Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. Q2 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

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2008-08-06 14:37:11.0

Tags: Pinnacle Entertainment Inc.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from Joe Greff with JPMorgan.

Joe Greff - JPMorgan

Good morning, guys.

Dan Lee

Morning, Joe.

Joe Greff - JPMorgan

Going back to the Ameristar stock purchase topic, if we go back to the mindset from October of last year, is it fair to infer from your comments and your analysis that the risk-adjusted returns for a combination with Ameristar was greater than the returns from developing in Sugarcane Bay, Atlantic City and some of the other developments that you have up in the air?

Dan Lee

Well, the analysis we did at the time, which wouldn't be pertinent today was that we could actually do all of it. That in effect, the cash flow of the combined company actually made it easier to go build all this stuff, because the construction that they had in the pipeline was nearing completion.

And the construction we had was ramping up. And so by putting the two companies together, you had significantly greater cash flows and it was actually easier to move ahead. So it wasn't in lieu of building these other projects, it was actually helped you get here.

Joe Greff - JPMorgan

And this is a big if the financing markets were to come back, would that combination still make sense, more returns?

Dan Lee

If you just look at a map, you can see it would make sense. And I think there is somewhat similar corporate cultures in that we both believe in building quality facilities in these regional markets. A lot of our competitors don't. A lot of our competitors clearly try to get in on the cheap and build something schlocky, and get their profit out as quickly as possible. And we and Ameristar have similar corporate strategies. So it actually is a pretty good fit.

But, at this point, the capital markets are so far away from being able to consummate this. It's hard to even envision that. I mean just to give you an idea that if you tried to put the two companies together. Suppose you just did a merger of equals, which for various reasons we probably wouldn't want to do and they probably wouldn't want to do.

But if you just did a merger of equals, it would require refinancing all of our debt and all of their debt. And at this point, the fact that we have bonds that; for example, 7.5% is really kind of an asset. And if you had to refinance those bonds at 14% or 15%, and you had to refinance their bank debt, I guess at today. I mean, we both have bank lines that are at LIBOR plus two. I don't recall exactly what theirs is, but ours is LIBOR plus two.

 

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