Timothy Warner
Analyst · FBR Capital Markets
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on our second quarter 2014 results call. I'd like to begin by welcoming Sean Gamble to our Cinemark family. Sean will be coming on board later this month, so this will be Robert's last earnings call as CFO. Robert has served us well over the past 14 years in the CFO role, and we commend his performance and success. I'm both personally and professionally thrilled to be able to transition the President and COO role to Robert once we have Sean in place as the CFO. Despite the North American industry box office's second quarter decline of 6.5%, Cinemark's domestic operations were able to maintain essentially the same level of box office as Q2 of last year, which is outstanding, when -- considering we outperformed the industry comps by 910 basis points last year. Furthermore, our second quarter worldwide admissions revenues increased 1.8% on a currency adjusted basis. Our total worldwide operations generated $169.4 million in adjusted EBITDA, with adjusted EBITDA margin of 23.6%. We applaud our field operations and their diligence in managing and executing cost control in order to maintain our industry-leading adjusted EBITDA margin. It is important to keep in mind the second quarter was up against an industry-shattering, all-time high of over $3 billion in box office revenues. From another perspective, Q2 of 2014 was up nearly 1% against Q2 of 2012, which featured the megahit, Avengers. Although the second quarter was down for the North American industry, it is key to focus on the full-year results, rather than the weekly or quarterly fluctuations of this industry. Year-to-date through June, the industry experienced a slight decline of just over 1% from the record-setting 2013. Cinemark's year-to-date domestic box office through June, notably increased 8.2%. Regarding the World Cup, Brazil, as the hosting country, exceeded expectations, and presented one of the most exciting World Cups in memory, highlighting the depth and splendor of the country. Cinemark was able to display select World Cup games in 56 of our 10 theaters across 10 Latin American countries. The exhibition of the World Cup was essential with developing awareness and demonstrating the opportunity of live theatrical alternative content to other content providers. The second quarter box office in Brazil performed stronger than anticipated against the World Cup, with films such as Maleficent, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and The Fault in Our Stars, appealing to female and youth demographics. Contributing to the box office success in Brazil, school and businesses were closed, tourists were visiting and the Brazil team initially played during the week rather than on weekends. However, the semifinals, third place and championship game, and both Brazil and Argentina competing in the final round, it was more of a box office impact throughout Latin America in July. We face another challenging comp in the third quarter, as the North American industry box office was up 6.5% in 2013, while Cinemark doubled that performance on a per screen basis, with an increase of 13%. We confront the second half of the year with a box office headwind of approximately 7% year-to-date through July. We congratulate Disney on their superhero success with Guardians of the Galaxy, which celebrated $94 million in domestic box office in its opening weekend, achieving the highest domestic August debut, with an impressive 3D take of 45%. Some of the upcoming film product also has potential, including: Interstellar, an adventure in human space travel, written and directed by Christopher Nolan; The Equalizer, starring Denzel Washington; The Giver, based on a popular teenage novel starring Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges; Gone Girl, based on the best-selling novel starring Ben Affleck; Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1; the return of our animated friends, The Penguins of Madagascar; Exodus, directed by Ridley Scott, starring Christian Bale; The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies; Night at the Museum 3; Fury, featuring Brad Pitt in a World War II portrayal; Into the Woods, a family film with characters from popular children's tales, including Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Rapunzel; and This Is Where I Leave You, a dramatic comedy, also known as a dramady, about 4 siblings after the death of their father starring Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Rose Byrne and Jane Fonda. Of course, the 2015 and '16 film slate looks tremendous and already generating substantial industry buzz, especially after the reviews coming out of Comic Con. How could you not get excited with the lineup that includes megahit titles such as Avengers; Minions from Despicable Me; the 24th James Bond film; the final Hunger Games in the series; Star Wars: Episode VII ; the next Avatar; Superman vs. Batman; Alice in Wonderland 2; Finding Dory; Independence Day sequel and the list goes on and on. In addition to the upcoming film product, we're also excited about the alternative content available through Fathom, utilizing the nationwide digital network that now exist. Fox innovative red carpet premiere for The Fault in Our Stars with streamed live interviews with the cast, filmmakers and author before the debut of the film for a premium ticket price was a great success, an initiated progressive thinking on the use of our screens. The Weinstein Group has since announced the red carpet premiere for The Giver next week, and we expect others to recognize the value and follow suit. The true benefit of these red carpet premieres is the studio's ability to provide fans an intimate view into the lives of the actors, characters and the story line, while also providing participation in a major Hollywood event. Using social media as part of the marketing effort enables direct communication with the targeted audience. Alternative content in Latin America is continuing to expand. Cinemark recently partnered with the BBC to show the nature series, Earth, exclusively at Cinemark, including many of our XD screens. We've also begun our popular classic film series in Brazil and it's been very well-received. Expect these films, such as The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Pulp Fiction, Breakfast at Tiffany's, to name a few. Our classic film series has resonated well with the press film critic's university film program, and of course, our patrons, who have expressed delight in the ability to see these digitally remastered films on the big screen. Based on the response in Brazil, we will begin rolling out the classic series to other Latin American countries this fall. Of course, there's also the expansion opportunity with sports, such as the World Cup that I discussed earlier. You may have also seen that Fathom and NBC Sports are bringing the Barclays Premier League soccer to the big screen. To complement diverse film and alternative content offerings, Cinemark offers a wide variety of amenities to enjoy during the show, with our market-adaptive approach. Our premium theater concept known as Cinemark Reserve, has officially opened in Towson, Maryland. Our reserve concept offers a VIP balcony with luxury lounges, alcohol and expanded food offering, with an upscale lounge area. Our second Premium Reserve concept will open in Playa Vista, California later this year. Our Cinemark movie bistro concept, offering beer, wine and cocktails, with an expanded menu, continues to perform well. And we're working to identify additional markets in which to introduce the concept. Cinemark also operates a number of VIP auditoriums throughout the U.S. and Latin America, with luxury seats and expanded concession menus that offer adult beverages. We constantly analyze our theaters to determine how to maximize the potential and utilization of our circuit. In addition to the concepts discussed, we're also converting certain theaters to reclining seats, where we feel we have -- we feel the opportunity is accretive. We, along with the majority of the industry, have some older theaters that are no longer operating at their maximum capacity. A reseat has the potential to revamp the theater and drive attendance. We currently have up to 10 theaters with recliner conversion scheduled for the remainder of this year. Our XD screens remain the industry leader amongst the private-label, premium large-format screens, with 108 XD screens domestically and 54 internationally, for a total of 162 worldwide. We also have approximately 25 additional XD screens to be installed during the remainder of the year. The strength and demand of our XD screens continues, and the worldwide premium percentage of our box office was 30.4% during the second quarter. This represents an increase from the prior year, due to our continued XD screen expansion and the flexibility to show the biggest film of the week in either 2D or 3D. For additional color, our worldwide XD screens generated 6.4% of our total box office on nearly 2.9% of our screens. Cinemark's food and beverage department continues to add product to our concession stand for healthy-conscious patrons. And we are pleased to be the first partner with the Honest Company to nationally launch organic, all-natural beverages as part of our concession offering. I've been in this industry for over 40 years, and have never been enthusiastic about the business. The advancements we've made in technology, with the digitalization of projectors, our proprietary premium large-format XD screen, the DCDC satellite distribution network, along with the joint venture for Fathom alternative entertainment, have all been integral to the evolution of our industry. Technology also enables us to directly connect with our patrons via 4.8 million app downloads to date, and more than 3 million e-mails sent each week. The technology progression creates a dynamic environment, and I'm eager to see these strategic moves come to fruition. Robert will now provide more details on the company's financial performance of the second quarter, as well as an overview of our capital structure, and information on our organic expansion plans.