Jenny Zhang
Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Thank you, Qi Ji. Hello everyone, I'm pleased to report our operational and financial results for Q1. As shown on Page 8, we opened six net new leased hotels, 157 net new manachised hotels and 19 new franchised hotels. At the end of Q1, we had 2,177 hotels in operation. Along which 28% were leased hotels, 70% were manachised hotels and the remaining were franchised hotels. We had a pipeline of 686 hotels. With 22 leased hotels and 664 manachised and franchised hotels. As shown on Page 9, in Q1 our group blended occupancy was 82%, a decrease of 4 percentage points year-over-year. The decrease was mainly due to soft macro economy and a diluted impact from newly opened hotels in lower tier cities. The blended ADR was RMB168. A decrease of 1.6% year-over-year as a result of soft macro economy and the seasonal promotions. In summary, in Q1 the blended the RevPAR was RMB137, a decrease of 6.2% year-over-year. Page 10, provides a detailed review of the growth trend of our same hotel restaurant. For hotels in operations for at least 18 months. In Q1, our same hotel RevPAR decreased by 4.6% with 0.7% decrease in ADR and 3.5 percentage points decrease in occupancy. The decreases in same hotel ADR and the same hotel occupancy were driven by the soft Chinese macro economy and the seasonal promotions. The mid-scale hotels represented 5% same hotel RevPAR improvement thanks to the successful brand positioning. And also go out to update the progress on the proposed transaction between the ACCOR and HUAZHU. In March, as shown on Page 11 we received antitrust approval for the proposed transaction. The interim management period has started since April 1. Now let's move to the financial results. In Q1 as shown on Page 12, our net revenues increased 17.1% year-over-year exceeding the high end of quarterly guidance. Leased hotel revenue grew 10% and the manachised and the franchised hotels revenue grew 63% year-over-year. Our manachised and the franchised hotels revenue reached 17.7% of our total revenues in Q1 of 2015 compared with 12.6% in Q1 of 2014. Our strategy of Hua An Fund [ph] into a brand and management company has been the underlying driver of this substantial growth in manachised and the franchised business. Thanks to the growth of manachised and franchised business and our strategic move from expansion by these to expansion by manachised. This quarter, we achieved operational margin improvement in a soft market situation. As shown on Page 13, the adjusted quarterly operating margin came in at 0.1%, a increase of 1.4 percentage points from Q1 last year. The adjusted hotel operating cost as percentage of net revenues decreased by 1.2 percentage points year-over-year mainly attributable to the increase proportions of revenues from manachised and franchised hotels and our cost control efforts. Our pre-opening expenses as percentage of net revenues saw 1.7 percentage point decrease due to our in lodged revenue base and fewer leasing hotels in the pipelines. The adjusted SG&A expenses and other operating income as percentage of net revenues increased by 1.5 percentage points. There are two primary drivers. First, 0.8 percentage point increase in the selling and marketing ratio due to the increase online marketing expenses to attract more new customers. The increase also reflects a structural change led by increase of manachised and the franchised business under which the revenue generated in each hotel is significantly less than revenue recognized under a leased hotel. Second 0.6 percentage point decrease in other operating income ratio mainly due to the decrease in government grant this year. Last but not least, move on to cash position as shown on Page 14. Our cash balance closed at RMB663 million at March 31, 2015. We had a total credit facility of RMB898 million and no debt. For the first quarter of 2015, our operating cash flow reached RMB185 million, a 42% increase from a year ago. The significant growth was mainly due to our hotel network expansion with manachised model. Our investing cash flow totalled RMB331 million, a 9% decrease from a year ago. Mainly due to our reduced and most elective investment in lease hotels. We remain confident that we will generate significant positive free cash flow this year. With the strong cash flow status and our confidence in our company value in April, we announced a share repurchase program of up to $40 million. We believe that the share repurchase program is consistently with the goal of increasing shareholder value. Finally as shown on Page 15 for revenue guidance we expect that net revenues for Q2 will grow 13% to 16% year-over-year. With that, let's open the floor for questions.