Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd (NCLH) — Q4 2020 Transcript

Thank you, Josh, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings call. I’m joined today by Frank Del Rio, President and Chief Executive Officer of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings; and Mark Kempa, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Frank will begin the call with opening commentary, after which Mark will follow to discuss results for the quarter 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’d like to cover just a few items. Our press release with our fourth quarter and full year 2020 results was issued this morning and is 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 our presentation. With that, I’d like to turn the call over to Frank Del Rio.

Thank you, Andrea, and good morning. I hope that everyone joining us today as well as your loved ones remain healthy and safe. Similar to our last few earnings calls, we will focus our commentary today on the progress of our response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the overall booking and pricing environment, which has shown particular strength in recent weeks, and our view of what the months ahead may look like as we prepare for an eventual return to service. To say that 2020 was challenging would be an incredible understatement. It was without a doubt the toughest and most difficult year in our company’s 50 plus year history. After a record-breaking 2019, the foundation was well set for 2020 to be an even more successful year. That upward trajectory, however, quickly changed last March, and 2020 instead became a year of great hardship and disappointment, one in which we had to rely on our nimbleness and our ability to adapt by taking swift proactive and decisive actions to overcome the multifaceted challenges presented by the pandemic.

Thank you, Frank. My remarks today will focus on the continued execution of our COVID-19 action plan, as well as our roadmap to relaunch. The global pandemic continues to evolve and we continue to focus on what we can control, and we are prepared to adapt and modify our strategy as needed. Slide 7 illustrates three focus areas of our action plan and the additional proactive measures taken since the beginning of the fourth quarter. First, we have reduced operating expenses and capital expenditures through a number of initiatives, including the further reduction or deferral of near-term marketing expenses, reduction of non-essential capital expenditures, and extended salary reductions and furloughs for shoreside team members. In fact, we reduced capital expenditures by approximately 60% for 2020 and 2021. Additionally, we finalized the deferral of €220 million of new building related shipyard payments through the end of the first quarter of 2022. Second, we have made significant progress on improving our debt maturity profile in order to provide additional near-term financial flexibility through the following actions: we amended our Pride of America, Norwegian Jewel, and senior secured credit facilities to suspend testing of certain covenants. This covenant relief extends through maturity for the Pride of America and Jewel facilities and through year-end 2022 for the senior secured credit facility. We were able to defer $70 million of amortization payments due prior to June 30, 2022, for the senior secured credit facility. We secured deferrals for approximately $680 million of our export credit agency-backed amortization payments, representing 100% of our ECA payments originally due through the first quarter of 2022. We also received covenant waivers through the end of the fourth quarter of 2022 on our ECA facilities. We have tremendous support behind us from our strong longstanding relationships with our export credit agencies and commercial lenders. Their assistance is playing a significant role in our ability to weather this pandemic, and we can’t thank them enough for their continued and ongoing partnership during these unprecedented times. The final focus area of our action plan is securing additional capital. In the fourth quarter, we executed two highly successful transactions. In November, we raised $824 million of net proceeds through an equity offering of 40 million ordinary shares. In December, we issued $850 million of 5.875% senior unsecured notes due 2026 in an oversubscribed offering. To date, we’ve accessed the capital markets five times over a nine-month period. As a result, since the onset of the pandemic, we raised incremental cash of nearly $6.5 billion, including a drawdown of the $875 million revolver early last year. This tremendous accomplishment would not have been possible without the hard work of our finance, treasury, legal, and accounting teams, who have worked tirelessly around the clock to execute on these initiatives. We have also experienced an incredible outpouring of support from our investors, and again, we can’t thank you enough for having conviction in our business model and management team and the long-term potential of our company. Slide 8 outlines the improvement of our debt maturity profile in response to the crisis. Since the third quarter, we secured debt amortization deferrals of approximately $750 million, resulting in minimal debt service payments for the remainder of 2021. Turning to liquidity, Slide 9 provides our current illustrative liquidity profile. Our total liquidity as of year-end was approximately $3.2 billion, which includes the portion of customer deposit refunds that are included in accounts payable at quarter end. We have also estimated approximately $300 million for anticipated health and safety investments and other collateral obligations. While we anticipate variability in our health and safety investments as we work through the various requirements and continuously improve and refine our protocols, we wanted to earmark this investment in our illustrative liquidity profile. These factors combined result in a net liquidity on a pro forma basis of approximately $2.9 billion, enabling us to continue to navigate through this fluid environment and execute on our return to service plan. As for cash burn, our team continues to work day in and day out to further reduce expenses and conserve cash. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have made significant progress in reducing our controllable cash burn rate, with the low watermark representing nearly an 80% reduction in crews operating expenses versus normalized levels. For the fourth quarter, our average monthly cash burn was approximately $190 million. This included approximately $15 million per month due to additional expenses related to preparing vessels for a potential return to service in early 2021, and included a limited increase in associated marketing event investments, as Frank discussed earlier. As for the first quarter, we expect the average cash burn to temporarily remain elevated at approximately $190 million per month, or approximately $170 million per month, excluding non-recurring debt modification costs as we ramp down our relaunch-related expenses and repatriate crew. Approximately $60 million of one-time costs we incurred in the quarter is a result of debt deferrals and covenant waivers and suspensions, which when combined with the newbuild payment extensions, have resulted in approximately $1 billion of additional liquidity over the next 12 months. Once the ramp down of relaunch-related expenses, including crew repatriation efforts, are complete, we expect that the average cash burn rate will decrease and remain at reduced levels until return to service preparations resume. We will continue to take a thoughtful and disciplined approach to reintroducing costs as we resume voyages to conserve cash while balancing the need to drive new cash bookings. Turning to Slide 10, we ended the fourth quarter with approximately $3.3 billion of cash and cash equivalents. Our cash balance in the fourth quarter increased driven by approximately $1.7 billion of net proceeds from capital raises and was partially offset by approximately $570 million of operating cash burn, which includes operating expenses, SG&A, interest, and CapEx. Customer cash refunds for canceled voyages of approximately $120 million and net working capital and other outflows of approximately $20 million, which includes health and safety investments. Given the continued uncertainty around the timing of our voyage resumption, we are not yet prepared to provide guidance on all metrics. However, we have provided guidance on depreciation and amortization, interest expense, and newbuild related capital expenditures to assist with modeling, which can be found in our earnings release and on Slide 19 of the presentation. Broadly speaking, excluding newbuild related capital expenditures, we still expect the minimum required capital expenditures needed to run the business and maintain our best-in-class fleet is generally a few hundred million dollars per year. Before handing the call back, I want to reemphasize that while we are prioritizing our immediate business needs, we are also very focused on the future of our company. Our medium and long-term financial recovery plan, which was provided on Slide 11 focuses on three critical components: first, rebuild and gradually return to pre-COVID margin levels while continuing to identify opportunities to further drive margin expansion; second, maximize our cash generation; and third, focus on optimizing our balance sheet and charting a path to deleverage. With that, I’ll hand the call back over to Frank to provide closing commentary.

Thank you, Mark. Before we wrap up our prepared remarks today, I’d like to provide an update on our global sustainability program, Sail and Sustain, which is on Slide 12. Despite the current public health challenges we face, our commitment to protect and preserve our oceans, the environment, and the destinations we visit, while enhancing our culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion of our workforce remains at the very core of our everyday operations. In 2020, we launched unconscious bias, microaggression, and diversity and inclusion training for our global workforce and have committed to expand our diverse hiring practices. We are also building upon our supplier diversity program as part of our efforts to facilitate and encourage the growth of small and diverse businesses. We strive to maintain a supportive and empowering workplace for our team members across the globe. We believe our team members are by far our most important resource, and that has never been clearer to me than during this crisis. We are pleased that this commitment to our team’s development and well-being was recognized recently with our naming to the Forbes America’s Best Employers list, in which we ranked among the top 75 companies in the overall large employer category and among the top 10 companies in the travel and leisure sector. Just as we support our team members, we are also committed to supporting our local communities and the destinations we visit. This past year, we launched two initiatives in partnership with JUST Goods. Giving Tuesday, we matched every case of Just Water purchased in December through their online store with water donations to local food banks in Miami and New York City. Separately, we provided nearly $275,000 of in-kind donations in the form of Just Water and non-perishable foods to support two community organizations and assist ongoing relief efforts in the Archipelago of San Andrés in Colombia, after the devastating impact of Category 5 Hurricane Iota. Furthering our partnership with JUST Goods, we are also currently in the process of organizing several truckloads of Just Water donations to benefit food banks located in areas around the Southwest of the United States that have been severely affected by the recent winter storms. Dedication to family and community is ingrained in our culture and to further demonstrate this commitment beginning this year, we are offering our U.S. shoreside team members a paid volunteer day to give back to community programs of their choice. On the environmental front, we are proud to have improved our score in our second CDP climate change submission to a late B, which is higher than the marine transport sector, North America, and global average. For 2021, we will be focused on enhancing our ESG disclosures to provide additional transparency. I look forward to sharing additional details with you as we continue on our ESG journey. Turning to Slide 13, I’d like to leave you with a few final key takeaways. First, we are focused on the execution of our roadmap to relaunch as quickly as possible. And we’ll continue to work with our expert advisors, global public health authorities, and government agencies to refine our science-backed plans for a swift, safe, and healthy return to cruising. Second, strong future demand for cruising across all brands, source markets, and deployments continue. Early indications for 2022 bookings are extremely positive with load factors exceeding our previous highs by a substantial margin. Lastly, we continue to keep our longer-term strategic and financial priorities in focus, and we will be ready to execute on our recovery plans to improve our balance sheet. Strong future demand we are experiencing, coupled with the positive momentum in the public health front, bodes extremely well for our prospects. And with that, Josh, please let’s open the call for questions. Thank you.

Hey, everyone. Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to maybe follow back up with Frank on your comments on Alaska. You referenced the industry’s attempt to try and salvage some of the Alaskan season. I assume for the sailings that are leaving and arriving from Seattle, where I know you guys do much of your business. If you could just give us your view on the potential success of those talks and then just remind us the portion of your Alaska business that’s in and out of Seattle.

It’s difficult to predict what the outcome will be. We’re encouraged that the situation with Alaska and the Canadian closure until spring of 2022 has been noted by various government officials, and they’re trying to do their best. As you know, tourism is the third-largest industry in Alaska. For certain Alaskan coastal communities, cruising is over 90% of their tourism business. If we can operate in Alaska in 2021, that will be two years that they will go without this infusion of business activity, which is going to be difficult for them. So we’re cautiously optimistic. It’s a lot of hoops to jump through both from the Canadian side, and also we cannot operate as of today in U.S. waters and Alaska waters. So we have suspended taking new bookings on Alaska. I think the whole industry has. But we do hold out some hope that these initiatives led by the Alaskan delegation can open up Alaska for 2021.

Great. Thanks for that. And then I wanted to also ask about the relaunch efforts in the 1Q that you reversed. I think you made the announcement that you would repatriate some crew as of late January. With the latest murmurings out of the industry that you could get CDC guidance, maybe any day now. I just want to reconcile those two things and understand your timeline and the decision process to send folks home.

Yes. I think there are a couple of clarifications to make. The CDC guidance that we as an industry are expecting sometime in the future, and I won’t label it as a few days because I simply don’t know, could be a few days or a few weeks; we simply don’t know. That doesn’t mean that we are awaiting the green light to cruise. That would not be correct. But in terms of our decision to pull back, look, when the CDC conditional Sail Order first came out, there was great expectation. We had a conditional Sail Order, and it proved to be more difficult than we first expected. We also were in the middle of a spike in the number of cases. It became obvious to us that the initial expectation that the industry could begin to cruise in the first quarter, focusing heavily on the Caribbean, was not going to take place. We took the difficult decision to reduce our cash burn, repatriate those crew members back home, and cut down on the marketing expenses that we had begun to ramp up along with the ships that we thought we could operate. Today, I would tell you that we are in a better place, a more encouraging place than we were just six weeks ago. At the end of the day, I think the prevalence of the disease in our own country and around the world will be the greatest indicator of when we can resume cruising. The prevalence is dropping, and based on all the experts that we’ve talked to, including the Healthy Sail Panel, we’re expecting a continued significant drop in cases as we enter spring and summer, as we continue to vaccinate over 1.5 million Americans a day.

Very helpful. Thanks for the comments.

Hey, good morning, guys. Just Frank, to add on to your last commentary, if the CDC gave you guys the all-clear signal to get to the test phase component and start the test cruises, would you still need about 90 days or could you shorten that timeframe a little bit?

We think it can be shortened. I know that there is a 60-day waiting period, but conversations we've been having suggest that it's not a hard 60 days; it could be less. But how much less? I don't know; we haven't received that kind of specificity on these guidelines. Generally, we believe that from the moment we get the green light, depending on where the ships are that we want to stand up and the seasonality, summer is where the ships are primarily in Europe and Alaska. In the fall and winter, they’re mainly in the Caribbean, Mexico, and the Panama Canal. For planning purposes, we’d like to give ourselves around a 90-day window. We’ve canceled cruises through the end of May. If you count it out, that means all of March, April, and May. We continue to keep bookings available as long as we believe there’s a chance that we can operate. Once we know, we approach that 90-day window. We always inform everyone in the ecosystem, whether it's travel agents, consumers, or our crew, to cancel future cruises. So we’re always hopeful that the public health situation improves and that we can restart as soon as possible.

Okay. Got you. Thanks, Frank. And then the second question would be about your booking trends across your brands. I know you indicated that booking trends seem pretty similar across all three brands, but I wanted to dig into your luxury brands, given the strong pent-up demand we’ve seen from the 60 plus age demographic across other consumer verticals. Has that demographic been very active in terms of booking? Have there been any changes in their preferences in terms of length of itinerary or destination?

It does make sense, Steve. Early in the pandemic, people were writing off the mature market, but it’s been anything but that. The upscale brands tend to book further out than the contemporary brand, partly because of the itineraries. The more exotic itineraries typically lead to longer bookings. Both Oceania and Regent are nearly 40% booked for 2022, much better than they've ever been at this stage of the booking cycle. These are guests who are typically over 65; the average age at Oceania and Regent is consistently in the 66 to 67 age range. These individuals have been vaccinated first, and they’re eager to travel. They desire to return as much as 40-year-olds and 30-year-olds; they have the means and are booking further out than ever. As we mentioned in our prepared remarks, the booking curve is now double what it normally is, as there are virtually no bookings being made for the next three or four month sailings due to cancellations, meaning individuals are booking further out, and they know this pandemic will end eventually. We have more visibility today regarding our future business than we have ever had. While I have many concerns, filling our ships and generating demand is not one of them. To fill our ships at strong pricing is not a worry. We’ve experienced excellent results in load factors and new bookings with a minimal marketing effort. This points to the resilience of the consumer who enjoys cruising; it remains a great value.

Okay, great. Thanks for the color, Frank. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Steve.

Okay, great. Thanks. Yes, just looking at some other cruise lines that are operating in Asia and have operated in Europe. I’m just curious, are the cruise lines sharing their learnings and protocols, particularly thinking of the cruise line that you’re on the Healthy Sail Panel with, whether you’re getting the benefit of those starts in other regions?

Hi, Robin. Yes. We don’t compete on safety and health issues. The industry has been very cooperative. We do share our findings; companies operating in Asia or Europe are forthcoming. Similar to Royal Caribbean, we developed the Healthy Sail Panel, and the 74 protocols we’ve made available to the entire industry have been adopted across the board. It’s a very good and healthy dynamic.

Great. Thanks. As a quick follow-up, I think I can guess your answer, but you guys have not sold any ships, and some other companies have. I understand you have the youngest fleet out there, so maybe the answer is that you have no interest in or need to sell any ships. Are you considering that at all or having conversations about it?

No, you pointed out that we do have the youngest fleet. Every one of our ships produces positive margins and positive EBITDA, a good ROI on their book value. Therefore, we have no interest in selling any of our assets. Being the smallest of the big three is an advantage during this time. We only have to worry about 28 vessels, not a greater number. We’re also very eager to start taking delivery of the vessels that we have on order, beginning in the third quarter of 2022. We've been fortunate not to have to take new deliveries during this pandemic. In short, we have zero interest in selling any of our assets.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Great. Thanks for taking my question. I’m curious regarding your perspective or updated thinking on the timeline to get the whole fleet back sailing. Assuming you have success with trial sailings, how long do you think it would take to get the entire fleet operational again?

We don’t know when that start date is. Directionally, we’re heading in the right direction. The prevalence is decreasing, and vaccinations are ramping up. We’re all confident in the protocols, enhanced by the vaccinations. What we have said in the past is that we believe from the start date, it will likely take six to seven months, assuming that the ports worldwide are open. Remember, our ships are seasonal. One requirement is that the ports be open and travel restrictions lifted. Assuming those hurdles are cleared, we think it will take six to seven months, thus roughly a ship a week. For us to be 100% operational, we would have to start standing up vessels in June or July of this year so that we can be fully operational by year-end or early 2022.

Great. It sounds similar to how you were thinking about it last time. About future cruise credits, I recall last time, around 65% to 70% of cancelations chose future cruise credits instead of cash. I was curious if that ratio has held, and regarding the outstanding FCCs–

Since I forgot the exact date but since the fall, when we cancel sailings, everyone gets a cash refund. We’re no longer offering FCCs. We have the liquidity, and FCCs are dilutive to future business; we don’t want to negatively impact future business any more than the dilutive effect of the existing FCCs. Therefore, you’ve got your money back instead of an FCC. In terms of the percentage of FCCs that have been redeemed, it varies by brand, but roughly 40% of all issued FCCs have been redeemed, meaning there still remains 60% of the FCCs that have been issued. Some view FCC bookings as less favorable than cash ones, but both are important. Those customers who took an FCC showed confidence in our business, and we want to ensure they get to cruise. If it means extending the booking or sailing dates, we will do so. We actively encourage people to redeem their FCCs because we want them to take a cruise.

Just to add on that, as you mentioned, it’s a big book of business. This gives us opportunities to work more efficiently and reduce some of our operating expenses over time because, simply speaking, our acquisition costs will come down with that business. As Frank said, the FCCs are good bookings, just like any other booking. It’s a positive sign and having such a significant amount on our books is encouraging.

Great, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks.

Hi, good morning. I’m hoping that you guys will help us think through the cash burn over the first half. There’s this inflated number for 1Q, but theoretically, if you start ramping in June, you will see those costs repeat as you bring people back to the ships. Is $170 million a better cash burn number compared to some you’ve given out in the past?

Hi, Jaime, it’s Mark. Yes, I’ll take that. When we really reduced our cash burn in the second and third quarter, we were down to levels of $150 million to $160 million. It’s slightly elevated in the fourth quarter primarily due to additional cash interest and some startup activities, as I noted. Some of that lingers into Q1 with restart activities. Beyond that, our expectation is that we’ll get back to those earlier levels, absent the clear visibility to start. If you look at the fourth quarter and first quarter, I think I said in my prepared remarks today, roughly $15 million a month was related to restart costs. Once we have clear path to restart, that will be the level you’d start to see. This is whether it’s in Q2 or Q3, depending on the circumstances.

Okay. There was a comment in the slide deck that 60% of the bookings were from loyalists, implying 40% were new cruisers. I know you’ve talked about some inroads made with millennials in the past. Curious if there have been demographic patterns seen across the fleet with the recent bookers.

I will tell you that the sweet spot has been for guests aged 55 and older; historically, that cohort represents the majority of our guests across all three brands. We’ve observed a slight increase in bookings coming from that cohort. As I mentioned, that is partly because those with the vaccine are overrepresented in this group than younger cohorts. They tend to be retired or semi-retired; the stock market has done well, and they are eager to travel. Therefore, this group's pent-up demand exceeds that of younger cohorts.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Thank you. I know there’s a lot of moving parts still, but within that six to seven months for launching the full fleet, how do you think about occupancy at the ship level within the current CDC framework? How might the vaccine change that?

Well, to my knowledge, the CDC has yet to provide the industry with a target occupancy. For our own internal purposes, we assume that at the beginning, maximum occupancy will be in the 50% range. So think about this—today our entire fleet is available to book starting in the third quarter in July moving forward. Every ship has passengers on them, with bookings. We’re going to start, but we cannot start all 28 vessels. As I said, it’s likely to happen with an interval of about a week, which means many customers who are booked will be displaced. This might lead to cancellations and refunds, but some customers will be moved from the Norwegian Jewel in Alaska to the Norwegian Bliss in Alaska or from the Oceania Riviera in Europe to the Oceania Marina in Europe. We believe there are enough bookings today that if we don’t take another booking, let’s say for Q3, assuming capacity being reduced at the start, we won’t have a short-term issue regarding filling vessels or generating demand. We always keep new bookings and cruising available as long as there is a chance we can operate. Once we understand that we get into that 90-day window, we will need to start taking more bookings.

One of the other things within your control is the operation and expense structure. What do you think could be structurally changed after this to make the ships more profitable? Additionally, should we expect higher or lower dry-dock days coming out of the layup?

I'll let Mark answer that.

Yes, Steve, on dry docks. Ships must dry dock; they must adhere to classification society rules. I can tell you that while we have pulled back on some capital expenditures, we continue to conduct dry docks as necessary. Certain investments we’ve continued to make, for example, scrubbers on the Breakaway and Getaway, were scheduled for completion in early 2023, and because the ships are out of service for their normal dry dock periods, we are completing them sooner to ensure readiness for restart. In terms of the cost of ships, the cost structure generally has a fixed cost structure. However, there are pockets of opportunity. We’re keen to evaluate every cost from our supply chain to shoreside operations. This pause has allowed us to question our operations and determine whether we’re doing things correctly. There is an opportunity for cost enhancements, and further down the future, how does this translate to margin expansion? It will involve a combination of reduced costs and more efficient capacity from our upcoming new-build program.

As we mentioned previously, we’ve made significant improvements with our marketing efforts. We're transitioning toward the digital world, which allows us to get more value from our marketing spend. Notably, we’re garnering substantial booking activity with figure below the norm. This experience has resulted in many learnings, and we will continue to evaluate all facets of the business to enhance profitability.

Thank you for taking my question. It seems there’s a bright light at the end of this tunnel. There was initial concern that the industry would have to heavily discount to get people back on the ship. Do you sense that there may be even greater shadow demand of individuals? Many are on waiting lists to get vaccinated. Once vaccinations are widespread and more itineraries open up, do you anticipate even more demand for trips?

Good morning, Ivan. Thanks for the question. The industry has been shut down for over a year, which means 30 million people who would have cruised didn’t. This reflects the finite capacity business; I can’t cruise with 150% occupancy. Demand will exceed supply, especially with 20-plus ships withdrawn from North America. With decreased supply and increased demand, people with cash wanting to travel leads me to believe this is the beginning of a boom for the cruise industry. We can’t expand supply faster than what’s coming online; pricing will dictate operations. Amazing results considering we’re spending minimally and that travel agents are not at full strength. Booking volume is up, and we’re seeing prices tick upwards too. We are well booked for the future. It’s an unprecedented positive setting. We need to resume cruising, but prospects look promising.

When the CDC signals an all-clear, you’re targeting 50% capacity, but with the Healthy Sail Panel’s guidance, do you anticipate ramping up capacity very quickly as vaccination rates rise?

I agree; the vaccination will be a deciding factor. Herd immunity could come by July or August. By the end of April, we expect anyone who wants a vaccine in the U.S., Europe, and Canada will have access. That’s all positive. However, we must begin operations and build momentum. The goal is to display that we can operate safely in a low-prevalence environment. If we’re able to demonstrate that we can operate safely, eventually, this pandemic becomes endemic, similar to the flu.

Very good. Thank you, and good luck.

Thank you, Ivan.

Thank you, Ivan.

Thank you.