Jose Montero
Analyst · Raymond James
Thank you, Pedro. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. First and foremost, as always, let me begin by joining Pedro in congratulating the entire team for another solid year. During 2014, we added 8 new 737-800s to our fleet, grew capacity by almost 10%, improved x fuel unit cost by 4%, and announced our first-ever share repurchase program, which, combined with our quarterly dividend, continues to return great value to our shareholders. Nonetheless, our 2014 profitability was affected by nearly 3% lower revenues year-over-year in the second half of the year. As we have previously mentioned, the weaker revenues were mainly due to the capacity reductions performed in Venezuela around midyear, the shift of our sales away from the Venezuelan bolivar as well as the slowdown in other South American markets. Reported net earnings for full year 2014 came in at $371.4 million, which translates to earnings per share of $8.37 and an operating margin of 19.8%. However, excluding special items, which include a fuel hedge mark-to-market loss of $116.6 million, underlying net income came in at $494.6 million or adjusted earnings per share -- up 6% when compared to an adjusted EPS of $10.53 last year. Looking at the fourth quarter, we grew capacity by 10% year-over-year, as we continued strengthening our Hub of the Americas in Panama City. Revenue passenger miles increased 8% year-over-year as we continue to see weaker demand for air travel during the quarter, particularly in some South American markets, which resulted in a consolidated load factor of 75.1%, a 1.4 percentage point decrease over Q4 2013. Furthermore, passenger yields came in 6% lower year-over-year, adjusted for length of haul, which combined with the lower load factor resulted in a revenue decrease of almost 4% to $671 million. On the expense side, fourth quarter operating expenses excluding special items increased 2.8% year-over-year and cost per available seat mile decreased almost 7% to $0.103 from $0.11 in Q4 2013. The lower CASM was driven by 12% reduction in fuel unit cost due to 10% lower jet fuel prices and a 4% improvement in x fuel CASM, which came in at $0.067 mainly from lower sales-related expenses. In fact, fuel prices at this time continue to be much lower than last year and expectations are that they will remain lower than in previous years. This could create additional pressure in yields given that several economies in the region are dependent on commodities and that some regional currencies have devalued during the past several months, making our fares more expensive in local currency terms. However, we expect the benefit of lower fuel prices to be net positive for us. As we mentioned during our last earnings call, on an annualized basis, we expect our expenses to vary by $5 million per each dollar change in the price of crude. In terms of operating earnings, [indiscernible] operating earnings for the fourth quarter came in at $118.8 million, translating to an operating margin of 17.7%, down year-over-year versus an adjusted operating margin of 23.1% in the fourth quarter of 2013. Looking at nonoperating income and expense. The fourth quarter generated a net nonoperating expense of $81.9 million, mainly consisting of an $89.1 million fuel hedge mark-to-market loss and a net interest expense of $1.6 million. With respect to fuel hedges, our hedge positions remained unchanged since the end of the third quarter. So December 31, we had in place the following coverage: for 2015, we had coverage for 27% of our projected volume, almost entirely in jet fuel swaps at an average equivalent price of $2.74 per gallon. And for 2016, we had hedged 16% of our projected volume with jet fuel swaps and an average of $2.70 per gallon. Turning to the balance sheet. We continued to strengthen the position of the company with assets reached $4.1 billion at the end of the year, for an increase of almost $120 million versus the end of 2013. Owner's equity totaled approximately $2.1 billion, debt plus capitalized leases totaled $1.9 billion and our adjusted net-debt-to-EBITDA ratio, excluding cash in Venezuela, came in at 1.6x, the lowest in our peer group and one of the best in the industry. In terms of debt, we've closed the year with approximately $1.1 billion in bank debt, about 57% of which is fixed rate, with a blended rate including fixed and floating rate debt of approximately 2.6%. Looking at cash, short and long-term investments, we closed the year with almost $1.2 billion, which represents approximately 43% of last 12 months' revenues. However, as of the end of the year, $485 million of our cash was in Venezuela pending repatriation. Excluding all the cash in Venezuela, the company has $675 million, which represents roughly 25% of last 12 months' revenues. As to Venezuela, the impact of the recent announcement by the government regarding the exchange rate and mechanism for repatriation is unclear at this point. It is important to emphasize that our bolivar exposure has decreased in the last 6 months as we have been successful in shifting sales in the market to points outside of Venezuela and based primarily to the U.S. dollar. And as of February 4, 2015, our bolivar balance pending repatriation in Venezuela stood at $478 million, down from $528 million back in June of 2014. In accordance with our dividend policy, our Board of Directors approved our 2015 dividend equivalent to 40% of our reported net income for 2014. As a result, on March 16, we'll pay our first-quarter dividend in the amount of $0.84 per share to shareholders of record as of February 27. In addition, we already initiated and continue to execute the $250 million share buyback program approved by our board back in November of 2014. In terms of fleet for 2015, our original plan published in August 2014 was to receive 8 Boeing 737-800s, bring 3 additional 737-800s via operational leases and return 5 aircraft with expiring leases for a net growth of 6 aircraft. Nevertheless, last quarter we announced we would be making adjustments to our fleet plan, given our reduced capacity growth in 2015. In that regard, we're currently in discussions and evaluating several options in order to bring the net fleet growth down to between 0 and 2 aircraft for lease [ph]. So going back to our results and to recap. Demand for air travel in our region continues to expand, albeit at a slower pace. Yields will continue to be affected due to the full year effect of the capacity reductions in Venezuela and the macroeconomic environment in Latin America. We continue looking for efficiencies in order to reduce our unit costs and are receiving significant benefit for lower fuel prices. We have one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry and we continue to return incremental value to our shareholders. In terms of our guidance for 2015, as in past years, last November, we provided preliminary guidance for the year ahead. Given significantly lower fuel prices, the economic outlook in the region and demand trends, we're updating our 2015 full year guidance as follows: we're maintaining our capacity growth in terms of ASMs at plus or minus 7%, which is consistent with the fleet plan adjustments I mentioned earlier. Load factor is expected to come in at plus or minus 76%. We're lowering our RASM guidance to plus or minus $0.118 based on lower yields due to a weaker regional economic outlook and the effects of currency devaluations. We are maintaining our CASM x fuel guidance at plus or minus $0.066. We're lowering our fuel price assumption for the year at an effective price per gallon, including into plane and net of hedges to approximately $2.45. And with respect to our operating margin, we are raising our guidance to the 16% to 18% range. Thank you and with that, I'll turn it over to Pedro for his closing remarks.