[BidClub_]
Yet Another Value Podcast · · 33 分钟

2025年中播客投资观点更新

Andrew Walker

YouTube
TL;DR
  • Andrew Walker的年中复盘包括2项正面进展和1个需要更长时间兑现的投资逻辑:Sage Therapeutics与Keros上涨,而Full House Resorts年初至今仍下跌约10%。 他仍做多这3家公司,并认为它们都还有上行空间,只是Sage的兑现窗口以数周计,Keros以数月计,Full House则以数年计。

  • Sage同意以每股8.50美元加CVR出售给Supernus,验证Walker关于公司应出售而非继续消耗现金的判断。 但5.61亿美元的股权对价,在约4亿美元交易后现金的基础上,意味着企业价值不足2亿美元;这低于此前以Zurzuvae特许权使用费为抵押、可获得的2亿美元融资。Walker认为,这“明显是在等着被抬价的报价”。

  • Biogen仍是那只“叫而不吠的狗”,因为它曾推动Sage进入出售状态,却在Sage启动后续出售流程后显然缺席。 作为Zurzuvae的50/50合作伙伴,Biogen最了解这项资产,也可以终结合资安排,获得Supernus无法实现的协同效应。Walker预计,在要约收购截止前,Biogen会在几天至1-2周内提出更高报价;否则,Biogen要么是在对这款药物的公开表态上“满嘴鬼话”,要么就是糟糕到无法正确评估并购协同,今后不该再做并购。

  • 股东压力似乎在Sage和Keros两家公司都发挥了作用。 Sage的要约收购文件承认,投资者对出售流程和持续烧钱感到不满;Keros则在一场惨烈的董事选举后承诺返还3.75亿美元资本。Walker得到的教训是,即使没有组成协调一致的股东集团,“50名小股东给董事会写信”也能产生分量。

  • Keros的3.75亿美元资本返还,相对于一季度7.2亿美元现金及现金等价物只能算“不错的开始”。 随着其后期资产相继失败或达成合作,手上只剩1款早期药物和临床前项目,Walker认为公司保留超过3亿美元现金、维持当前烧钱速度都没有依据。返还机制尚未确定,他预计持续的股东压力将迫使公司进一步分配现金并削减成本。

  • Full House的经营状况明显分化:American Place表现超预期,而Chamonix的爬坡“远比我预期慢”。 临时运营的Waukegan赌场屡创新高,可能为能产生约1亿美元EBITDA的永久物业提供支撑;Walker已将对Chamonix的实际预期从5000万美元下调至约2500万美元。近期最关键的催化剂是再融资,他预计无需股权融资摊薄即可完成;此后,施工执行将成为核心风险。

  • Full House内部人士正通过异常坚决的买入,为其估值主张背书。 CEO Dan以4.75美元买入超过27万股,接近公司1%的股份,当时市场价约为3美元;其中大部分股份买入后将放入惠及其子女和前妻的信托。Walker给出了一个刻意令人难忘的表述:当内部人士认为股价“会大幅上涨”时,他们会“以高出50%的溢价从前妻手里买入”。

摘要 · 为研究而整理的核心内容

1. Sage出售验证投资逻辑,但价格明显留有被抬价空间

  • Walker最初对Sage的投资逻辑给董事会摆出了两条路:一条是做“乖孩子”,启动出售流程并最大化价值;另一条是做“坏孩子”,维持与股东利益不一致的管理架构,同时烧掉公司的现金。如今Sage已同意以每股8.50美元加CVR出售给Supernus,明确走上了第一条路——“大获全胜”(“winner winner chicken dinner”)——预计6-8周内退出公开市场。

  • 表面上的交易对价掩盖了Supernus收购Sage剩余资产的低廉价格。5.61亿美元股权对价,相比Sage截至2025年3月31日的4.24亿美元现金;若计入期间预计消耗,现金约为4亿美元,意味着企业价值不足2亿美元。Sage此前曾可凭借Zurzuvae特许权使用费获得2亿美元融资,换言之,Supernus支付的价格低于融资方愿意以这款药物为抵押提供的贷款额。

  • Walker认为CVR价值有限,按他的解读,其中较小的里程碑可能只有1项能够实现。即使没有竞价者出现,将现金和Zurzuvae的经济价值从表面估值中剥离后,他仍认为Supernus这笔收购“简直是在捡漏”(“an absolute song”)。

2. Biogen缺席,成为尚未兑现的事件驱动催化剂

  • Walker称Biogen是那只“叫而不吠的狗”。Biogen曾推动Sage进入出售状态,但根据要约收购文件,在Sage启动出售流程后并未参与——尽管Biogen拥有Zurzuvae合作项目的另一半权益,对这项资产最为熟悉,也可以终结50/50合资安排、获取可观协同效应。

  • 没有其他经营性买家能够获得类似的协同效应,唯一合理的例外是特许权使用费投资者。这让Walker尤其难以解释当前估值:“公司被收购的价格,低于特许权使用费买家愿意为这款药提供融资的金额……这明显是在等着被抬价的报价。”

  • 截至7月7日,他预计Biogen会在要约收购截止前,于几天至1-2周内提出更高报价。如果Biogen不出价,Walker给出的二选一判断非常直接:Biogen对Zurzuvae的公开热情要么“满嘴鬼话”,要么其折现率和并购判断糟糕到不该再做任何并购。

3. 股东压力改变了Sage,也可能还没有结束Keros的故事

  • Sage的要约收购文件明确提到,股东抱怨流程耗时过长、公司持续消耗现金。之后公司多次提到要在年度股东大会前完成出售,Walker据此判断,董事们担心面对一场尴尬的股东对质:“总得让董事会感受到一点压力。”

  • 他并不把功劳全部归于自己,并强调更大的投资者也在向公司施压。他更广泛的结论是,分散的股东行动依然重要:“50名小股东给董事会写信,提醒董事会履行受托责任——这分量很重。”这不能保证结果,但足以打乱董事会维持现状的偏好。

  • Keros在Walker 4月播客发布后几乎立即启动战略备选方案,如今已宣布返还3.75亿美元资本。但与2025年一季度末7.2亿美元现金及现金等价物相比,他认为这只能算“不错的开始”;公司尚未决定采用分红、要约回购、加速回购还是其他机制。

  • Walker的核心质疑不仅是财务问题,也关乎运营。Keros的重要后期产品要么失败、要么已经达成合作,剩下1款早期药物和几个临床前资产;这样的资产组合既不需要保留超过3亿美元现金,也不需要维持当前“高得离谱”的烧钱速度。他希望公司更大幅度削减成本、返还更多资本,并将合作资产带来的部分价值传导给股东。

4. Keros董事会投票结果令董事几乎没有空间继续无视投资者

  • 年度股东大会结果进一步印证了Walker的判断:不满情绪并不只来自他本人。在交错任期董事会的3名董事中,与Keros最大股东或第二大股东有关联的董事获得压倒性支持;1名现任董事获得的弃权票和经纪商不投票数量之高,让Walker认为其本应辞职;另1名董事的结果则大约是50/50。

  • 这些结果尤其具有杀伤力,因为公司此前已经与1名股东签署支持协议。Walker认为,这场投票促成了3.75亿美元资本返还公告,但公告本身并非充分回应:“我不知道董事会还能怎样看不懂这份通知。”

  • Keros最大股东ADAR1另行表示,选举结果令人担忧,资本返还也不够。Walker认同这一判断,并预计公司将在近期至中期继续分配现金;否则,他对下一次年度股东大会将面对投票的未与股东结盟董事,只留下一句:“祝你们好运。”

5. Full House最强资产正在加速,而旗舰项目令人失望

  • Full House Resorts是这份成绩单上的污点:Walker的2025年投资观点下跌约10%,Penn约下跌10%,Caesars下跌15%,Boyd上涨7%-8%,MGM大致持平。部分弱势来自行业,但Full House的高杠杆令其尤其脆弱;Walker的做法是“把鼻子按在污点上”,而不是掩盖这道污点。

  • Waukegan的American Place表现“极其出色”。Full House已为这座临时赌场投入约2亿美元,赌场所在建筑被管理层比作市政冬季融雪盐仓库;永久设施还预计需要约3亿美元。3月创下历史纪录,5月的表现仅次于3月,Walker认为完工后的物业可以产生1亿美元EBITDA。

  • 伊利诺伊州最高法院1月的裁决驳回了滋扰诉讼,并支持伊利诺伊州博彩委员会,消除了博彩牌照的尾部风险。项目可在2025年接近年底时开工,主要建设将在2026年推进,并于2027年开业。融资和施工仍是重大风险,但Walker认为,仅American Place最终就可能至少值Full House当前的企业价值:“American Place正在全速推进”(“American Place is full speed ahead”)。

  • Cripple Creek的Chamonix则形成鲜明对照。这座高端法式度假村原本旨在改造当地的低额老虎机市场,街对面就是Brass Ass Casino及其Dynamite Dick’s餐厅,但项目爬坡速度远低于Walker和公司此前预期。管理层在一次暗访式运营检查后解雇了总经理;Walker过去希望其产生5000万美元EBITDA,如今能达到2500万美元就已经满意,而公司仍提出的5000万美元目标,在他看来仿佛要等到“宇宙热寂之前”。

6. 内部人买入令再融资成为Full House的关键催化剂

  • Full House CEO曾给出公司最终每股约45美元的价值预期。即便剔除潜在增长项目并进行时间价值折现,Walker仍很难将估值算到低于20美元,而股价接近4美元——未来5年可能成为5倍股,但前提是American Place能够完成融资、按预算建成并成功爬坡。

  • 董事Eric Green以3.40美元买入2.5万股,投入金额超过其每年6.2万美元的现金董事薪酬,并将持股增加超过10%。更强烈的信号出现在6月13日:CEO Dan以4.75美元买入超过27万股,占公司超过50个基点、接近1%;当时股价接近3美元,而自3月1日以来从未达到4.75美元。

  • Dan部分以个人名义、主要通过惠及其子女的信托买入股份,卖方则是他的前妻。对Walker而言,这笔经过协商、带有溢价的交易,让Peter Lynch广为人知的内部人买入准则更进一步:这是一位公开主张每股价值45美元的CEO在“用行动兑现言论”(“actions backing up words”)。

  • 剩余的悬念是American Place约3亿美元的新增资金需求,这很可能被纳入一笔规模远超此数、覆盖全公司的再融资,而Full House当前市值低于1.5亿美元。Dan的新合同约定,若在2027年3月30日前完成本金债务再融资,将获得30万美元奖金;Walker预计公司将在2025年下半年完成再融资,且无需通过股权融资造成摊薄。若这一判断兑现,融资和摊薄风险被移除后,股价可能大幅重估;施工执行、成本超支和赌场爬坡则是那个“关键前提”。

完整逐字稿
Andrew Walker

Today, I am going to be doing an update on the 3 ideas that I solo presented to you over the first half of the year. Those are updates on Sage Therapeutics, Keros, and Full House Resorts. Full disclosure: I am long all of these stocks. I'll give a couple more disclosures and disclaimers in the podcast, and there's a full disclaimer at the end.

Updates are always interesting. I know there's been interesting news at all these companies, so I wanted to take a second to give those updates, put a bow on 2—maybe 1.5 or 2—of the 3, and give an update on where everything stands.

One of the most popular requests I get on the podcast is, “Hey, you had guest XYZ on to talk about stock ABC 6 months ago. Let’s get an update. The stock’s down 20%, it’s up 100%, whatever. Let’s get an update.” It’s hard to get guests on to do an update, but one of the nice things about being the host of your own podcast and coming on every now and then to talk about ideas is that you can force yourself to come on the podcast for updates.

Today is July 7th. I pitched 3 ideas throughout the year—solo pitches where I get on here and talk about an idea for 30 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour, 5 hours, who knows? Today, I’m going to be doing an update on the 3 ideas that I’ve talked about so far this year. Those are Sage, Keros, and Full House Resorts.

Full disclosure: I am long all of those stocks. On top of that disclosure, I’ll add a disclaimer that nothing on this podcast is investment advice. There’s a full disclaimer at the end of this podcast, but I’ll remind you of 2 things from the disclaimer. Again, I am long all 3 of these stocks. The second disclaimer is that I do a random rambling every week, and last week I forgot to turn the microphone on. For 30 minutes, it was just me waving my arms like crazy and saying nothing. That’s 30 minutes I’ll never get back.

Just ask yourself, “This guy claims to be a professional, semi-professional, whatever it is, podcaster, and he can’t turn a microphone on. Should I be listening to him about anything?” Probably not. So, those are the disclaimers.

So far this year, I have done 3 what I call solo ideas. It’s me getting on and talking about a stock situation. For all 3 of these, again, I’m long. I’ve thought about doing stocks that I’m not long, and I might in the future because, as I’ve gotten increasingly into corporate governance, you can go down some deep and very dark rabbit holes. I might try to shine a light on some situations.

The 3 ideas I’ve done so far are Episode 283, where right at the start of the year I did my Full House Resorts idea of the year for 2025; Episode 292, where I did a special situation on Sage Therapeutics; and Episode 305, where I did “Avoiding the Zombie Biopharma Trap” at Keros. I’ll include links to all those episodes in the show notes if you want to go listen to them.

On top of those 3 ideas, I also did an open letter to the Sage board that I published on May 1st, 2025. I’ll include a link to that as well. I said, “Hey, Sage, I did this original podcast on it.” When I did the Sage podcast, the idea was that Sage had been put into play by Biogen. Biogen had made them an offer, and I said, “Sage, you have 2 options.”

You can take what I called the good-girl route, along the lines of my dog Penny. You can be a good girl like Penny is, and you can do what’s right for shareholders: run a process and sell yourself to the highest bidder. Or you can be a bad girl, and because your board and management own nothing, you can refuse to sell yourself, burn all your cash, and burn this company to the ground.

I published the podcast hoping they would go the good-girl route. I published the open letter when it seemed to me like they might want to go the bad-girl route. Fortunately for everyone, as we’ll discuss, it has kind of ended up for the best.

I also published an open letter to the Keros board on May 9th. Two open letters in a week—it was an exciting time. The Keros open letter was extremely similar to the Sage letter: Look, you’re a subscale biotech, your lead drugs have failed, and you need to do what’s right for shareholders.

Let’s start with the easiest company to update. That company is Sage. The thesis here was that, in early January, Biogen had put Sage in play. Sage’s stock at the time was in the low $5s. Biogen offered in the low $7s per share. I said in my podcast and my open letter, “Look, Sage should no longer be a public company. The value to an acquirer is much higher than the share price as it is. I think the company needs to sell itself.”

I’ve got another slide here: “Winner, winner, chicken dinner,” because earlier this month Sage entered a deal to sell itself for $8.50 per share plus a CVR. Here’s the thing: They’re getting acquired. This is the simplest story because, in 6 or 8 weeks, Sage isn’t going to be a public company anymore. They’re going to be gone. They’re going to be off the board.

I’m not just doing this update to take a victory lap and spike the football, even though it is a little bit of that. I’ve been told by people, “Hey, if you’re going to rub your nose in the losers—and God knows I love to rub my nose in losers—you need to celebrate the winners a little bit more and be a little more public.” So, yes, I am spiking the football a little bit. Deal with it.

But I don’t think it’s the end of the story here. Sage is getting acquired by Supernus Pharmaceuticals. Supernus is a nice pharmaceutical company. I don’t know a lot about them. They are paying $8.50 per share plus a CVR.

If you read the tender documents—and you should—I did a full deep dive into the tender documents because they are some of the craziest tender documents I’ve ever seen on the premium side. I won’t dive into it too far, but if you read the tender documents, the CVR has a lot of milestones. Only 1 of the smaller milestones is really likely to get hit. I think that’s interesting in and of itself.

But let’s just focus on the cash portion. Supernus is paying $8.50 per share in cash. That’s $561 million. Why is that interesting? Because Sage had $424 million of cash on its balance sheet as of March 31, 2025. Call it $400 million after cash burn by the time the acquisition goes through, whatever. However you put it, Sage is getting acquired for less than $200 million in enterprise value.

That’s really interesting to me because, if you read Sage’s tender documents, they had a royalty deal that would let them borrow $200 million against their lead drug. So Sage was getting acquired for less than the royalty financing that this lead drug was worth.

I’m calling this “the dog that didn’t bark” because, if you’ll recall from my original podcast and my original thesis, the best buyer—the only buyer who makes any sense for Sage—is Biogen. Remember, Sage is 2 assets.

They’re a pile of cash, and they’re the JV asset that they have with Biogen on Zurzuvae. It makes absolutely no sense for any other buyer of Sage to be the buyer except for Biogen, because Biogen can take that 50/50 JV and collapse it. There are huge synergies there, and they know the asset best.

There are some niche cases where a royalty buyer might be a better buyer of Sage, but put those aside. No operating company should be buying Sage except for Biogen. I call this “the dog that didn’t bark” because, if you read the tender documents, Biogen is not involved in the sales process at all after Sage kicked off the sales process. I remain firmly convinced that Biogen is the best bidder here.

What I would say is that I don’t think this story is over. I think Biogen will be heard from, and I think there’s a decent chance that Biogen comes up with a topping bid. Again, I’m recording this July 7. The tender documents just came out late last week. It’s possible that—I’ll probably get this up July 9 or July 10—it’s possible Biogen comes with a better bid on July 8. It’s possible it comes a week after or 2 weeks after, but it won’t be 3 weeks after because the tender will be done. They’re going to have to move pretty fast, and I anticipate they will.

Again, the fact that this company is getting acquired for less than a royalty buyer was willing to finance this drug, to me, screams that this is a bid that’s designed to be beat. I would just say one thing: Biogen is the best bidder here. I’ve got a screenshot here from Biogen’s Q1 earnings call. They do the typical IR thing where the person comes on and says, “Welcome to Biogen’s Q1 earnings call,” and then the CEO comes on and says, “Hey, we’ve got a new CFO. Welcome.”

The first drug he mentions—literally, in the first paragraph, the first drug he mentions by name—is Zurzuvae. I would say two things. Biogen, we have 2 options. Number 1: if you can’t pay more than a royalty company was willing to finance Sage’s share of this key drug that you mentioned—the first thing you mentioned in your own call—your shareholders should say, “You are full of baloney. You should never mention this drug again. You have no belief in the value of this drug. You think it’s basically a worthless drug, right?” That’s option 1.

Option 2 is: your discount rate is too high. If you can’t top what a royalty financier would bid with all your synergies and everything—if you can’t outbid an operating company that’s going to have no synergies with this JV—then you can never do M&A again, because you guys are the worst acquirers of all time. You have no clue how to value a company, and you have no clue how to evaluate synergies. You should never do M&A again. It’s one of those 2 options if they don’t come over the top for Sage. That’s bluntly how I would put it.

It would be absolute insanity to me if Biogen didn’t come over the top. The only reason it could be is if Biogen is full of malarkey when they mention Zurzuvae in public, or if the management team is absolutely brain-dead when it comes to M&A.

That’s Sage. The last thing I want to point out here is that I’d encourage you to read the tender documents. I published a full post breaking them down; they’re some of the most interesting, fascinating, crazy tender documents I’ve ever seen. But I wanted to point out one thing here.

When you read Sage’s tender documents, there is an interesting line that says, “As Sage’s strategic alternatives process progressed, certain stockholders also wrote to the board expressing frustration with the length of time the process was taking, given Sage’s continuing cash utilization.” I would just like to say, “Thank you,” to Sage’s board. It’s nice to be seen in the proxy. I say that facetiously, but the real thing is this: people ask why I do these open letters and publish the podcast. This is the reason—companies need to hear from their shareholders.

If you’re a shareholder, you’re a shareholder for one reason: you want the stock to go up. You want the stock to work. You want the company to be more valuable. You want to maximize the value. Sage’s board was clearly feeling the heat from its shareholders. I am one, and I’ve disclosed that. I think that when people heard the podcast the first time and saw my open letter, they contacted the board and let them know what their views were. I’m not trying to form a group with anyone; I just believe in good shareholder engagement.

This is what you’re doing it for, right? You want the board to feel a little bit of heat. This board, which doesn’t own any stock and which, in my opinion, would have preferred not to run a process, continue collecting paychecks, continue collecting everything, and have the prestige of being on a board, wanted the status quo. One of the reasons they don’t have the status quo is that they were feeling extreme heat from shareholders.

Yes, there were some shareholders who were larger than me—larger than any of my listeners—who I’m sure were putting just as much pressure on the board. But the fact is, 50 small shareholders writing letters to the board and reminding the board of its fiduciary duty carries a lot of weight. I just wanted to call this out when people say, “Oh, these open letters and these podcasts are silly.” In my opinion, they’re not, and I don’t think they were in Sage’s opinion, either.

If you read the tender document, I think it was a real needle-mover in getting the process going. Later on in the process, if you read the background section of the tender documents, you would see them referring to the need to get this process done before the annual meeting takes place. I think they realized that the annual meeting was going to be embarrassing for them. If it went on beyond the annual meeting, it was going to get really embarrassing for them.

I do think good, engaged shareholders can really impact a process and help drive a good outcome. It doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed, but I think it certainly helps, and this is just one example of that.

That wraps up Sage. I’m probably never going to have to talk about this company again because, again, in 6 to 8 weeks they’ll be gone. I hope and expect that they will be gone, with Biogen making a topping offer and acquiring them. But it’s possible they go to Supernus, and if so, Supernus is going to have made an incredible acquisition because they acquired Sage for an absolute song after taking the cash and the value of the Zurzuvae asset into account.

Let’s move on to Keros. Great timing on my end: I basically published the podcast from memory. I published it on a Wednesday in early April, and on Thursday or Friday, Keros came out and announced strategic alternatives. So, great timing on my end. The stock has gone a lot higher, but I’ll be honest with you: this is a nice start. I think there’s more to go.

If you’re watching on YouTube, I’ve got a clip from the announcement of the excess capital return that Keros made when they concluded their strategic alternatives process. They said, “Hey, we’re returning $375 million to shareholders.” That’s a nice start. Keros had $720 million of cash and equivalents on its balance sheet at the end of Q1 2025.

Are they burning cash? Yes. In my opinion, cash burn is way too high here. This is a company whose key late-stage products either failed or have been partnered. They have 1 early-stage drug and a couple of preclinical drugs. A company with 1 early-stage drug and a couple of preclinical drugs does not need more than $300 million in cash on the balance sheet.

It’s not only extremely inefficient; it’s a sign that the management team wants to go and do a lot of things that, in my opinion, are suboptimal for shareholders. So, with Keros, I’d say we’ve had a nice start. The company announced strategic alternatives, but there is more work to be done.

First, while they said, “Hey, we’re returning $375 million,” they haven’t announced how they’re returning it yet. They haven’t decided how they’re returning it. Are they going to do a tender offer? Are they going to do a dividend? Are they going to do something I haven’t dreamed up yet? I don’t know. Probably can't tender offer a dividend because there are only so many ways you can return cash to shareholders. I guess there’s accelerated stock repurchase stuff.

I would just note that there’s more work to be done because I think the company held on to too much cash. I think the company needs to significantly bring down its cash burn. I think the company needs to look at ways to return some of the partnership value that they have to shareholders. Nice work so far.

Again, if you remember my first podcast, I did it and published the open letter because I became increasingly concerned that the management team and parts of the board were not aligned with shareholders. So, I think there’s more work to be done. I think more cash should be returned, and I think the company needs to explore bringing the cash burn down dramatically.

I would just note that I don’t think I’m alone in this. What I’ve got here is a screenshot from alongside the capital return: they published the results of the annual meeting. This is a staggered board, and 3 directors stood for election.

One director who is affiliated with their largest or second-largest shareholder received an overwhelming number of votes. For the other 2 directors, one of them, if you add up the votes withheld and broker non-votes, basically—I believe—should have resigned on the heels of this. The other director faced a very close call, with the votes basically 50/50 between votes for and votes against himself. Given that they had a support agreement with 1 shareholder, I think this was a disastrous result for the board.

I think it’s one of the reasons you got $375 million back. I think it should have been more. I’d note, I’m not from a group, but ADAR1, who is now Keros’s largest shareholder, published a PR that said, “Hey, troubling results of 2025 director election; insufficient capital return.” I agree. I think if shareholders keep the pressure on the board, given those board vote results, I don’t know how the board would not get the memo here.

I fully hope and expect more capital to be returned to shareholders in the near- to medium-term. If not, given the shareholder vote results, Godspeed to the non-aligned directors at the next meeting.

All right, let’s go to the last company. I want to talk about Full House Resorts. We did 2 winners with Sage and Keros to start, so let’s go to Full House Resorts and let’s rub my nose in it. So far, this was my idea of the year for 2025. So far, it has not worked out super well.

The stock’s down about 10% year to date. A lot of that, I think, can be attributed to the sector. The gaming sector has not been great so far this year. I’ve got a screenshot of the most direct peers. There are some smaller peers out there, but Full House is a lot smaller, too.

Penn is down 10% so far this year. Caesars is down 15%. Boyd is actually up about 7% or 8%. MGM is about flat on the year. So there’s been a little bit of negative sector beta, and given that Full House is the most levered of all of these companies on a headline basis, it’s probably not surprising that they’re toward the bottom.

Personally, I’ve been reasonably pleased with how the year has gone for FLL. If you’ll recall, the thesis for FLL is that this is a small-cap company that, through kind of a miracle and excellent operation, is bringing online 2 giant casino projects within 24 months.

The 1 that’s going to be the most valuable is American Place outside of Chicago, in Waukegan, Illinois. They invested, let’s round it up, $200 million to bring a tent—literally, a giant tent—online. If you read the quote, it’s the type of structure that your municipality uses to store salt for the winter. They opened a temporary casino there and spent about $200 million.

That is doing phenomenally well. They’re going to spend another $300 million or so to turn that into a full facility. I believe all in, they’ll have spent $500 million, and at the end of the day it’ll be a casino that does $100 million in EBITDA. In my opinion, this is the most valuable, most important project for Full House.

The good news here is that it’s doing fantastically well. At the very top of this slide, I’ve got a quote from their Q1 results. They’re having record months basically every month right now. March was an all-time record. April was really good. You can go look at the state-level data; May was the 2nd-best month of all time, just behind March.

The temporary casino is doing great, and I think there’s every sign that once they open the full casino, it’s going to do well. The other update on American Place is that, if you recall when I did the podcast, there was, in my opinion, a nuisance lawsuit that stopped them from going forward with the full project. I was pleasantly surprised when, in January, the Illinois Supreme Court dismissed the nuisance lawsuit and ruled in favor of the Illinois Gaming Board.

That takes the tail risk of, “Hey, what if the Waukegan license is lost? What if it’s delayed indefinitely?” off the table. The company can now start building the permanent casino toward the end of this year, really get this thing done in 2026, and open it in 2027. So the tail risk of losing the license—that’s all gone.

Now, you do have the risks of financing and actually constructing it. Those are obviously big risks, but the tail risks are off. I think American Place is full speed ahead. If it does $100 million in EBITDA, as I hope and expect—and I think the results right now suggest they might do better than that when it opens in full—it’s going to be worth all of the company’s enterprise value and more, in my opinion.

So that’s doing great. That’s ahead of schedule. The negative is Colorado—Chamonix. If you’ll recall from the 1st podcast, this is the casino that they opened up in Cripple Creek. The Cripple Creek market was characterized by there being a casino—what is it? Dynamite Dick’s Casino? No, the Brass Ass Casino. Across the street is the Brass Ass Casino. The restaurant there is Dynamite Dick’s. That gives you an idea of what the Cripple Creek market was.

It’s a penny-slot play, with people drinking Bud heavies and playing penny slots. They built Chamonix, which is an upscale French luxury resort. They said, “Hey, we’re going to build it. We’re going to transform this market.” I think if it’s successful, it’s going to be one of the highest-multiple casinos in the country because the dynamics of the market are so unique. It’s basically a historical town. No one will be able to build and respond with a competitive casino.

I was really excited about it. I’ve been out there, and I think it’s a great-looking casino. It’s ramping more slowly than I expected. Hard stop: slower than I expected. Much slower than I expected. It’s slower than the company expected, too.

The company fired the GM. They said, “Hey, he was over his head.” In Q1, they did some undercover work—someone went undercover to get to know the operations—and fired the GM and brought in a new guy. It’s going a lot slower than I expected. I was hoping for, kind of, next year or the year after that, $50 million in EBITDA. At this point, I’d be pleased with $25 million in EBITDA.

I think the company still hopes to get to $50 million in EBITDA, but it’s one of those things where, “Hey, we’ll get there someday. Before the heat death of the universe, we think this will do $50 million in EBITDA.” So I think that’s going slower.

All in, I’d say this story is American Place doing better and being the most valuable casino, while Cripple Creek is doing much worse and being what I think would be the highest-multiple casino, though not the most valuable. American Place is going to do 2.5 times the EBITDA that Cripple Creek does. That’s a slight negative, but I think the story is on track, to be honest with you.

You’ve taken off a tail risk. American Place is doing great. I think the story is on track. The nice thing here, and the reason I want to do an update on Full House, is that insiders clearly see the same upside.

This is a quote from the company’s Q4 earnings call. You can read it or go look it up if you want, but the basic idea is that the CEO, who, again, I’m kind of a fanboy of—I’ll own my biases—walks through a bunch of math and says, “Look, when I put our model together, I kind of think we’re worth $45 per share once all of this is said and done and everything ramps up. Take out some growth projects that I think are going to happen. Take some time value of money, whatever you want to do. It’s hard for me not to get to $20 per share of value.”

Again, we’re talking about a stock that closed at $4 per share. So if it’s $20 per share of value 5 years from now—and I think he’s time-discounting once he gets to that $20—that’s a 5-bagger over 5 years. It could be significantly more. I think the insiders clearly continue to see the upside that I see.

I would point to something: Words are 1 thing, but insiders are backing their words up with action. Eric Green, who is a director, for the 1st time in a long time bought 25,000 shares at $3.40 per share in mid-May, right when the window opened up. That’s not a small buy. That’s $75,000-plus worth of stock.

Eric made $62,000 per year in cash compensation as a director, so more than 1 year’s worth of director fees went into buying stock on the open market. It increases his stock ownership by more than 10%. Would I love to see more? Would I love to see every director buying constantly? Yes. But this was a significant insider buy for a director who doesn’t have a ton of history of insider buying here.

So that’s 1 sign. But the really big 1—the headliner, the 1 that I’ve been waiting to tell you guys all about—is Dan, the CEO. On June 13th, my birthday—happy birthday to me—Dan made an enormous insider buy of more than 270,000 shares at $4.75 per share.

What’s interesting about this is, first, more than 270,000 shares—let’s round it up—that’s 1% of the company that he buys in 1 fell swoop. It’s under 1%, but we can round it to 1%. It’s well over 50 basis points of the company that he buys. So this is an enormous buy.

But did you read the price I said? $4.75 per share. I’ve got a stock chart of Full House Resorts on YouTube. The stock hasn’t traded for $4.75 since March 1st. At the time that he does this buy, the stock is trading for $3 per share, right?

So he goes out and negotiates—I’ll talk about the negotiation in a second—and buys 1% of the company at a more than 50% premium to the prior day’s closing price. And this is the same CEO who went on the Q4 earnings call and laid out the math for getting to $45 per share in value. If that’s not actions backing up words, I don’t know what is.

You’ll notice I said “negotiate.” If you read the fine print of the Form 4 and dig around a little bit, he buys some of the shares for himself and the majority of the shares for a trust account for his kids. Who does he buy the shares from? He buys the shares from his ex-wife.

Again, I don’t know Dan, and I don’t know his ex-wife. His ex-wife is a member of the House of Representatives, so she’s a political figure.

You can Google it around; the divorce looked kind of contentious to me. What divorce isn’t, right? But I would just say, if you go and your ex-wife owns shares—and I think it had been dragging on the stock—Dan kept filing Form 4s, and it was his ex-wife selling shares and everything. So he took her out of this in one fell swoop, too.

I would just posit that if you’ve got a well-known insider figure who buys 1% of the company from his ex-wife, with whom he’s going through a contentious divorce, closes out the contentious divorce by buying 1% of the company, and puts it all in trust accounts for his kids, which is very tax-advantaged. There’s an old Peter Lynch saying that insiders might sell their shares for any number of reasons. They might have a kid graduating, they might have medical bills, they might want to buy a house—all that sort of thing. They might sell their shares for any number of reasons, but they buy them for only one: They think the price will rise.

It’s a great, famous Peter Lynch quote that has survived for 30 years and is very popular among value investors. I’m giving you my new Andrew Walker quote. I think it’s better than the Peter Lynch quote. I expect royalties if you ever use this.

I expect it to be written about in books by scholars hundreds of years from now. The human race will die out—thousands, tens of thousands, millions of years from now—but this quote will live on. I expect it to be my legacy here.

“Insiders buy for only one reason: They think the price will rise. But they only buy from their ex-wife at a 50% premium to the market price for their children’s trust account when they think the stock will rise by a heck of a lot.” That’s Andrew Walker. That’s my new quote. That’s my legacy. That’s what I want to leave you with.

So, look, that’s Full House. I’m trying to end on my quote, but I’ve got one more thing I want to note. I think one of the things that’s holding the company back is that they have to do a big refinancing. They need to raise $300 million of incremental financing, which probably means an entire company refinancing in order to get the cash to build American Place. Full House is an under-$150 million market cap company at current prices.

I think people look and say, “Oh my gosh, it’s a $600 million, $700 million, $800 million refinancing if they’re going to raise that incremental money plus refinance all their debt. It’s a $150 million company. Oh my God, that’s really hard.”

I would just note that right alongside Dan making this insider buy, he signs a new CEO contract that takes him through another 5-ish years. There’s lots of interesting stuff inside of it, but the one that I wanted to point out was this debt overhang. Dan will get a $300,000 bonus if the company successfully refinances the company’s principal debt by March 30, 2027.

Dan has consistently said that they’re going to get a refinancing done without raising any equity. I think if and when the refinancing is done, there are 2 major risks on the stock at this point: number 1, the refinancing; number 2, construction overages at American Place. I think when the refinancing gets done, that’s a huge, huge uncertainty removed from the stock. I think the stock will go up significantly if there’s no equity-raise dilution associated with it.

I expect there will be no equity-raise dilution associated with it. Dan is very incentivized for there to be no equity-raise dilution associated with it because, A, he just bought almost 1% of the company, and, B, he’s been saying for a while that there will be no equity raise. Anyway, in his contract, he now gets a $300,000 bonus if they refinance it.

I think they will get a refinancing done in the back half of this year. I think when that happens, that insider buy is going to look very, very prescient because I think the stock will go up by quite a bit as the market adjusts to, “Hey, refinancing risks are off the table. Dilution risks are off the table. All we need now is for the casinos to get built on budget, on time, and ramp up.”

That’s a big if, but I think it really takes uncertainty away. Look, we’re 2 for 3. Sage worked out really nicely. I think there’s more upside there. Keros worked out really nicely. I think there’s more upside there.

Sage’s upside—we’ll know in the next few weeks if there’s a buyout offer. Keros probably takes a little bit longer, but I think with activist shareholders saying, “Hey, I’m a concerned shareholder. You’re keeping too much money. Management overpaid. The cash burn’s too high for the assets the company has,” I expect upside there. I expect upside at Sage, and FLL so far is a loser.

It’s down 10% on the year, while the Russell is flat. Yeah, it sucks, but this is a small, micro-cap company, and it can be a little skittish. I think there is a heck of a lot of upside over the next few years as the refinancing gets done, American Place comes online in full, and the new GM at Cripple Creek comes on and gets costs in line.

I think there’s a heck of a lot of upside. But it’s not just me. It’s the insiders. They’re signaling constantly that they see the upside. They’re saying they see the upside, and they’re backing those words up with actions to share in the upside.

I’m really excited. It’s been a little bit slower than I thought, but I’m really happy to have FLL as a big position for me personally. Again, that’s my disclosure. I’m really happy to have FLL as my pick of the year for 2025. I think the back half of the year is going to make me look good, and if the back half of the year doesn’t, I’m positive 2026 and 2027 are going to make it look good. In the medium to long term, I think it’s going to look like a really good pick.

So anyway, that is my rambling for my midyear update.