EDITED TRANSCRIPT SIX.N - Q1 2021 Six Flags Entertainment Corp Earnings Call
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REFINITIV STREETEVENTS EDITED TRANSCRIPT SIX.N - Q1 2021 Six Flags Entertainment Corp Earnings Call EVENT DATE/TIME: APRIL 28, 2021 / 12:00PM GMT OVERVIEW: SIX reported 1Q21 results with revenues of $82m and GAAP loss of $1.12 per share. Co. is not providing annual guidance at this time. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us ©2021 Refinitiv. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Refinitiv content, including by framing or similar means, is prohibited without the prior written consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. APRIL 28, 2021 / 12:00PM, SIX.N - Q1 2021 Six Flags Entertainment Corp Earnings Call CORPORATE PARTICIPANTS Michael Spanos Six Flags Entertainment Corporation - President, CEO & Director Sandeep Reddy Six Flags Entertainment Corporation - Executive VP & CFO Stephen R. Purtell Six Flags Entertainment Corporation - SVP of IR, Treasury & Strategy CONFERENCE CALL PARTICIPANTS Alexander Rocco Maroccia Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. KG, Research Division - Analyst Brett Richard Andress KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., Research Division - Associate VP David Brian Katz Jefferies LLC, Research Division - MD and Senior Equity Analyst of Gaming, Lodging & Leisure Eric Christian Wold B. Riley Securities, Inc., Research Division - Senior Equity Analyst Ian Alton Zaffino Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division - MD & Senior Analyst James Lloyd Hardiman Wedbush Securities Inc., Research Division - MD of Equity Research Steven Moyer Wieczynski Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated, Research Division - MD of Equity Research and Gaming & Leisure Research Analyst Tyler Anton Batory Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, Research Division - Director of Travel, Lodging and Leisure PRESENTATION Operator Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Six Flags Q1 2021 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Catherine, and I will be your operator for today's call. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Steve Purtell, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Stephen R. Purtell - Six Flags Entertainment Corporation - SVP of IR, Treasury & Strategy Good morning and welcome to our first quarter 2021 call. With me are Mike Spanos, President and CEO of Six Flags; and Sandeep Reddy, our Chief Financial Officer. We will begin the call with prepared comments and then open the call to your questions. Our comments will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in such statements, and the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise these statements. In addition, on the call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures. Investors can find both a detailed discussion of business risks and reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures in the company's annual reports, quarterly reports and other forms filed or furnished with the SEC. At this time, I will turn the call over to Mike. Michael Spanos - Six Flags Entertainment Corporation - President, CEO & Director Good morning. Thank you for joining our call. We have divided our call into 3 parts. First, I will provide an overview of our recent operating performance and the strong demand trends we are seeing. Second, Sandeep will go into more detail about our financial results and give an update on the progress of our transformation plan. Finally, I will return to discuss why we are excited about our future over both the short and long term. 2 REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us ©2021 Refinitiv. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Refinitiv content, including by framing or similar means, is prohibited without the prior written consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. APRIL 28, 2021 / 12:00PM, SIX.N - Q1 2021 Six Flags Entertainment Corp Earnings Call I am pleased to be able to report that the 2021 season is off to a strong start despite the significant challenges due to the pandemic. Last year, we were the first company able to safely reopen a theme park in North America. This year, we had the first theme parks open in California, and in many cases, we have opened our parks earlier than in 2019. We have either opened or announced firm opening dates for all of our theme parks with the exception of Montreal. This is due to the creativity and adaptability of our Six Flags team who worked hard to establish the highest standards of cleanliness and safety protocols. I'm also pleased to report that our guests are excited to return to Six Flags, and we are seeing strong demand across all of our markets. I've spent the last couple of months visiting many of our parks, which has allowed me to connect with our great team members, understand reopening challenges, reinforce our priorities and examine the effectiveness of our operations. My time with our outstanding park leaders only reaffirms that we have a highly capable team, a healthy industry and a resilient business. Our full-time team members appreciate that we stood by them throughout the crisis and did not conduct furloughs, and they are excited to welcome back our guests to our parks. They are leading admirably in a complex operating environment. The signs of strong consumer demand for our parks are very clear. Through this past weekend, our year-to-date attendance trends have accelerated at our open parks, increasing to 79% of 2019 levels compared to 51% in the fourth quarter of 2020. We are seeing strong guest spending per capita, and our Active Pass Base has surpassed prior year first quarter levels, placing us solidly on track towards recovery. We have centered decision-making squarely on our guests, extending privileges for season passes and memberships, while also offering high tiered benefits to our members who continue their payments, and they have rewarded us with their loyalty. Experiencing such robust demand at this time of year does present operational challenges, however. We have encountered difficulty fully staffing our parks upon reopening with a shortage of labor availability due to many factors, including COVID schedules; immigration restrictions, limiting the number of international temporary worker visas; and extended unemployment benefits, keeping people at home. We expect these labor challenges to start to abate as we enter the core of our operating season. At the same time, the overall operating environment remains challenging as we balance the requirements of delivering a safe experience during the pandemic while still delighting our guests. Our safety protocols have reduced ride throughput, which can result in longer than normal lines and less rides per guest. We are continuing to require masks in our parks, but we'll constantly assess this policy and partnership with our industry, the CDC and local health officials. We are also working with local health officials on eliminating constraints around park capacity and ride seating as more Americans receive their vaccinations. Our outdoor venues have a tremendous amount of open space. Therefore, our parks are naturally conducive to social distancing, and all states are supportive of working with us to safely increase attendance levels. Our recent results in guest surveys indicate that there is extraordinary demand for outdoor entertainment options close to home. And we believe that this widespread desire will help drive attendance in the coming quarters. We see this as a golden opportunity to welcome new guests and delight our loyal fans. So we are focused on opening all of our parks and delivering a great, safe guest experience. So while it is still early in the season, we are pleased by recent trends and are optimistic about both the short and long-term prospects of our business. In the first quarter, we also continue to make progress on our transformation plan, which focuses on strengthening our core business, and we are on track to achieve our previously issued financial targets. I will now turn the call over to Sandeep, who will provide details about the quarter as well as our transformation plan and results. Sandeep? Sandeep Reddy - Six Flags Entertainment Corporation - Executive VP & CFO Thank you, Mike, and good morning to everyone. I want to start by stressing that results for the first quarter are not comparable to prior year because we closed all of our parks in mid-March last year, prior to the spring break for most of our parks. For that reason, I will provide comparisons to 2019. 3 REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us ©2021 Refinitiv. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Refinitiv content, including by framing or similar means, is prohibited without the prior written consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. APRIL 28, 2021 / 12:00PM, SIX.N - Q1 2021 Six Flags Entertainment Corp Earnings Call Total attendance for the quarter was 1.3 million guests, a 38% decline from first quarter 2019. Revenue in the quarter was down $46 million, or 36%, to $82 million. Because of our fiscal quarter change, our first fiscal quarter 2021 ended on April 4 instead of March 31, as it did in 2019. As a result, our 2021 results include 4 calendar days in April, when many of our parks operated, during which we had 293,000 of attendance. And this was inclusive of the Easter Holiday weekend. In 2019, the Easter Holiday, which affects the timing of spring break in many of our markets, occurred in the second quarter. So far, through this past weekend, year-to-date attendance at open parks is trending at 79% versus 2019. This trend includes the spring break period in both years and is a better representation of our run rate so far this year at our open parks.