Venu Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 13, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Expansion and financing progress: Venu announced a new Chattanooga venue, continues discussions with more than 45 municipalities, and identified a path to over $150 million in non-dilutive C-PACE financing for its Broken Arrow and McKinney projects.
  • Positive Sentiment: Upcoming venues are expected to add significant EBITDA: Broken Arrow is expected to open within roughly 90 days and generate about $22 million of first-year EBITDA, while McKinney is targeted for completion in March with projected first-year EBITDA of $38 million to $39 million.
  • Positive Sentiment: Strong premium-sales momentum: Luxe FireSuite and Aikman Club sales exceeded $278 million through June 30, including approximately $30 million sold during the quarter; 76% of quarterly sales came from the company’s triple-net model.
  • Negative Sentiment: Profitability remains several quarters away: Management expects continued losses as it funds pre-opening expenses and brings approximately $600 million of assets online, with profitability targeted for the second or early third quarter of 2027.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Six-month revenue increased 7% year over year to $8.5 million, while total assets rose 38% to $511.8 million; however, management’s projected venue values and EBITDA are forward-looking and depend on completing construction, securing financing, and achieving expected bookings.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Venu Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

Skip to Participants
Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Venu Holding Corporation's Second Quarter Fiscal 2026 Financial Results and Business Update. This morning, Venu Holding Corporation issued a press release summarizing the company's 2026 second quarter performance following the filing of its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ending June 30th, 2026. This conference call is being recorded and will be available online along with the earnings press release at venu.live in accordance with the company's retention policies. All participants on today's call are in listen-only mode. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the line for a Q&A session. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Heather Atkinson, Chief Financial Officer of Venu Holding Corporation. Heather, please go ahead.

Heather Atkinson
Heather Atkinson
CFO at Venu Holding Corporation

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Venu Holding Corporation's second quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call and business update. Today, you'll hear from our Founder, Chairman, and CEO, J.W. Roth, on highlights from across the business and the vision for the quarters ahead. I'll then review our financial results. We'll open the line for questions after our prepared remarks. Before we begin, I want to remind everyone that various remarks about future expectations, plans, and prospects constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Venu cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated, including risks described in the company's most annual report on Form 10-K and our subsequent filings with the SEC, all of which can be reviewed at venu.live or sec.gov.

Heather Atkinson
Heather Atkinson
CFO at Venu Holding Corporation

Any forward-looking statements made on this call speak only as of today, August 13th, 2026. Venu undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by federal securities laws. With that, I would like to turn the call over to J.W.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

Thank you, Heather, and thank you to everyone joining us today. This quarter reflected steady, deliberate progress across our entire business. We announced our expansion into Chattanooga, Tennessee, at The Bend, sited right on the edge of the Tennessee River, which I believe will become one of the most unique locations in our entire portfolio. We're also in continued discussions on a new destination in Northern Colorado, adding to a pipeline of more than 45 municipal conversations. A truly exciting time to be in Venu's expansion trajectory. Regent Bank signed on as our official naming rights partner for our state-of-the-art amphitheater outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a multi-year, multimillion-dollar agreement that adds long-term, high-margin revenue directly to our bottom line. And we finished the quarter by joining the Russell 3000 and the Russell 2000, putting us in front of a far broader universe of institutional investors than we've ever had before.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

Since the end of the quarter, we have also sharpened how we intend to finance our venues. We have identified a path to more than $150 million in C-PACE financing on our two projects in Broken Arrow and McKinney. This is non-dilutive, long-term, fixed-rate capital secured through a property tax assessment rather than a lien against our corporate assets, which reinforces the intrinsic value of our completed projects. That C-PACE financing is expected to fund the remaining construction balance for both Broken Arrow and Sunset Amphitheater in McKinney. The reason institutional capital is showing up for us this way is because something I have said from day one, it is on land that we own. Our balance sheet gives lenders something to actually underwrite. That is the advantage of the ownership model. It is not just a financing tactic.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

It is the structural reason we can access this kind of capital at this stage of our growth. Ahead of our anticipated C-PACE close, we put two bridge loans in place, including one from Ryan LLC, our longtime national expansion partner and the official tax partner for the Sunset Amphitheater in McKinney, so construction can keep moving while we prepare to close permanent financing. Both of these loans, these bridge loans, are structured to be retired after C-PACE funds. Together, this gives us a financing stack that is projected to carry both venues through completion. We also brought in an experienced operator to run Regent Bank Amphitheater, Legends Global, and added Ron Bension as a strategic advisor to our team this quarter, with decades of experience taking venue companies through major growth and expansions. Stepping back for a moment, a couple of pieces of outside coverage this quarter captured our momentum.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

Forbes described a broader shift in consumer spending toward paying for access and repeat experience and pointed to our very own FireSuite model as the live entertainment example of that shift. Our FireSuite sales have been incredible this quarter, and as of today, we are pushing past $285 million since the program's launch. Some other coverage this quarter looked at the strongest amphitheater development cycle in U.S. history and highlighted Venu's pipeline as a template for where this category is going. As I mentioned earlier, we are in conversations with more than 45 municipalities about bringing Venu to their community. We will not move forward with every one of them, but that level of interest is a real validation of the model that we have built. Before I turn the call back to Heather, I want to address a few items. Our losses year-to-date and for the next few quarters are totally expected.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

We are actively building and executing pre-opening budgets on the front end as we gear up to officially open the gates to two new exciting multimillion-dollar venues in our portfolio. As such, these expenses show up before revenue does. Here is the deal. Between now and the first quarter of 2027, we are bringing roughly $600 million of assets online. That is expensive to do and will be reflected in our results. However, once these venues are open, we expect them to generate meaningful cash flow, and we expect to be in a position to provide financial guidance by mid-next year. The current reality is this: revenue is up, assets are up, FireSuite sales are up, and net tangible assets are up. This business is firing on all cylinders, and the spend you are seeing today is what is fueling it. I am excited about the months ahead.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

I'm grateful for every shareholder, every partner, and every member of our team who is building this with us. Let me tell you this, the best is yet to come. With that, I'm going to turn it back over to Heather for the financial update.

Heather Atkinson
Heather Atkinson
CFO at Venu Holding Corporation

Thank you so much, J.W. Now let's dig into the quarterly and six-month figures. Our total assets increased to $511.8 million as of June 30th, 2026, up $141.2 million or 38% from $370.5 million at December 31, 2025, which resulted in $4.44 per common share and net tangible assets as of June 30th, 2026. It is worth noting that our municipality contributed real estate sits at zero cost basis on our balance sheet rather than mark-to-market value as they are contributed assets, which resulted in $9.58 per common share in net tangible assets on a mark-to-market basis as of June 30th, 2026. On an as-completed basis of $1.24 billion on a net tangible share price would equal $17.44 per common share, giving a fuller picture of what this portfolio would be worth once completed.

Heather Atkinson
Heather Atkinson
CFO at Venu Holding Corporation

Our property and equipment increased to $446.2 million as of June 30th, 2026, up $140.3 million or 46% from $305.9 million at December 31, 2025. Our Luxe FireSuite and Aikman Club sales reached more than $278 million in total sales since launching the program across current and in-development venues as of June 30th, 2026. During the quarter, we sold approximately $30 million in Luxe FireSuite sales, and the company's triple net model accounted for approximately 76% of those sales. Our total revenue was $8.5 million for the six months ended June 30th, 2026, compared to $8 million for the six months ended June 30th, 2025, an increase of 7% year-over-year. With that, I will turn it back to J.W.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

Thanks, Heather, and thank you to the entire team for all the hard work. All right. Let's open this up for questions.

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Greg Gibas from Northland Securities. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Greg Gibas
Greg Gibas
Analyst at Northland Securities

Great. Good morning, J.W. and Heather. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask, clearly you're squarely in the build phase, spending heavily on construction with these two massive projects, Oklahoma, Texas. Those will be open soon, presumably booking content and selling tickets. Given all that, what does the path to profitability look like from here?

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

Greg, first, thanks for joining today, and I appreciate you as a shareholder. You're right. We are on a massive amount of build right now. We expect Broken Arrow to open here in the next 90 days or so. We're currently booking that venue. The first shows have been booked. We have not booked anything in November yet, simply because we want to make sure that we're on track for our opening. But we are booking December, and we're booking the first quarter. We have over 25 holds and avails for Broken Arrow already in the calendar, and so that venue is coming along strong. We will do about $22 million or so in EBITDA in that venue in the first year, and it'll stabilize around $25 million or so. McKinney, we are anticipating a March finish there.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

We are currently booking McKinney, and holds and avails sit at about 20 or 25 shows again. That venue will produce about $38 million-$39 million its first year and stabilize around $45 million-$46 million a year in EBITDA. Our path to profitability is really second, early third quarter of 2027. We actually think that, like I said in the call here a minute ago, we actually think we'll be in a position by March or so to start giving guidance based on the shows that we're booking.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

The first six, including the Ford here in Colorado Springs should produce about $125 million-$130 million in total EBITDA on the operating side. We're probably, I'm going to guess between 28 and 29 months away from the full run of those first six. But as we get there, we also have five more that'll be under construction in that same amount of time. And so, we're continuing to drive both on the openings that we have currently, as well as the new builds, and then our expansion pipeline is growing, and it's growing rapidly. Anyway, I hope that answers the question.

Greg Gibas
Greg Gibas
Analyst at Northland Securities

Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that detailed color there, and nice to hear the bookings are turning well. I'll pass it on. Thanks.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

Thanks, Greg.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Julie Randall, Private Investor. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Julie Randall
Shareholder at Private Investor

Good morning, J.W. Thank you so much for taking my question. I think this is very similar to the last question. It was at what point do you expect the company's growth and profitability to be reflected in the stock price? What do you believe is a reasonable evaluation for Venu once the current pipeline of venues is operational?

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

First, Julie, thanks for your support. I appreciate your question. The share price is so disappointing to me, and I know it is to you. At the end of the day, people ask me all the time, "Why is the stock trading so low?" My answer is just, it's simple. I know it's simple, but it's true. There just happens to be more sellers than there are buyers. You ask yourself, why is that? Why are there more sellers than there are buyers? I think that if you just sort of look at the state of the company and where we are, I think sellers are sort of betting that we're not going to get these open, right? There's just more of those than there are buyers who are very confident, like myself, that we are going to get these open.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

If you look over the last couple of quarters, I have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars personally in our stock. I file my Form 4 every time. Over the next two quarters, starting tomorrow, now that the blackout period is over, I'm going to invest, again, personally, hundreds of thousands of dollars in the stock, simply because I see an absolute clear path to opening our venues and to profitability. But to answer your question, there's just more people that are pessimistic than are optimistic. It provides a great opportunity for buyers like me today to nibble at the stock. We have taken on a massive project here. Venu is not a simple startup. It is a startup that is capital intensive. We are spending literally hundreds of millions of dollars building these venues. It takes big cojones to do what we're doing, and we're doing it.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

At the end of the day, the stock price is going to be reflective once people realize, or once the market realizes, that we've actually done what we've set out to do. I think that starts here in a couple of weeks, maybe 12 weeks down the road here, as shows start to get kicked off in Broken Arrow. I actually think it'll happen a little bit quicker than that as shows start to be announced, and that'll happen in the next three to four weeks. Tickets will go up for sale in that venue. Then I think then the market will say to itself, "You know what? They did it. They are opening these.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

They have figured out the model to open these. I got to tell you, having the fractional ownership marry up to C-PACE financing allows us to accelerate everything that we're doing, and it brings our cost of capital way down, our occupancy costs way down. Not only are we going to open these, and we're going to open them on time, we're going to open them more profitable than we were maybe three or four months ago in our planning. I thank you for your call. Did that answer your question?

Julie Randall
Shareholder at Private Investor

It did. Thank you so much.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

Thank you, Julie.

Operator

Reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I would now like to read a question on behalf of [Dennis Coursey], investor in the Sunset Hospitality Collection at the Ford Amphitheater, a Venu shareholder, and FireSuite investor at The Hall at Centennial. Question one, when the Broken Arrow, McKinney, and El Paso facilities open, how much value does Venu expect each to add to the balance sheet? Will the market value of donated assets be reflected once they open?

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

[Dennis], that's a good question. Let me answer the second one first. On a mark-to-market basis, we've got our arms around what that equals in net tangible assets. We made that in our release earlier, which is about $9 today, $4.44 on a GAAP basis. From an accounting standpoint, I don't think contributed assets will ever find their way onto our GAAP balance sheet until that asset is either sold or it is financed, which we don't plan on doing. So, that contributed asset is most likely going to sit on our balance sheet at its contributed basis. That's number one. Number two, I believe that, I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but Broken Arrow is going to be somewhere around $200 million, I would assume. Its appraised value, McKinney somewhere around $400 million on just a cost basis.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

I really believe its value is going to be probably more focused on the EBITDA and the earnings that they produce. Again, we believe Broken Arrow is going to be at a stabilized run rate in that 24 range annually, and McKinney will be in that 45 range or so annually on a stabilized basis.

Operator

The second question, what kind of programming is planned for The Hall at Centennial, and is Venu still targeting 80-90 events per year there?

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

Yes. Centennial is a project very much like what we built in Gainesville and in Colorado Springs, just on steroids. It is a bigger venue. It's going to host 2,500 cap type programming and then some omni type programming as well. Comedy, theater, things that are sort of out of the box that you don't necessarily see in Gainesville or here in Colorado Springs. We are super excited about Centennial. It'll be the first venue that we have built with fractional ownership and Luxe FireSuites. It is a venue unlike any other indoor venue in the country, and we're anxious to get it open. Yes, it'll produce 80 to 100 shows a year.

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Marty Calvert from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Marty Calvert
Marty Calvert
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Good morning, J.W. and team. Nice quarter. I was just wondering about the C-PACE financing. Will that come in tranches, or will that be an all at once thing? What's the structure behind the C-PACE?

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

Marty, first, thanks for your support and joining the call today. C-PACE is just a really interesting opportunity for us all the way around. C-PACE is a tax assessment financing that lives on our property tax roll. It does come in tranches. It comes in tranches up to about six months prior to opening. So when we get to a point where we are with Broken Arrow, those tranches will compress. With McKinney, it's the same thing. Those tranches will start about six months out, and those tranches will run through the opening in McKinney. The C-PACE folks that we're working with couldn't be better. I'm excited about building this relationship with them because I really think it's a game changer for our business. As I said earlier, what C-PACE does for us is it reduces occupancy costs.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

It also reduces the necessity for us to ever go out and put a traditional mortgage on the property. I believe that most of our properties will be free and clear in terms of first mortgages. We will live with C-PACE as our long-term partner. I couldn't be more excited about C-PACE. I actually encourage everybody that's on this call to actually study a little bit about C-PACE and how it works. For a business like ours, it's terrific. It's 35%-40% LTV, and it's structured in such a way that is very, very flexible for a company like ours.

Marty Calvert
Marty Calvert
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Great, J.W. Thank you.

Operator

I would now like to ask a question on behalf of [Eric Edstrom] from FireSuite Investor and Shareholder. What are the specific operating milestones, venue count, revenue, EBITDA, that would need to be achieved for Venu to support a $10-$15 share price on a reasonable valuation?

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

Eric, that's an interesting question. I would have to think about that a second. If you were looking at a $10 share price, first you have to figure out two things. First, you'd have to back into whatever you believe a multiple of EBITDA is going to be. Let's start there. I would say that a multiple of EBITDA of 25x-30x with the sort of growth that we're looking at would be reasonable. It would be a good comp in our market. Let's start with that number, and back into a $10 share price. So a $10 share price with sort of the next piece or the next metric that we would need, which would be shares outstanding. I think it's 58 million-59 million. I don't have it right in front of me, but let's call it 60 just for fun.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

If you had a 25 multiple on 60 million shares outstanding, you'd need $25 million or so in EBITDA to generate what would be a $10 or $11 share price. If you were doing the math that way. If you were doing the math based on mark-to-market value on the balance sheet, we're there today. We're just short a $10. We're $9 and change. But a $10 valuation or a $10 share price based on metrics of multiples, at 60 million out, you would be roughly $25 million or so in EBITDA would generate that sort of valuation. Now I have to throw in a couple of pieces there. I believe we're headed to $125 million or better in EBITDA over the next, or the finishing up of the builds that we currently have underway.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

You also have to remember, there's probably some growth in that cap table because of the warrants that we have outstanding. Now, there's two pieces to that. One, as they exercise, it puts another $125 million onto our balance sheet, which then reduces the amount of financing that we have to do in the future, and in a lot of ways reduces the amount of fractional ownership that we would have to sell. So, as our balance sheet grows to a fully diluted basis, which would be roughly 100 million or so, it would add $125 million in cash. If you took the $125 million in sort of projected EBITDA with the projects that we have underway, and you stuck a multiple on that of 25x, and you looked at it at a fully diluted basis, you'd be about $35 a share.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

It's sort of how you do the math, and believe me, I do the math all the time. That's sort of where you sit today. I hope that answers your question.

Operator

We have now reached the end of our Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to J.W. for closing remarks.

J.W. Roth
J.W. Roth
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Venu Holding Corporation

Well, thank you. I just want to tell everybody that I appreciate you being on the call. I appreciate your support. We're rocking and rolling here, and we have a team that's incredible. We have great leadership here. This isn't just J.W. Roth. This is a team of super dedicated folks that have ownership in our company. Everybody here is hellbent on building this thing into the success it's going to be. Anyway, again, I appreciate you. I appreciate you as a shareholder, and I look forward to growing this thing together. Thank you.

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect

Executives
    • Heather Atkinson
      Heather Atkinson
      CFO
    • J.W. Roth
      J.W. Roth
      Founder, Chairman, and CEO
Analysts
Powered by Quartr