Earnings Labs

Avis Budget Group, Inc. (CAR)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 19, 2015

$179.24

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Avis Budget Group Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Neal Goldner, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Neal H. Goldner - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Stephanie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. On the call with me are Ron Nelson, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and David Wyshner, our Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we discuss our fourth quarter result, I would like to remind everyone that the company will be discussing forward-looking information that involves risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking information. Important risks, assumptions, and other factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements are specified in the company's earnings release and other periodic filings with the SEC, which are available on the Investor Relations' section of our website at avisbudgetgroup.com. We have provided slides to accompany this morning's conference call, which can be accessed on our website as well. Our comments will also focus on our results, excluding certain items and other non-GAAP financial measures that are reconciled to our GAAP numbers in our press release and in the earnings call presentation of our website. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Avis Budget Group's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Ron Nelson.

Ronald L. Nelson - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Management

Thanks, Neal and good morning. Well, 2014 was nothing short of an outstanding year for our company. We delivered on financial performance, executed on strategic initiatives, and allocated capital in a reasonable and return-enhancing way. And along the way, we laid the foundation for continued growth throughout the cycle and reported the highest adjusted EBITDA and earnings per share in our company's history. Here are some of the more notable elements of that performance. We increased volume and pricing in North America for the second consecutive year. We continued to strengthen our international presence, led by another year of substantial growth for Budget in Europe. We grew our Payless brand significantly, adding more than 60 new locations in North America, more than doubling its revenue, and increasing its pricing substantially. We expanded Zipcar's presence to additional campuses, cities and countries, and started making Zipcars available for one-way transactions. We elevated our investment in the people and technology that power our business, spending more on talent and systems development than we have ever spent in the past. We expanded our global footprint by acquiring our Budget licensees in Southern California, Las Vegas, Edmonton and Portugal. And finally, we returned cash to our shareholders, repurchasing $300 million of stock over the course of the year, with $90 million in the fourth quarter alone at an average price of $53 a share. And despite what could best be described as an uneven tone in the market, we finished the year on a positive note, reporting record fourth quarter results with every segment showing year-over-year growth in adjusted EBITDA. Clearly, we achieved much in 2014 and entered 2015 stronger than ever. It's worth a minute, however, to discuss some of the trends we saw in the fourth quarter, how they're shaping up as we…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from Mr. John Healy from Northcoast Research. You may ask your question at this time.

John M. Healy - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Good morning, guys. I wanted to ask kind of a little bit of a clarification question. The guidance on North America volumes of 5% to 7%, coming off a strong year you've had this year. I was hoping you could give us some perspective in terms of what assumptions have gone into that 5% to 7% growth target? And maybe the contribution that Southern California or the growth in Payless locations and things along those lines are having to that number? David B. Wyshner - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP: Sure, John. Good morning. We are seeing enplanements and airline capacity increasing in the 2% to 3%, 2% to 4% range based on some of the capacity runs that are out there. We're expecting Southern California to contribute a little over a point of incremental growth and that's part of our expectation. And we are expecting to continue to have outsized growth in the Payless brand. So, those are really some of the things that are driving growth. That's a little bit above what we would see for enplanements and airline capacity.

John M. Healy - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Great. And then I wanted to ask, Ron, your comments that the competitors have been behaving a little bit better in 2015 than you saw in 2014 in terms of following on pricing. Can you maybe talk to that a little bit more in maybe a little bit more detail?

Ronald L. Nelson - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Management

Sure. We've put in, I think, four price increases, John, since the first of the year. Two of them were met with what I would call unprecedented adoption rates in the $70s and $80s, and two of them had to be rolled back. That's a far better batting average than we had on price increases throughout all of 2014. So, I think that all the signals from our competitors are that they're moving to raise prices. They have the same cost pressures that we do. Certainly they have the FX headwinds and they have fleet costs probably in greater abundance than we do. So, I do think that you can draw some encouragement from what's happened in the first few weeks in terms of pricing. And as we look past Presidents' Weekend, pricing has been improving in all the brands quite honestly across both leisure and particularly in leisure and in commercial. And so, I think that's a good trend. And one that's certainly better than we saw last year.

John M. Healy - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Great. Thank you, guys.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Chris Woronka from Deutsche Bank. You may ask your question at this time.

Chris J. Woronka - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Hey, good morning, guys. I wanted to ask you a little bit about the International segment and kind of your – I guess your longer-term strategy and goals there. And you've talked about expanding Zipcar and then potentially making some other acquisitions. How do we add that up or square that with – I think you've also talked about some cost initiatives and some realignments, so just maybe if you could give us a high level overview of your longer-term goals internationally? Thanks.

Ronald L. Nelson - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Management

Well, I mean, first of all, you got to start from the standpoint that we do believe that the economies in Europe will turn around, and that this is a viable market. It is a far less consolidated market than the U.S., as we've talked before. It's still somewhere – 35% of the European market is independent. There's probably far greater acquisition opportunities in Europe than there are remaining in North America. And I think you can go country-by-country and there are different reasons why each country is doing better or worse than another. But taken in aggregate, none of them are doing particularly well, and they all seem to be suffering from some economic malaise. Now hopefully what's going on with the ECB will provide some incremental stimulus to the economy and drive incremental demand. We're not counting on it. But look, I think, we remain enthusiastic about the long-term viability of that market and our ability to grow that business. And certainly all the things that we control on the cost side, we're doing everything we can to optimize those costs. I think the initiatives that David's talking about are really aimed at running the business as a global enterprise as opposed to a regional enterprise. I think we talked about it at the investor meeting last year. We've got five call centers across the world. We've got three different shared services center. We probably have four or five different financial reporting centers. And all of those things are really ripe for consolidation and integration into a single global infrastructure. And so, I think as we – these things take time and obviously it starts with making sure that your processes and your IT systems are consistent across the globe. But by the way, we do everything the same way, almost, in every part of the world, so that isn't such an enormous hurdle. But I do think that these things will contribute a fair amount of operating expense savings over the course of the next three to four years as we consolidate them. Other than improving the margins of all of our business, I don't think they have anything to do with revenue or opportunity in the international markets. Probably more than you wanted to hear. It's an important topic for us.

Chris J. Woronka - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah. No, it's great color, Ron. Thanks. And just a quick follow up, as it pertains to the U.S., do you think that as we go through the year, does there need to be an improvement in utilization rates for pricing to improve or do you think it's more about the competitor actions and other things? I mean could we really see meaningful pricing growth with utilization flat or only slightly better?

Ronald L. Nelson - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Management

Yeah, I think utilization improvement is a fall out. It's a consequence of what needs to happen. I mean, what really needs to happen is that fleets need to get in sync with demand. And once fleets get in sync with demand, then I think pricing becomes within the control of what the competitors want to do with pricing. I think when you think back over the past year, we had one very large competitor that was in financial disarray. They were admittedly over fleeted and we had recalls that played havoc with fleet levels. And even in that environment, the industry, and in particular us, got some fairly attractive pricing gains. And I think all those things – I think people are going to get their arms around recalls. I think our competitor is obviously on its way to solving their financial issues and solving their fleet issues. And it is, for me, what gives me confidence that the business and industry fundamentals are still really good. And if we can achieve the kind of performance and things that we did in the last 18 months in an environment that was as I described, then I feel pretty good about the next 12 months to 24 months.

Chris J. Woronka - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Very good. Thanks, Ron.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Mr. Brian Johnson from Barclays. You may ask your question.

Brian Arthur Johnson - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning. And just following up on that, about a year ago you presented us with an earnings bridge at your Investor Day, getting to $1 billion of EBITDA in 2015. You're now guiding $900 million to $1 billion. Could you walk us through what's changed since then and maybe quantify some of the buckets? There's a bucket on volume growth, on cost synergies, around fleet costs, and then offset by fleet costs and inflation? You have the FX headwind. That's $40 million, but M&A for $35 million tailwind, so I'm wondering about the rest of the wok (46:57) in terms of incremental pricing, incremental fleet costs, and then the investment in technology as well as – don't you have a non-repeat of recall costs? David B. Wyshner - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP: Sure, Brian. Good morning. Clearly, some of the things you mentioned are the drivers here. It starts with the $40 million impact year-over-year related to foreign currency, which also impacted us last year as well. So the impact on 2015 versus where we were a year ago, it's actually a little greater than $40 million. I think fleet costs have been a little bit more of a challenge than we expected at that point in time. The international macro environment, both in Europe and Australia, has really not improved at all and I think, and in fact, maybe a little bit weaker in Australia and as a result that's been a negative. And then as we talked about in our opening comments today, we have included in our 2015 forecast, investments for the longer term health of our business and our brands, whether it's some brand marketing, some – the extension of Zipcar or the investment in connected car technology. Those are – those were there to some extent a year ago. I think the amount that we are planning to invest this year is a bit greater. And so, when you put that litany of items together, we're only partially offset from the increased EBITDA from the acquisitions that we've completed. That's really what's driving us to have $1 billion at the high-end of our forecast for this year.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mr. Chris Agnew from MKM Partners. You may ask your question.

Christopher James Wallace Agnew - MKM Partners LLC

Analyst

Thanks very much. Good morning. I wanted to touch on International inbounds and just get a sense, what are the assumptions you've built with respect to International inbound and into 2015? Can you give us, what's the mix of International inbound between business and leisure? Thank you. David B. Wyshner - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP: Sure, Chris. Good morning. The assumptions with International inbound are that overall, it should probably be a wash, but it will impact different areas differently. eurozone to eurozone, we don't really see an impact other than with respect to the UK, since so many of the countries are euro-denominated. Switzerland is clearly going to be a tough environment. And our guess is that transatlantic volume will shift more toward East to West than it will be from – sorry, from West to East, it will be more volume from North America into Europe than from Europe into North America, given how exchange rates have moved. But as I said, given our global presence, I think this is going to be primarily a wash. And with respect to the second part of your question, I don't have the specific numbers as to how International inbound breaks down between commercial and leisure, but I'd expect it to be maybe a little bit heavier on the commercial side than our overall business, call it 60:40 rather than 50:50. But that's my guess and we can follow up with some exact numbers for you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Anjaneya Singh from Credit Suisse. Your question is up at this time. Anjaneya K. Singh - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I was wondering if you can delve into fleet capacity a little bit after the weaker pricing at Q4 due to these issues. I'm wondering how you view the fleet capacity in the industry year-to-date and for 2015 how that might impact your 2% pricing assumption, particularly as one of your competitors continues to dispose of a lot of fleet through the first half of 2015?

Ronald L. Nelson - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Management

Yeah. I'm not sure capacity is the right word that I would use. I mean, I think if you look back over Q4, the area where I think pricing suffered was really in the shoulder periods between the holiday period, the holiday, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that everybody was cycling recalls back into their fleet. And if you were heavily risk-oriented, you were probably hanging on to more cars so that you weren't selling them into a softer used car market in Q4 and selling them and hanging on to them to sell them in the first quarter. I think some of that carried over into January. January pricing looked a lot like December pricing and I think that – January pricing is always kind of soft and fleets are always a little bit out of sync with demand. But as we've seen things tighten up, going past the Presidents Weekend and into March, pricing seems to come back. The other thing that I think we've noticed is that the manufacturers were not selling a lot of cars in Q4. And so they're starting to sell cars going into the program cars that we put back to them or others put back to them. They're starting to sell those in the first quarter. That's actually a little encouraging because as more and more volume comes into the market, we're actually seeing a relative stability in the used car market despite increased volume. So these things are inherently unpredictable. But I am feeling like, even though one of our competitors probably does have some more cars to get rid of and the manufacturers have some cars to sell, it looks as though the market is going to be able to absorb those without any impact on where the pricing water level is currently. And I would hope that probably by the – I mean, certainly by the summer that everybody's got their fleet levels in sync with demand, and that has a positive impact on pricing. Anjaneya K. Singh - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Okay. I appreciate the color there. And, I guess, on a similar topic, if you could discuss fleet utilization a little bit, what were the factors driving it higher in International? Was it primarily attributable to your yield management system or would you call out some other factors? How sustainable is that trajectory for 2015? And what is baked into your guidance for fleet utilization by region for 2015?

Ronald L. Nelson - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Management

Yeah. No, I think the fleet utilization gains that we got in International are simply about getting arms around fleet management in what was a fairly disparate set of fleet management systems and fleet management processes. The utilization gains had a lot to do with just simply managing the fleet better and getting our arms around how people buy fleet and how people sell fleet and how they move it through the whole supply chain. And in particular, there was a real effort put on shortening the amount of downtime for out-of-service cars when they required maintenance. And that actually helped utilization fairly significantly. So I see the utilization gains continuing to improve in Europe. I think you're talking in percentage points, certainly single-digits. I mean, utilization is really hard to move once you get to a steady state. I mean, if utilization is up by a point or two, that's a fairly significant number. But the utilization gains in Europe were real. I think they will continue over the course of the next couple of years and that'll provide some real benefits.

Operator

Operator

Our final question comes from Afua Ahwoi from Goldman Sachs. You may ask your question. Afua A. Ahwoi - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thank you. Good morning. Two questions for me, first on the impact of Payless, I know you provided the impact on volume. Could you remind us what it is on pricing? I know in the past you've given the impact of Payless as 2% on your constant price in number. And then maybe if you can just discuss a little bit the impetus behind deciding to lower your fleet cost guidance to 2% to 5% from 3% to 6%, when you last gave an update. I understand the Manheim is much better, it's been stronger over the last couple of months. But how confident are you that those levels hold and it doesn't get worse? Thank you. David B. Wyshner - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Executive VP: Sure. Good morning, Afua. With respect to Payless, the impact we've anniversaried the acquisition of Payless. So the only thing that's driving Payless to impact our percentage growth in pricing is its faster growth or the mix effect. And that should be somewhere in the maybe 0.5 point drag on pricing growth this year, or maybe a little bit less. And I do want to make sure we're very clear that it's a mix effect. The results we've had for Payless itself have had some very significant pricing increases year-over-year, but the rapid growth of Payless is creating a mix effect that's likely to be in the 0.25 point to 0.5 point range. In terms of the one point change in our fleet cost guidance for North America, I think part of it's due to foreign exchange and the impact that Canadian dollar has there. And part of it is definitely due to the fact that the used car market residual values had been stronger over the last two, three months than we'd expected. The first month and a half of this year has been better than we initially expected and we've been pleased by the strength of the used car market. It's nothing huge in the scheme of things, but I'd call it within the range of what we would've expected but toward the better end of that range, which is helpful. And as Ron just mentioned, I think we're hopeful that that will continue to extend going forward as well. We're taking advantage of it and we're continuing to use our optimization tools to maximize the values we're getting out of cars and even doing some things in terms of which regions we're selling vehicles in that we haven't done in the past to take advantages of differences by region that have appeared over the last few months. So I think it's a combination of foreign exchange, a healthy used car market compared to our expectations, and actions that we are taking allowed us to take a point out of our guidance there.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. For closing remarks, the call is being turned back to Mr. Ronald Nelson. Please go ahead, sir.

Ronald L. Nelson - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Management

Thanks. So before we close, let me reiterate what I think are the key points from today's call. 2014 was a record year, driven by strong volume and pricing in North America. Our four pillar strategy has been the driver of our success and will continue to be the foundation for our future growth. 2015 will be another record year, despite currency and macroeconomic headwinds, and we will continue to return cash to shareholders through share repurchases. With a full investor calendar this quarter starting with the JPMorgan Investor Conference next week, we hope to see many of you during our trips. And with that, I want to thank you for your time and your interest in our company.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect at this time. Again, this does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect at this time. Thank you.