Golden Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ:GDEN) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 8, 2024 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Joe Jaffoni - Investor Relations
Charles Protell - President & Chief Financial Officer
Blake Sartini - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Conference Call Participants

David Bain - B. Riley
Barry Jonas - Truist
Carlo Santarelli - Deutsche Bank
Chad Beynon - Macquarie

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, welcome to the Golden Entertainment First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded today.

Now I would like to turn the conference over to Joe Jaffoni, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Joe Jaffoni

Thank you very much, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. On the call today is Blake Sartini, the company's Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Charles Protell, the company's President and Chief Financial Officer.

On this call, we will make forward-looking statements under the Safe Harbor provision of the federal securities laws. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated in these statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from these forward-looking statements is contained in today's press release and our filings with the SEC. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or otherwise.

During today's call, we will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures in talking about our performance. You can find the reconciliation of GAAP financial measures in our press release, which is available on our website. We'll start the call with Charles Protell, reviewing the details of the first quarter results and a business update. Following that, Blake and Charles will take your questions.

With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Charles Protell. Charles, please go ahead.

Charles Protell

Thanks, Joe. We started the quarter by completing the sale of our Nevada distributed business, the last of three non-core businesses that we divested over the past nine months. The proceeds from these transactions were used primarily to repay over $0.5 billion of debt including the redemption of our bonds in April that were outstanding at the end of the quarter. The financial flexibility recreated by reducing leverage and maintaining liquidity has allowed us to establish a recurring dividend at an attractive yield and positions us to fully utilize our current $91 million share repurchase authorization.