is affiliated with a felon. We are fearful that this apparent unwillingness on the part of our state regulators might invite unwelcome scrutiny from federal officials, especially as federal regulators and investigators continue to work to hold Deutsche Bank accountable for its actions. Some might even begin to question whether Nevada is capable of upholding the “gold standard” of gaming industry regulation when our regulators continue to look the other way and refuse to ask hard questions about why the affiliate of a felon continues to own and profit from casinos in our state.

The entire letter can be viewed here.


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

The IPO Is Postponed, Per Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank announced on January 28 that the Station Casinos (Red Rock Resorts) IPO had been postponed. According to Co-CEO John Cryan, the decision was made in the previous week “due to market conditions.” On January 21, Station Casinos CFO Marc Falcone had made a presentation of the company’s “$450 million of primary offering of shares” at a special meeting of the Nevada Gaming Control Board.”

Two questions come to mind:

1. Will the Fertitta family and other insiders seek other ways to fund the $460-million Fertitta Entertainment deal even before the IPO goes to market?

Last March, the company sought approval from holders of its $500 million bonds to issue another $300 million of bonds to fund a special distribution to its owners. It cancelled those plans by May for “off-the-record” reasons. In the third quarter last year, it paid distributions of $106.4 million to Station Casinos LLC members, which was more than the company’s EBITDA of $90.0 million in the quarter. According to CFO Marc Falcone’s comments at the Gaming Control Board meeting on January 21, the company currently has $350 million available under its revolving credit facility. Will the company tap the revolver to fund the Fertitta Entertainment acquisition or make other cash distributions to the owners now that the IPO is on hold?

2. Will the terms of the IPO be modified?

We have pointed out various issues with the way the public offering has been structured since it was first announced in October. See more of our analysis of the Red Rock Resorts/Station Casinos IPO:

We also sent a letter to the SEC on January 26 to draw attention to certain information missing from the prospectus filings by Red Rock Resorts.

We will keep you updated with more in-depth analysis of the Red Rock Resorts/Station Casinos IPO. Sign up for updates here or follow us on Twitter at @UHGamingRe.

Our Response to SEC Request for Comment on the Effectiveness of Financial Disclosures about Entities Other than the Registrant

Read our full letter to the SEC here.

On Nov. 30, we sent a letter to the SEC in response to the commission’s request for comment on “Effectiveness of Financial Disclosures About Entities Other Than the Registrant”. We ask the Commission to consider three specific amendments to Rule 3-05. We have arrived at our suggestions after reviewing recent filings by Station Casinos LLC and Station Casinos Corp.

An excerpt from our letter:

We think investors would find it difficult to evaluate the proposed $460-million purchase price of Fertitta Entertainment LLC as neither registrant has provided historical financials of the target. The purchase agreement filed in an 8-K by Station Casinos LLC on Oct. 13 does not include any exhibits showing historical financials of Fertitta Entertainment. And these are not disclosed in Station Casinos Corp.’s IPO filings, including an S-1 filed on Oct. 13 and an S-1/A filed on Nov. 24, either.

Investors are thus left in a quandary: they cannot know whether the Fertitta Entertainment acquisition is “significant” because they do not have the necessary information to check the significance of the purchase using the tests provided for under Rule 3-05. They therefore cannot assess and evaluate whether the purchase of an affiliate under common control is a good one for Station Casinos LLC and its proposed new parent Station Casinos Corp.

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