Ladies and gentlemen, greetings and welcome to the Gaming and Leisure Properties second quarter 2017 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please push star zero on your telephone keypad. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Hayes Croushore. Thank you. You may begin.
Thank you, Adam. Good morning, everyone. We'd like to thank you for joining us today for Gaming and Leisure Properties second quarter 2017 earnings call and webcast. The press release distributed earlier this morning is available in the investor relations section on our website, www.glpropinc.com. On today's call, management's prepared remarks and answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements address matters that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those discussed today. Examples of forward-looking statements include those related to revenue, operating income, and financial guidance, as well as non-GAAP financial measures such as FFO and AFFO. As a reminder, forward-looking statements represent management's current estimates, and the company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in the future.
We encourage listeners to review the more detailed discussions related to these forward-looking statements contained in the company's filings with the SEC and the definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures contained in the company's earnings release. On this morning's call, we're joined by Peter Carlino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Bill Clifford, Chief Financial Officer of Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc. Also joining are Steve Snyder, Senior Vice President of Development, Desiree Burke, Chief Accounting Officer, and Brandon Moore, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Peter. Peter?
Thanks, Hayes. Good morning, everyone. We are pleased to present another quarter in line with our projections. Our earnings are happily tracking along with boring consistency, until at least our next transaction, and we're pleased that the market has finally begun to recognize that consistency as reflected in the growth of our stock price. I'll say that we remain committed as always to responsible growth, and as always, we're pursuing kind of anything that's breathing and maybe actionable, but it's always about responsible development. With that exciting preamble, I think we've pretty well covered the details that you would want in our release. Let's go directly to any questions you might have and see if we can fill in any gaps.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please push star one on your telephone keypad now. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may push star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For any participant using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pushing the star key. One moment while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Patrick Scholes from SunTrust. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Earlier today, Penn noted on their earnings call that it appears to be that they're actively looking at some acquisitions. I would imagine you're not completely in the dark on what's going on there. I'm wondering, is it fair to assume that you might, in any such acquisitions, be involved as well? That's the first question. Second is, any update on looking at non-gaming assets or real estate? Thank you.
Let me take a whack at that, and Bill and others may have some comment. No, we're not necessarily aware of anything that those folks are up to. I wouldn't presume that they are going to want us in every transaction. Certainly, we maintain contact with them and talk about our availability to assist them in a number of things, but they're under no obligation, of course, to work with us unless they feel like it or think they need us. That's, I guess, the quick answer. Second question was, oh, non-gaming.
Non-gaming, what are your most recent thoughts on that?
Yeah. It's pretty much the same, and maybe Steve will add something to it. As it has always been, certainly over the last quarter, we've looked at a number of things, been out to a couple of different cities and been understandably vague to look at other entertainment concepts, but nothing has even come close to the top of something that we'd be prepared to recommend to shareholders and so forth. I think, look, responsibly, we have to, as I say, we kiss lots of frogs, ugly looking buggers, too. We're still looking for the princess. Every now and then you'll find one, but we're not close to anything that we'd recommend. Steve? No, I wouldn't have anything to add to that. Okay. You covered it. I think that kind of covers it.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay. You're welcome.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask any questions, please push star one on your telephone keypad now. One moment while we pull for more questions.
Yeah. Well, hearing no more questions. Operator? Bill, is there any-
We have one that just came in just now.
Okay.
Our next question comes from the line of Daniel Donlan from Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning.
Good morning.
Morning.
Just really two questions from me. You were active with the ATM program this quarter. Was just kind of curious if you're kind of at the level that you want or if you'll continue to kind of issue via that facility and just kind of curious as to what level you feel comfortable with. A lot of the net lease peers are kind of in the mid to high five range, there's a handful that are kind of under the 5 times net debt plus preferred EBITDA range. I'm just kind of curious how far you're willing to take that down.
Sure. During the quarter, we issued enough equity to cover the acquisitions for the Meadows as well as the Tunica at a 5.5 times leverage. Having done that, and with our normal pay down from the free cash flow that we don't distribute in dividend, we're projecting to be at around 5.1. We think that over the natural course of debt pay down and free cash flow, that we'll get under 5 next year. That's certainly kind of our target zone. I think our expectations is that our leverage would basically fit between the range of 5 and 5.5. New transactions getting done at 5.5, which would take our leverage back up over the 5 times leverage level.
As relative to the ATM, short of a new transaction coming along, we don't expect to be issuing any more equity this year out of the ATM program. Hopefully that answers your questions. I think our target goal is, as a company, we think 5 is the optimal level and prepared to take it higher for transactions back, take it above 5 being kind of the target zone. That's based on some analysis we've done that shows that companies that trade at 5 and just slightly below 5 seem to have the optimal return levels in terms of expectations of being able to deliver value to shareholders. It's a level that going below doesn't seem to have any kind of a meaningful impact on your cost of borrowing. Being in the five range is kind of our new stated expectation.
That's helpful. As we look at the balance sheet, you have quite a bit of debt coming due in 2018. I realize that we're a ways away from that, we're just kind of curious how you guys think about tackling that. Is it 10-year paper? Is it a mix of five and seven? One of those pieces of debt is, I think, a term loan.
Right.
Just kind of curious your thoughts there and what should we expect from a timing perspective, maybe in 2018.
I think that we have two components to the debt. One is the term loan, which is comprised of a $300 million drawn facility and a $700 million revolver. The revolver, as it stands today, is undrawn. It's highlighted in the press release, but we paid an additional $60 million of debt, which was the remaining $15 million on the revolver, and the rest went towards the $300 million funded piece. It's our expectations we're going to approach our banks, probably in the fourth quarter, with the goal to coming to an understanding resolution of how we're going to extend or redo the bank facility with sufficient capacity to be able to handle the bonds that are maturing in November of next year.
Our expectation, however, is that we would issue new bonds next year, but we will have enough capacity within the revolver to be able to take care of that if the bond market should happen to go sideways on us. We're pretty conservative on how we think about that. One of the things that we've talked about doing is increasing the amount of the revolver to cover the billion-dollar maturity that happens in 2020. Obviously, again, with the goal that we would not draw on the revolver but have the insurance behind us so that should we end up in a difficult bond market, which can happen. The most recently during the election, the whole bond market kind of went a little bit askew for probably, I would say it was four months.
We don't want to get ourselves caught in that kind of a situation. The way our bonds work, at least the next ones that are maturing, is they're due on the end date. There's not a grace period. We put a grace period in on the ones that we just issued with the When I say grace period, I mean that we can fund or pay off the bonds without a penalty early with the bonds that we just issued back with the Pinnacle transaction.
Okay. That's helpful. That's it for me.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a final reminder, if you'd like to ask any questions, please push star one on your telephone keypad now. Ladies and gentlemen, it appears we have no questions in queue at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for closing comments.
Operator, thanks very much. Thank all of you for dialing in today. We realize it's a busy earnings release day and people are wondering in other places as well. I'd like to think that the consistency of what we're doing and what has been, I think, pretty well explained in our release is a good reason for people just to read it at their leisure. Thanks again. We'll be back next quarter. Thank you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude our teleconference for today. You may now disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.