Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd.
Q1 2019 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 9 May 2019

[Operator:]

Good morning and welcome to the Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings First Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Andrew and I'll be your operator. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions for the session will follow at that time. As a reminder to all participants, this conference call is being recorded.

[Andrea Demarco:]

Thank you, Andrew, and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2019 earnings call. I'm joined today by Frank Del Rio, President and Chief Executive Officer of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Mark Kempa, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Andy Stuart, President and Chief Executive Officer of Norwegian Cruise Line. Frank will begin the call with opening commentary after which Mark will follow to discuss results for the quarter as well as provide updated guidance for 2019 before handing the call back to Frank for closing remarks. We will then open the call for your questions. As a reminder, this conference call is being simultaneously webcast on the Company's Investor Relations website at www.nclhltdinvestor.com. We will also make references to a slide presentation during this call, which may also be found on our Investor Relations website. Both the conference call and presentation will be available for replay for 30 days following today's call. Before we discuss our results, I would like to cover a few items. Our press release with first quarter 2019 results was issued this morning and it's available on our investor relations website. This call includes forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from such statements. These statements should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements contained in our earnings release. Our comments may also reference non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure and other associated disclosures are contained in our earnings release and presentation. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Frank Del Rio. Frank?

[Frank Del Rio:]

Well, thank you, Andrea and good morning everyone. I'm happy to be here today to report on our first set of results for 2019 and as I'm sure you saw from this morning’s earnings release, the results are very, very good. Performance in the first quarter exceeded what were already high expectations with a top line beat driven by strong pricing growth, robust close-in bookings and higher onboard spend. Combined our first quarter beat with a strong wave season that saw new bookings come in at the highest pricing ever at each of our three brand and the outcome is an increase to our full year net yield growth guidance and an increase to our full year earnings expectations.

[Mark Kempa:]

Thank you, Frank. Unless and otherwise noted, my commentary compares 2019 and 2018 net yield and adjusted net cruise cost excluding fuel per capacity day metrics on a constant currency basis. I'll begin with commentary on our first quarter results, followed by color on booking trends and close with our guidance for the second quarter and full year 2019. Throughout my commentary, I will be referring to the slide presentation, which Andrea mentioned earlier in the call. I am pleased to report yet another record quarter, one where the company generated the highest first quarter revenue and earnings in its history. Adjusted EPS grew 38% over prior year to $0.83 and exceeded our prior guidance by $0.13. As you can see on Slide 4, the beat was driven by

[Frank Del Rio:]

Thanks, Mark. As we wrap up the call, there are a couple of subject matters I would like to highlight. First, is a topic which I'm sure is on the mind of anyone that follows the industry and that is Cuba. Current regulations continue to allow for people-to-people travel and we continue to follow and comply with any and all directors from the various agencies of the federal government. We expect more clarity sometime in the future regarding travel to Cuba, but in the meantime we will continue to offer cruises to the island as plan. The second topic is our commitment to the environment, which is highlighted on Slide 12. One of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings’ core value is environmental stewardship. And on Earth Day of this year, we released our third annual Stewardship Report, which details our progress and sustainability goals and impactful initiatives underway. These include the elimination of plastic straws across our 26 ship fleet and our two island destinations in the Bahamas and Belize, our industry first partnership with the Ocean Conservancy's Trash Free Seas Alliance, and our Hope Starts Here All Hands and Hearts campaign, to rebuild schools and infrastructure on Caribbean islands impacted by 2017 record hurricane season. Most recently, Ocean and Regent announced their commitment to eliminate it combined five million plastic water bottles a year through a new partnership with Vero Water. I encourage everyone to view our online report which details many more of the actions we are undertaking to conserve resources and to protect our environment. Before turning the call over to Q&A, I like to leave you with a few key takeaways on Slide 13. We delivered another record-breaking quarter with first quarter results outperforming expectations. The solid demand environment and wave season drove an increase in our outlook for net yields and adjusted earnings per share, which is now above our previous guidance range. And we are well positioned to deliver on our full speed ahead 2020 targets and continue to return capital to shareholders. And with that, I'd like to open up the call for questions and answers. Andrew?

[Operator:]

Thank you Mr. Del Rio. Our first question comes from the line of Jared Shojaian with Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.

[Jared Shojaian:]

Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. So I want to ask you the 4.1% yield growth in the first quarter. I mean that's obviously a pretty impressive result. And last call you were saying first quarter would be the lowest growth quarter, partly because you don't have the mix benefits from Joy until the second quarter. And as I look at your revised guidance, you're only assuming about 3% yield growth in the second half, which is about a point below what you did in the first quarter. So can you talk about why that dynamic changed with the first quarter, which was supposed to be the lowest rate quarter and now looking like the back half is a little bit lower and should we interpret that the back half potentially having some conservatism baked in for whatever reason, whether that's Cuba or something else. Thank you.

[Mark Kempa:]

Thanks Jared. Hi, this is Mark. So first quarter, look, we had a stellar quarter. We had exceptionally strong performance from our onboard revenue streams on all ships. Bliss continued to knock it out of the park in Q1. So we just had a great quarter and it came from all geographical areas, which is very encouraging. In relation to the second half, I think you had mentioned that our implied guidance is roughly 3%. I think our implied guidance on a constant basis is about 3.5%. And look, nothing has changed since our last call. Our core fundamentals have not changed and they continue to be strong. Q2 is coming in much better than we anticipated. And as we rolled back into the back half of the year, look, we know there's always variability around onboard revenue. So it’s continued to be strong quarter after quarter. We expect it to continue to be strong, but we've taken a measured approach. We have years of data which says where we should expect it to come through, but we've taken a bit of a measured approach here and I don't want to bank on that for the back half of the year. So that could be potential upside. But more importantly, the core fundamentals for the back half of the year have not changed.

[Jared Shojaian:]

Great. Thank you. And then just one quick follow-up. Hey, can you help us think about the yield premium on your itineraries that have a stop at Cuba, and is it full flow through or is Cuba also a higher cost market for you? Thank you.

[Frank Del Rio:]

It's not a higher cost market. We've always said that the pent up demand and the relatively tight supply of birth capacity in Havana both drive higher prices. And so we are hopeful that the administration finds a way to keep the cruise industry being able to sail to Cuba.

[Jared Shojaian:]

Okay. And care to talk about the yield premium at all?

[Frank Del Rio:]

We've said it's substantial and it was substantial on day one and it's continued, but we're not going to give you destination by destination, pricing guidance more than we already do.

[Jared Shojaian:]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[Operator:]

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Harry Curtis with Instinet. Your line is now open.

[Harry Curtis:]

Good morning everyone. So Frank, in the press release you guys referenced the revitalization of Sky. How many more ships are still yet to be renovated and once that's completed, does it – what do you do with the incremental free cash that lower CapEx might imply? Thanks.

[Frank Del Rio:]

Yes, Harry, so through 2019, we have a couple of more ship revitalization programs. At the end of last year, we launched the Oceania NEXT program. So at the end of this year, three of those four vessels will be done. So looking ahead 2020, we really only have one major ship to undergo the knife, so to speak. And that's Norwegian Spirit which will be deployed out to the Far East. So yes, it brings up an interesting question. We've been investing quite heavily on our fleet, revitalizing all three brands and I think today those fleets are in the best condition they've ever been. We continued to invest in other land-related initiatives, whether it's in our islands, the terminal, in Miami, what I mentioned in my prepared comments about Alaska, but clearly given our yield guidance, our earnings per share, growth guidance and more tempered non-new ship CapEx going forward, you'd expect the company to have more free cash flow available for distribution to shareholders. And as Mark mentioned a minute ago, we've already paid out roughly a $1 billion to shareholders in the last four or five quarters and hopefully that will continue. And as Mark also mentioned, we're continuing to look and assess the timing and the amount of a dividend.

[Harry Curtis:]

So, thank you, and the follow-up to that is, when you think about the incremental investment that you're making on land-based facilities, what's the return on that? Does it enhance your ROIC? Does it get you at or above the 12% target that you have?

[Frank Del Rio:]

Yes, I don't think we would do it, if we didn't think it was accretive. The industry is a competitive one. And we're seeing, for example in Alaska where we now have 9% of our capacity, it's the highest-yielding destination we have. We think we have a competitive footprint there. And we need to continue to invest to make sure that we keep that competitive advantage. And being able to secure those Glacier Bay permits for the next 10 years is really a feather in our cap. Those were highly sought after and our ability to maintain what we had and actually increased some, certainly fees into out premise at Alaska is going to a future growth destination for us.

[Mark Kempa:]

And Harry, we've been very, very vocal. When we invested in Harvest Caye over the last few years. We've said that our Western Caribbean itineraries are garnering a premium versus what they used to get. So I think as we continue to invest in various land-based strategic investments, I think it's going to be complementary to our targets.

[Andy Stuart:]

Yes, I’ll just add to that, Harry, when we added Harvest Caye to the Western Caribbean that was the first time the Western Caribbean achieved the premium over the Eastern Caribbean. So it really made a substantial measurable difference to the performance of the Western Caribbean itinerary.

[Harry Curtis:]

Well, thank you. These are terrific results.

[Frank Del Rio:]

Thank you.

[Mark Kempa:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

And our next question comes from the line of Felicia Hendrix with Barclays. Your line is now open.

[Felicia Hendrix:]

Hi, thank you, and good morning. So Mark, you gave us some really good color in your prepared remarks to understand your organic fleet growth versus kind of like how things are growing driven by your new hardware versus your organic fleet growth. But what I'm wondering is, can we peel the layers back a little bit farther, just looking at the organic Norwegian fleet, are you seeing similar upside to ticket pricing and onboard as your overall guidance in commentary would imply? Or is it just being driven by stronger pricing on organic Oceania and Regent?

[Mark Kempa:]

No, so I'll peel back the onion on the yield side in a sec. But I want to make it very clear, we are seeing strong pricing in both our ticket and onboard pricing and it's across all three brands and it's across all geographies. So there's not one brand that's buoying another, I want to be very clear about that. In terms of our organic core fleet, I think that the best example in showing its strength is Q2. So we're guiding to 5.5% yield growth and Bliss is dilutive in the quarter, so – by about 100 basis points. So that would imply that we're growing at 6.5%. Of that 6.5% Joy redeployment to North America is contributing about 200 basis points. So that's telling you our core fleet is doing 4.5% in the quarter. So that's very strong, we're very happy with that. And we continue to see that strength throughout the year. The fundamentals are have not changed and we're seeing it across the board.

[Felicia Hendrix:]

That's great. And then just with the onboard, so you're seeing the strength in ticket pricing coming from demand and then you're obviously seeing kind of more stickiness and demand on the onboard side. Now that the app is up on 16 ships. I'm just wondering, maybe beyond the next few quarters, how we should think about the onboard revenue trajectory. Can that be incremental to what you're already seeing?

[Mark Kempa:]

Yes, so I'll start with the trajectory part. As I've said before, we typically model somewhere in the zone of 1% to 2% of onboard revenue growth. And as we see more of the onboard revenue getting presold prior to the consumers stepping onboard, we get a little bit more visibility on that and again, we are able to focus on more very fresh wallet concept. But again, we like to take a measured approach on that. And in terms of the app, I'll flip that over to Andy for some commentary.

[Andy Stuart:]

Yes, as you said, Felicia, we've got the app across the fleet now. We've been very, very happy with it. It really seamlessly connects the pre-cruise experience with the onboard experience, putting tremendous energy into presales for dining, entertainment, shore excursions and having a lot of success with that. And now in everybody's hands, we've got an app that allows them to continue with that process right up to the sailing and then onboard the ship, buy all of those things through the app. We've seen a 20% increase in usage of the app since we launched the new app versus iConcierge as we've seen a 26% increase in the take up of packages related to chat and voice over IP on the ship. And the app’s got a 4.7 rating in the App Store. So guests like it, they're using it, it's effective driving revenue, we're very happy with it.

[Felicia Hendrix:]

Great, thank you for that color.

[Operator:]

And our next question comes from the line of Steven Wieczynski with Stifel. Your line is now open.

[Steven Wieczynski:]

Hey guys, good morning. Mark, just probably be for you but when you announced those fleet deployment changes, almost a year ago at this point you guys indicated you expected to earn kind of a $0.30 uplift in 2020. Given what you've now seen from some of these changes and it still might be a little bit too early. I guess what I'm asking here is, do you think that $0.30 estimate might be conservative now?

[Mark Kempa:]

Yes, I think you hit it on the nose. I think it's still a bit too early. We are seeing great progress on the Joy and we're seeing a significant good sales momentum on the Pearl as well that we're involved in the deployment changes. But again, those ships had a very compressed sales window of nine months versus typically a 24 months sales window. So I would sit here today and say we are comfortable with our $0.30 and as we coursed out through the year, we'll take a look at that and if we think there's going to be a meaningful difference, we will certainly update you on that, but we're comfortable with what we had said.

[Steven Wieczynski:]

Okay, great. Thanks. And then second question for Frank – and I don't – Frank, I don't think you're going to answer this, but I think there has been a rumor out there that sounds like yourself and some of your cruise CEO colleagues did head to D.C. at some point about the Cuba situation. And I don't know if that's true. It's not true, but if it is true, can you give us any color in terms of potentially what came out of that and maybe how you feel about the current Cuban situation?

[Frank Del Rio:]

You've never been more right Steve. I'm not going to answer the question, not directly at least. Look, we as an industry, are together, we're cohesive on this issue. This is not a competitive advantage, where one company or one brand wins and the other one loses. We're all in the same boat, so to speak. So we're all working together to try to maintain what we have. We think it's good for the industry. We think that this is not the best way to pressure on the politics side, which I don't want to get into at all. But look, we just don't know at this point what we don't know. It's business as usual until it's not. And I don't even want to tell you whether I expect it to be different in the future or not because it's just so simply too early to know. This is government at work, it's not business and so we just have to wait and see.

[Steven Wieczynski:]

Okay, great. Thanks guys. I appreciate it.

[Operator:]

And our next question comes from the line of Brandt Montour with JP Morgan. Your line is now open.

[Brandt Montour:]

Good morning everyone. Thanks for taking my question. So Frank, you talk about the book position not being able to grow indefinitely, which we all appreciate, and it also sounded like volumes on your book position would be up year-over-year, if not for mix. So I guess the question is when do you kind foresee reaching that tipping point when you start to leave volume on the table to get price?

[Frank Del Rio:]

There's a delicate balance between price and load, always has been. And if we're doing our jobs right, our booked position, at any given point in time, can't always be in an ever increasing position or we're just not trying hard enough to push prices higher. It's my opinion, my view that if you don't ask for higher prices, you're never going to get it. Nobody every volunteers than what you asked for. So today, we're very, very pleased at the balance between pricing and load. For example, we've not yet set our year-end load factor targets for 2020. But given what I know today, I doubt that we'll want to be better booked than we were at the end of 2018 for 2019 sales.

[Brandt Montour:]

Alright, that’s helpful. Thanks. And then you gave some good color on Oceania Regent's booked position for 2020 this quarter versus last quarter. But what type of booking behavior in seen on your further out booking cohort for the Norwegian brand? And any similar stats you can give there would be helpful. And that's it from me, thanks.

[Frank Del Rio:]

Yes, the Norwegian brand is on par with Oceania and Regent in terms of performance into the outer quarters and even into 2020. As Mark mentioned, all three brands are doing their part. And certainly for 2020, at this early stage and it's earlier for the Norwegian brand than it for booking curves. The longer more exotic, more expensive sailings tend to book earlier than the shorter ones. But all the – directionally, all three brands are pointing in the same direction.

[Brandt Montour:]

Great, thanks again.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Thomas Allen with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

[Thomas Allen:]

Hey, good morning. So you talked about in your prepared remarks having more less-than-seven-days trips in the Caribbean and the Bahamas. And you obviously shifted over to how much more are you exposed to last-minute bookings now or how much more of an opportunity you have there now versus last year? And then can this import net yield growth? Thanks.

[Mark Kempa:]

Yes onshore cruises are up significantly year-over-year. Shore cruise capacity is up with 30 additional short savings. So it's a slight increase in exposure to closer in bookings but it's not material. That's just the natural booking window for those sailings that will closer in and we plan for that through our revenue management system. So it's a small increase to exposure.

[Frank Del Rio:]

Yes, and Thomas I wouldn't characterize it as being last-minute bookings It's just new normal, more compressed booking window pattern of those voyages. So it falls within our normal parameters of our revenue management system as Andy said.

[Thomas Allen:]

That’s helpful. Thank you. And just on fourth quarter bookings for the Caribbean. Any incremental color you can give there may be between East and West Caribbean or anything else? Thank you.

[Andy Stuart:]

We’re seeing very strong fourth quarter bookings in particular for the Caribbean. We had tremendous response to Norwegian Bliss in the Caribbean. We're adding Norwegian Encore to the fourth quarter Caribbean for the Norwegian brand. And a new ship is always a real asset in driving demand into the region you launch it into the region you launch it into. So Norwegian Encore starts in November in the Caribbean. Very, very strong early start load and pricing and that really is the engine that will continue to drive a very strong Q4 Caribbean for us. So we’re encouraged with where we are today.

[Frank Del Rio:]

Encore is the best booked Caribbean introductory ship ever.

[Andy Stuart:]

Yes. We're very, very happy and expect to see that continue.

[Thomas Allen:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

And our next question comes from the line of David Beckel with Bernstein Research. Your line is now open.

[David Beckel:]

Hey there, thanks for the questions. So there's been a fairly large and high-profile entry to private island space in the Caribbean. And just given the similarity of your product versus one of your competitors, I'm wondering if you're seeing any pressure on pricing given the success pressure on pricing given the success that they've had with that product. Or is it more of a situation where a rising tide sort of lifts all boats, so to speak?

[Frank Del Rio:]

[.:]

So I think the investments across islands, is good for the industry. These destinations drive tremendous guest satisfaction. We see that. I'm guessing the others see that too. And we think this will be another engine for growth as consumers see it as exciting destinations with a lot of activities, a lot of things to do, great feedback coming back. It's just going to be one more engine that continues to expand the industry.

[David Beckel:]

That’s great color, thanks. And as a quick follow-up to that, what is your cruise passenger capacity to that island? And do you envision expanding that in the region at any point in the future? Thanks.

[Andy Stuart:]

Yes, I don't have the specific number but we're definitely expanding our capacity into the island. We've added a number of sailings on Norwegian Sun this year. As she’s expanded into three-day and four-day market out of Port Canaveral. So calls in to Great Stirrup Cay are expanding. And I would expect that to continue as the fleet expands, the destination is getting the highest guest satisfaction across all of our destinations will receive more calls.

[David Beckel:]

Great, thanks.

[Operator:]

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Vince Ciepiel with Cleveland Research. Your line is now open

[Vince Ciepiel:]

Great, thanks. Mark, you walked through the 2Q yield guidance pointed to 4.5% like-for-like yield, which looks pretty much in line with the first quarter and maybe a little bit ahead what you were experiencing in 2018. So on a like-for-like basis, things remain impressive. But be curious on the 50 basis point raise to your full year yield, is that broad-based or would you just point to Joy or Bliss or like-for-like as being a bigger or lesser contributor to that 50 basis point raise?

[Mark Kempa:]

Yes, Vince, generally, it's broad-based. But I think we're seeing the growth coming from our core fleet. Again, we are starting to reap the benefits of our significant investments and revitalizing the fleet over the last two to three years. We're seeing that starting to pay off in dividends. So it's really coming from our organic fleet while at the same time, our new capacity is doing well. We told you in the last call that the Joy redeployment to North America was contributing about a point of our total yield growth for the year. And we feel that it's still performing in that zone. So the uplift is really coming mostly from our organic fleet but across the board.

[Vince Ciepiel:]

Great, thanks. And then maybe another one on yield now that you have a bit more visibility into both Encore and Splendor for 2020. I know it's still early, but historically, you've mentioned adding a Norwegian branded ship, maybe have some dilutive aspects to it just through the math of it but Encore early reads pricing quite well. So there maybe some questions to that and you've also alluded to Splendor touching nice premiums but being small as a percentage of the total capacity. So just curious as you think about the combined impact of those two ships heading into 2020, how you think that will relate to headline yield next year?

[Andy Stuart:]

Yes I think Splendor is selling well and it's – the revenue that we have on the books is we're very pleased with. So that could be a slight tailwind to our yield growth next year. However, it is only 1% of our total capacity. And as both Frank and Andy mentioned, Encore is doing well. And she's on track to be our best-booked Caribbean ship. But in all honesty, it's still a bit early. So my guess is maybe the two of those could be a slight push or a slight tailwind. But as we again cycle for the course of the year and we get more visibility on that, we will update you.

[Frank Del Rio:]

Encore will be, for 2019, slightly below the corporate average we expect. The great unknown will be her onboard revenue production, which hasn't occurred yet. Certainly, Splendor partly because of ultraluxury status and because of the all-inclusive nature of the brand, her yields are the highest of any of our ships, highest in the Regent brand. And like I said earlier, she is booking – the brand overall is booking way ahead of the 26% increase in capacity in 2020. So we like what we see the set up that we see for Splendor and Encore being major contributors to the yield and earnings per share growth.

[Andy Stuart:]

We’ve got time for one more question operator.

[Operator:]

Thank you. And our last question comes from the line of Jamie Katz with Morningstar. Your line is now open.

[Jamie Katz:]

Just squeezing me in, thank you so much, nice quarter. I'm curious about UK and Europe. The commentary you guys have offered regarding your booking increases have been a little bit different than the uncertainty we've been hearing from the peer set. And so I'm curious whether you guys have also been maybe turning back your focus on sourcing in or whether you're still really forward for more geographic sourcing diversification, given your disproportionate tilt to the North American consumer? Thanks.

[Mark Kempa:]

Yes Jamie as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, five weeks ago or so, we changed the go-to-market offering at the Norwegian brand in the UK and Germany from what we called Premium All Inclusive to the Free at Sea that we have throughout the world, and that's had a huge increase in our overall volume at comparable prices. So we've seen a nice tailwind coming out of the UK and Germany over the last five weeks, which overall has contributed to our business over the last eight weeks to be up in both volume and up significantly in pricing. So I'm glad to see the UK and Germany contributing a bigger piece of the pie to our overall business. And we think it ought to continue as we deploy more of our ships to Europe. We have six vessels, the Norwegian brand has six vessels in Europe this summer, and we think that will continue to be a catalyst for more business out of the UK and Germany.

[Frank Del Rio:]

We have time for one more. I think we do. We have three minutes to go. Anybody wants to make a quick question?

[Operator:]

Okay. Our next question comes from the line of James Hardiman with Wedbush Securities. Your line is now open.

[James Hardiman:]

Lucky me. Thanks for fitting me in here. So I had a quick question on costs, net cruise costs. Obviously coming into the year, we have the Encore and Splendor timing dynamic that hurt that net cruise cost number. Now sounds like there's some taxes, incremental taxes that are in that number. I guess how much of these costs go away it seems like most of those should go away next year? And as I think about that 1% to 2% normal rate, any indication of what that would look like for 2020?

[Mark Kempa:]

Yes, as I said in my remarks last call, we generally model 1% to 2% on an ongoing basis. In 2019, we're facing significant hurdles on cost. We’ve incurring launch cost around Encore which we have no associated revenue. We have launch costs around Splendor, which debuts in January of next year. And then we have significant marketing costs around the redeployment. So I would expect some of those costs to drop off, and we should find ourselves in more of a normalization period in 2020, again, within that 1% to 2% band would be the expectation.

[Frank Del Rio:]

Well terrific. Well, thanks everyone, for your time and support today and as always, we'll be available to answer your questions throughout today. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.