Reading International, Inc.
Q1 2019 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 15 May 2019

[Andrzej Matyczynski:]

Thank you for joining Reading International's Earnings Call to discuss our 2019 First Quarter Results. My name is Andrzej Matyczynski, I'm Reading's Executive Vice President of Global Operations. With me as usual Ellen Cotter, our President and CEO; and Gilbert Avanes, our Interim Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Before we begin the substance of the call, I'll start by stating, that in accordance with the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, certain matters that will be addressed in this earnings call may constitute forward-looking statements. Such statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual performance to be materially different from the performance indicated or implied by such statements. Such risk factors are clearly set out in our SEC filings. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. In addition, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures on this call. Reconciliations and definitions of non-GAAP financial measures, which are segment operating income, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, are included in our recently issued 2019 first quarter earnings release on the company's website. In today's call, we also use an industry-accepted financial measure called theater level cash flow, which is theater level revenues less direct theater level expenses and we also use property level cash flow, which is property level revenues less direct property level expenses. Please note that our comments are necessarily summary in nature, and anything we say is qualified by the more detailed disclosure set forth in our Form 10-Q. As usual with that behind us, Gilbert will put some flavor on our financial results for the first quarter later on. But first, I'll turn the call over to Ellen, who will update us on our first quarter 2019 operations. Ellen?

[Ellen Cotter:]

Thanks, Andrzej, and thank you for sending in your questions and listening today. As usual, we've tried to address many of your questions in our prepared remarks. Before we start, I wanted to mention that on Tuesday May 7, Reading held it's 2019 Annual Stockholder Meeting at our Culver City corporate headquarters. Management's presentation to our stockholders is now posted at readingrdi.com, we encourage you to review our presentation for more details about our business. Now let's turn to our first quarter results. The first quarter of 2019 was disappointing for Reading, with a few factors impacting our financial results across the board. The first quarter 2019 movie slate from the major studios simply couldn't stack up against the first quarter of 2018. When Disney released Black Panther, which went on to become not only the best picture nominee, but also the highest grossing movie of 2018. Just in North America alone, Black Panther grossed over $700 million. Our global commercial theaters were impacted by the weaker slate of movies. And our U.S. specialty or Angelika circuit was also weaker compared to 2018. During the first quarter of 2018 we had films like I, Tonya, Lady Bird and The Shape of Water, all great crossover specialty titles that had long legs into the Oscar season, especially The Shape of Water, which went on to win best picture. The expected – unexpected January 2019 closure due to seismic concerns of Courtenay Central in Wellington, New Zealand also impacted both our cinema and real estate results. Our Reading Cinemas at Courtenay Central was not only one of the top theaters in New Zealand, but also our number one theater in the Reading New Zealand circuit. Lastly, our first quarter 2019 cinema and real estate operating results were negatively impacted by foreign exchange. The Australian dollar and New Zealand dollar decreased against the U.S. dollar by 9.4% and 6.3% respectively when compared to 2018. So primarily impacted by these negative factors our first quarter total revenues decreased 19% from the prior year to $61.6 million. As a result, basic earnings per share decreased by $0.22 to a loss per share of $0.09 from the prior quarter. Our first quarter 2019 cinema segment revenues decreased by 20% to $58 million, which is broadly in line with the overall cinema industry and reflective of similar decreases experienced by our publicly traded exhibition company peers. Despite the headwinds in the first quarter, we were thrilled with Disney's latest home run with Avengers

[Gilbert Avanes:]

Thank you, Ellen. As we have noted, 2019 had a slow start due to a weak film slate. However, with the release of Avengers

[Andrzej Matyczynski:]

Thanks, Gilbert. First, I'd like to thank our stockholders for forwarding questions to our Investor Relations e-mail. As Ellen mentioned earlier, we've tried to incorporate many of your questions in Ellen's prepared remarks. However, we are still compiled a set of questions and answers representing the most common questions and recurring themes e-mailed to us and not addressed in those remarks. As always, we're available after the webcast to address any additional questions and encourage you to continue reaching out to us.

[Andrzej Matyczynski:]

So the first question, which I will answer is, why is Reading not more aggressively repurchasing shares? Well, we maintain a balance approach to capital allocation and are committed to directing capital to areas, where it can drive the greatest long term value for our stockholders through strategic investments in our cinemas and real estate development projects and returning capital directly to stockholders. Under our stock repurchase program, which was recently extended through March 2, 2021, Reading has repurchased 559,627 shares of Class A stock for $8.8 million. We have $16.3 million available for future Class A stock repurchases over the next 24 months. And we are committed to our repurchase program as a means of returning value directly to stockholders. I would also add that as a company, we are fortunate to have a strong pipeline of great projects from Tammany Hall in New York to Manukau in New Zealand. We will continue to review our cash needs and investment opportunities and deploy capital to areas, where it can drive the greatest returns as part of our balanced approach. The second question regarding subscription plans domestically, do you expect to underperform attendance market trends given last year's benefits for MoviePass and this year is ramping of domestic competitors? Ellen?

[Ellen Cotter:]

So today, MoviePass and subscription plans are relevant to our U.S. circuit as opposed to the global circuit. And we've always said that our U.S. circuit is diversified enough that we make pricing decisions on a theatre-by-theatre basis, taking into account the particular market, demographic film programming and the impact of our strategic investments. In other words, how we converted to a recliner seats, added a TITAN LUXE or TITAN XC screen or made F&B upgrades or implemented F&B discount programs. This comprehensive approach to pricing has resulted in increased attendance over the last few years for us. The first quarter 2019 was disappointing because the slate of film in the U.S. from both the major studios and specialty distributors was particularly weak. So no, we're not expecting to financially underperform the market based on MoviePass and subscription plans. With that said, we'll continue to monitor the subscription plans and try to understand how these programs can survive economically and more beneficially into our relationships with the studios. We're planning to test our own subscription plan by the end of 2019 in one market, but the key will be to avoid cannibalizing earnings are selling tickets at prices that don't reflect our costs. To put it simply, we're going to evaluate this opportunity but in a manner that focuses on building a strong and sustainable circuit in the U.S.

[Andrzej Matyczynski:]

What was the Q1 impact from lease accounting changes? And what was the 2018 impact? Gilbert?

[Gilbert Avanes:]

For Q1 2019, we are reporting according to Accounting Standards Codification 842, leases using the modified retrospective method. The standard will have a material impact on our consolidated balance sheet but not on our consolidated income statement or statement of cash flow. The most significant impact will be the recognition of right of use asset and lease liability for operating leases, while are accounting capital leases remains substantially unchanged. Adoption of the standard will result in recognition of right of use of assets of $232.3 million and operating lease liability of $245.3 million as of January 1, 2019 as stated on our Q1 2019 Form 10-Q. We recognize the cumulative effect of the initially applying the new lease standard as an adjustment to the opening balance of retained earnings. The comparative information has not been restated and continues to be reported under the accounting standard in effect for those periods.

[Andrzej Matyczynski:]

Thanks, Gilbert. Next question, some of our stockholders enquired as to our plans with respect to the development of cinema locations in addition to the forward described at our annual meeting and in our 10-Q. Ellen, could you address that?

[Ellen Cotter:]

At our annual meeting, we advised that our business plan contemplated the development of at least 10 new cinemas over the next three years. The 10 cinemas referred to include the four under contract in Australia. Additionally, based in our ongoing conversations with certain potential landlords to oversees and in the United States, where projecting that over the next few years will organically add six more theaters with half of those six being in Australia. Our discussions in the U.S., related to the expansion of the Angelika brand and oversees our expansion opportunities, primarily relate to the expansion of the Reading Cinema brand.

[Andrzej Matyczynski:]

Thanks Ellen. Our first question, could you please provide more details on the three-year strategic plan? Ellen?

[Ellen Cotter:]

Our three year strategic plan focuses on the upgrading of our existing cinemas to add luxury recliner seating, TITAN branded auditoriums and enhanced F&B options, the development in appropriate markets of new cinema opportunities, and the continued development and/or redevelopment of our current real estate assets. We don't publicly disclose individual projects, investments and return goals, but we've said numerous times that we generally look for high single-digit percentage returns on our real estate projects and mid-teen percentage returns on our cinema renovation project. And we expect higher returns on new build cinema project. We've made significant investments over the last few years in both our cinema and real estate portfolios. At our recent stockholder meeting, Gilbert highlighted the relative increases in revenue and adjusted EBITDA over the last three years. From 2015 to 2018, our Company's total revenues have increased by 20% and our adjusted EBITDA for this period went up 26%. For further details, we direct you to our presentation section of our website as our three-year plan provides the basis for all of our investor presentations.

[Andrzej Matyczynski:]

Thanks, again, Ellen. This one looks like for you Gilbert. Would Reading looks to paydown debt before moving to other projects like Cinema 1, 2 and 3, given that the debt taken on the finance of Union Square?

[Gilbert Avanes:]

Our ability to make capital acquisition and/or improvements from a financing perspective has been defined by our ability to generate strong cash flow as well as manage and service our debt. We take a long term view on our capital investments and assess each and every opportunity and it's financing on its own merits. At our financial trend Slide on our stockholders presentation show our debt to adjusted EBITDA will fluctuate as we make these types of value-added acquisitions improvements. We have and will continue to manage our balance sheets in a prudent and responsible manner.

[Andrzej Matyczynski:]

Thanks, Gilbert. And we'll wrap up with a final question that I can fill it. What additional steps will the company takes to attract both sell-side analysts and buy-side investors to the company to obtain a lower cost of capital and higher valuation. What are the next investment conferences Reading plans to present at? Well, we'll continue to engage with the investment community through non-deal road shows and presenting at investor conferences. We are pleased to have secure coverage from three sell-side analysts in just the last few years. We plan to attend the Gabelli Conference in June and the B. Riley Consumer Conference in early October this year. So the details will be made available through a press release in the near future.

[Andrzej Matyczynski:]

Well, that marks the conclusion of the call. We, as usual, are available for any follow-up calls, so please do not hesitate to reach out to. We appreciate you listening to the call today and thank you for your attention.