Douglas Neis
Analyst · Brian Rafn with Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Your line is now open
Well, thanks very much. And welcome everybody to our fiscal 2018 third quarter conference call. As usual, you know, I need to begin by stating that we planning making a number of forward-looking statements on our call today. Our forward-looking statements could include, but not be limited to statements about our future revenues and earnings expectations, our future RevPAR occupancy rates and room rate expectations for our hotels and resorts division, our expectations about the quality, quantity and audience appeal of film products expected to be made available to us in the future, our expectations about the future trends in the business group and leisure travel industry and in our markets. Expectations and plans regarding growth and numbers and type of our properties and facilities, our expectations regarding various non-operating line items on our earnings statement and our expectations regarding future capital expenditures. Of course, our actual results could differ materially from those projected or suggested by our forward-looking statements. Factors, risks and uncertainties, which could impact our ability to achieve our expectations, are included in the Risk Factors section of our 10-K and 10-Q filings, which could be obtained from the SEC or the company. We'll also post all Regulation G disclosures when applicable on our website at www.marcuscorp.com. So with that, let's talk about our record fiscal 2018 third quarter and first three quarters. It's great to lead with our hotels and resorts division this quarter as the third quarter is typically one of our strongest periods and they not only didn't disappoint, they posted some great record results this quarter. Our theater division reported record revenues once again, and had yet another very profitable quarter. Thus operating income was impacted by several one-time costs and a film mix that contributed to higher film costs this quarter. I'm going to take you through some of the details behind the numbers both on a consolidated basis for each division, and then turn the call over to Greg for his comments. Now, before I dig in these divisions, I'll spend just a couple minutes on a couple of the line items below operating income. You'll note that our investment income was up slightly this quarter, and our interest expense was slightly lower than last year due to reduced overall borrowings, despite a higher average interest rate during the quarter. But other than that, the rest of the line items below operating income really were virtually unchanged from last year. Of course the most significant change in our line items below operating income was income taxes due to the new tax law. Our first three quarters effective income tax rate adjusted for losses from non-controlling interest was 21.5%, significantly lower than last year's 37.8% for the first three quarters of the year. As you know, we've indicated that we generally expect our effective income tax rate to be in the 25% to 26% range, and that's still remains our expected rate over the long-term. Having said that, during our fiscal 2018 third quarter, in addition to our new lower base rate, we also benefited from several onetime items related to various deductions that also favorably impacted our report results. Now, shifting gears away from the earnings statement for a moment, our total capital expenditures during the first three quarters of fiscal 2018 totaled approximately $45 million compared to approximately $87 million last year. Approximately $37 million of our total spend during the first three quarter was incurred in our theater division, the majority of which related to our continuing DreamLounger seating projects, premium large format conversions and new food and beverage outlets that we've been discussing for some time now. The $8 million of capital expenditures on our hotels and resorts division were primarily related to various normal maintenance projects. Clearly, our capital spending is declining from our very high numbers from last year, as the number of theater projects have lessened. Depending upon the timing of payments on several projects at year end, we would currently estimate that our total capital expenditures for fiscal 2018 will likely end up in the $55 million to $65 million range. The actual timing of various projects currently underway of proposal will certainly impact our final capital expenditure number as well any currently identified projects or acquisitions that could develop during the final couple months of our fiscal year. Now, I would like to provide some financial comments on our operations for the third quarter and first three quarters. And as part of these comments, I'm going to remind you of some of the accounting changes in our fiscal 2018 financial statements that are important to note as you compare some of the line items for last year. It’s important to point out, however, that while some of the changes resulted in noticeable variation in specific line items, none of these changes had a material impact on overall operating income or net earnings. Let’s begin with theaters. Our reported box office revenues increased 4.3%, and our concession revenues increased 6.6% during the third quarter and have increased 11% and 13%, respectively year-to-date. The fiscal '18 year-to-date numbers did include the two new theaters that we opened during the second and third quarters last year as well as an accounting change that negatively impacted box office revenues and favorably impacted concession revenues. Now just as a quick reminder, as a result of the adopting the new accounting standard related to revenue recognition during the first quarter, our accounting for our loyalty programs and our Internet fee revenues has changed. In accordance to the new guidance, the portion of the theaters admissions and concession revenues attributable to loyalty points earned by customers is now deferred as a reduction of these revenues until rewarded redemption. Prior to adopting this new standard, we reported independent -- or we reported estimated incremental cost of redeeming loyalty points at the time they were earned in advertising and marketing expense. As a result, during the third quarter and first three quarters of fiscal 2018, while the net effect to these changes in accounting, it was very close to net zero on our operating income. As I mentioned, it did result in a decrease in theater admission revenues, an increase in theater concession revenues and a decrease in advertising and marketing expense. Now what does become important is when we attempted to compare our theater results for the rest of the industry. The data we received from Rentrak, a national box office reporting service for the theater industry, represents gross box office receipts reported to it. And so by definition, it would be before any such deferral of revenues for accounting purposes that we or any other exhibitors to that matter might record. Thus, we need to add back the impact of this revenue recognition accounting change to our reported admission revenues in order to get numbers that we can then compare to the rest of the industry. So according to data received from Rentrak, and compiled by us to evaluate our fiscal 2018 third and first three quarters, United States' box office receipts increased 6.9% during the fiscal 2018 third quarter. After adjusting for the deferred revenue from our loyalty program, our third quarter box office receipts increased 5.5% compared to last year. As a result, we believe our box office receipts during the third quarter of fiscal 2018 slightly underperformed the industry in this quarter. Greg is going to dissect the third quarter performance versus the industry in even greater detail during his prepared remarks as we do believe that there were some unusual circumstances that contributed to this rare overall underperformance for the quarter. Performing at same calculation for our fiscal 2018 first three quarters, however, shows that our fiscal 2018 continues to be another strong year of outperformance for us. As we find that the U.S. box office receipts have increased 10% during our comparable 39 weeks, meaning that our increase in box office receipts of 12.5%, after we adjust for that accounting change outperformed the industry by 2.5 percentage points, year-to-date. We still outperform the industry average overall during 16 of the last 19 quarters. Now the second quarter theater increase in our box office revenues was attributable to an approximately 3% increase in attendance at our theaters, and an increase in our average admission price of 1.3%. For the first three quarters of fiscal 2018, theater attendance at comparable theaters has increased approximately 6%, and our average ticket price has increased 4.6% compared to last year. A modest price increase taken in October last year and an increased number of premium large format or PLF screens with the corresponding price premium contributed to our increased average price during the fiscal 2018 period. Conversely, we do believe that a change in film product mix had an unfavorable impact on our average ticket price during the third quarter of fiscal 2018 compared to that third quarter last year. Our top films during the third quarter of fiscal 2018 was the PG-rated family movie Incredibles 2, which results in a higher percentage of lower price children tickets sold. Compared to our top film during the third quarter of fiscal 2017, which was the R-rated film It, which resulted in a higher percentage of higher price adult tickets sold. So we had a clear mix change that impacted that average ticket price this quarter. We're pleased to report an increase in our average concession in food and beverage revenues per person of 3.5% for the third quarter and 6.3% year-to-date. Our investments in nontraditional food and beverage outlets continue to contribute to higher per capita spending. But having said that, we believe that the same change and film product mix that I just discussed during the third quarter likely reduce the growth of our overall average concession sales per person during the fiscal 2018 period. As those family oriented films such as the top film during third quarter described 10s and not contributed the sales of nontraditional food and beverage items as much as adult oriented films. I'd also point out that theater other revenues increased by approximately $600,000 during the third quarter, an increase by approximately $4.3 million during the first three quarters of the year. And while a portion of these increases are due to increased pre-show ancillary revenues, a larger portion of the increase was related to the accounting change for internet ticket fees that I referenced earlier. Prior to the new revenue recognition standard, we recorded these fees net of third-party commissions or service fees, and then, under the new guidance that we adopted in the first quarter, we're recognizing ticket fee revenues based on the gross transaction price. This change had the effect of increasing other revenues and increasing other operating expenses by an equal amount. They had no impact and operating income or net earnings. That's enough for the numbers for now. I'll let Greg talk to some of the items that impacted operating income this quarter for the theaters. Shifting over to our hotels and resorts division, excluding cost reimbursements, our overall hotel revenues were up 4.3% from the third quarter, and are now up 2.7% for the first three quarters of fiscal 2018. Thanks to increases across the board, in room revenues, food and beverage revenues, and other revenues. The largest portion of the increase in food and beverage revenues related, particularly on the year-to-date numbers, is due to the opening of the new SafeHouse in Chicago, in March last year, and the largest portion of the increase in other revenues is due to an increase in management fees. Room revenues were up due to an increase in our revenue per available room, or RevPAR, of 5.2% during the third quarter, and now we're up 1.3% year-to-date compared to last year's periods. As we've noted in the past our RevPAR performance did vary by market and type of property. Breaking out on our numbers more specifically, our fiscal 2018 third quarter RevPAR increase was due to an overall occupancy rate increase of 2.1 percentage points, and a 2.5% increase in our average daily rate for ADR. Our fiscal 2018 first three quarters, RevPAR increase was entirely due to a 1.2% increase in ADR, as our overall occupancy rate is even with last year. All eight of our company-owned properties reported increased RevPAR during the fiscal 2018 third quarter compared to the third quarter of 2017. And four of our eight company-owned properties reported increased RevPAR for the first three quarters of the year compared to last year. Our quarterly data received from Smith Travel Research and compiled by us in order to compare our third quarter and first three quarter results, comparable upper upscale hotels throughout the United States experienced an increase in RevPAR of 2.1% during our fiscal 2018 third quarter. Meaning that we outperformed the industry during the fiscal 2018 third quarter. Finally, I'm pleased to tell you that as a result of the increase in management fees and improved performance at our own hotels, hotel division operating income and operating margin increased significantly during the third quarter and first three quarters of fiscal 2018 compared to the same period last year. With that, I'll turn the call over to Greg.