Sabre Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
February 15, 2024

There are 9 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Sabre's 4th Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Livia, and I'll be your operator. As a reminder, please note today's call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to the Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer, Brian Evans. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker 1

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Sabre's 4th quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. This morning, we issued an earnings press release, which is available on our website at investors. Sabre.com. A slide presentation, which accompanies today's prepared remarks, is also available during this call on the Sabre Investor Relations webpage.

Speaker 1

A replay of today's call will be available on our website later this morning. We advise you that our comments contain forward looking statements that represent our beliefs or expectations about future events, arrangements, our financial guidance and targets, expected revenue, adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow, interest, Capital Expenditures, Margins and Liquidity among others. All forward looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made on today's conference call. More information on these risks and uncertainties is contained in our earnings release issued this morning and our SEC filings, including our Form 10 ks for the year ended December 31, 2023. Throughout today's call, we will also be presenting certain non GAAP financial measures.

Speaker 1

References during today's call to adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted EPS and free cash flow have been adjusted to exclude certain items. The most directly comparable GAAP measures and reconciliations for non GAAP measures are available in the earnings release and on other documents posted on our website at investors. Sabre.com. Participating with me are Curt Eckert, President and CEO Mike Randolphi, Chief Financial Officer Scott Wilson, Executive Vice President and President of Hospitality Solutions will be available for Q and A after the prepared remarks. With that, I'll turn the call over to Kirk.

Speaker 1

Kirk?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Brian. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased this morning to discuss the many accomplishments of the Sabre team. Earlier today, we reported our 4th and full year 2023 results that included strong revenue growth, significant margin expansion and substantial increases in both adjusted EBITDA and operating cash flow, which allowed us to achieve our free cash flow objective for the year. In addition to reviewing our financial performance, I will also spend time highlighting the recent achievements in our technology transformation, our many commercial wins and our product innovations that help position our portfolio for the future of travel, while helping to deliver sustainable growth.

Speaker 2

Now let me walk through the agenda for today's call. On Slide 4, you see an overview of the topics that Mike and I will cover. First, I will review our business highlights and accomplishments from 2023. Next, I'll provide a brief overview of how the industry landscape is evolving. Finally, before handing it over to Mike, I'll close with a review of our growth strategies and how we believe they position Sabre for success.

Speaker 2

Mike will then take you through the financial results for the Q4 and full year 2023 and provide an update to our 2024 guidance 2025 targets. Now let's turn to Slide 5. 2023 was a year of strong execution at Sabre. Our team members around the world delivered the commercial, operational and product development success that drove the strong financial results depicted on this slide. We generated 15% top line growth in 2023, improved our efficiency and effectively contained costs.

Speaker 2

These achievements combined to drive significant margin expansion and growth in adjusted EBITDA with a $272,000,000 year on year improvement. Importantly, our team achieved positive free cash flow excluding restructuring for full year 2023, which was one of our primary financial priorities. These strong financial results supported our innovation and product development initiatives that are essential to achieving Sabre's long term strategic priorities. Turning to Slide 6. As a reminder, we have 4 key strategic priorities to drive our long term direction and form the foundation of our resource allocation and decision making.

Speaker 2

As I refer to each priority, I will briefly touch on some of the 2023 accomplishments listed on this slide. 1st, generating positive free cash flow and delevering the balance sheet remain important financial objectives. As mentioned, the significant improvement in our adjusted EBITDA in 2023, in addition to our working capital initiatives, help deliver positive free cash flow for the year after excluding restructuring. On our second priority, Achieving sustainable long term growth, I am pleased to announce that we continue to grow our share of GDS Industry bookings, which I will touch on in a moment. We are encouraged by the momentum we are seeing with our carrier and agency customers and believe we will achieve further GDS market share growth ahead.

Speaker 2

Turning to Hospitality Solutions, Our team delivered strong financial results in 2023 that exceeded our initial forecast for growth and profitability. We expect this momentum to continue in 2024, including from our Hyatt Enterprise implementation and a number of additional business wins. On our 3rd strategic priority, which is to drive innovation and enhance our value proposition, We've reached an important next step in our strategic partnership with Google. As I mentioned last quarter, Sabre engineering teams are now developing products and solutions that harness Google's cutting edge AI capabilities, which translated into several successful product launches earlier in 2023. For example, UpgradeIQ, which optimizes airlines' premium cabin inventory.

Speaker 2

We believe this important partnership is essential to providing our customers with intelligent retail solutions and modern distribution technology. As another area of excellence in execution by our team, Our technology transformation to the cloud continues on schedule and we expect to achieve our stated goals by the end of 2024. In addition to the cost and operating efficiency gains we are already seeing, our migration to the cloud provides a more powerful launchpad on which to create, develop and distribute future product innovations. Before I move on, I want to take a moment to say thank you to our team members around the world for delivering these results, for consistently providing superior service to our customers and for providing the exciting new technology that makes me so proud to be a member of the Sabre team. It is this collective commitment to continuous innovation and service to our customers that personifies our culture.

Speaker 2

Turning to Slide 7. As you can see, Travel Solutions delivered impressive financial results in 2023 across many key metrics. Strong GDS bookings growth and continued improvement in the average fee from a richer booking mix helped drive a year on year double digit increase in Travel Solutions revenue and gross income. Sabre achieved steady GDS industry share growth through 2023 as well as 16% overall volume growth in GDS bookings and 27 growth in distribution lodging, ground and sea bookings, highlighting our growth opportunity in hotel distribution. In IT Solutions, our passengers boarded increased by 8% versus 2022.

Speaker 2

Turning to Slide 8. As we highlighted throughout the past year, Sabre is growing its share of GDS Industry bookings. As you can see, our share in Q4 'twenty three again expanded on a year on year basis for the 4th consecutive quarter. In addition, we achieved GDS industry share of 33 point 8% for full year 2023, a 1.2 percentage point improvement versus 2022. In the Q4, our share of the GDS Industry bookings was up year on year, but declined slightly sequentially from the 3rd quarter.

Speaker 2

This is due largely to the temporary slowdown in corporate travel and natural seasonal decline in corporate bookings during the quarter As corporate travel comprises a larger proportion of our client footprint and bookings relative to the GDS industry. Importantly, as Mike will explain, we have seen a rebound in corporate bookings and resulted in strong GDS market share performance trends as we start 2024. We are pleased with these results and believe our compelling distribution offering as well as signed but not yet implemented business and our robust pipeline of distribution deals position us well for continued team delivered excellent results in 2023. Total revenue was up 19% versus 2022 on a significant jump in both CRS transactions and rate per transaction. Adjusted EBITDA reported for the year was well above our initial expectation for breakeven results and represented more than a $40,000,000 improvement versus 2022.

Speaker 2

Additionally, the SaaS operating model inherent in our Hospitality Solutions business generates high recurring revenue. Consistent double digit revenue growth, 79% recurring revenue and a strong margin expansion trend provide markers to the value trajectory of this business. Please turn to Slide 10. Our technology transformation remains on course to achieve our cost savings targets and technology goals by year end 2024. As you can see, the efficiency with which Sabre conducts its business today is substantially improved.

Speaker 2

In the Q4, our unit cost of compute declined by nearly 20% from the year ago period and was down 50% versus 2019. In addition, our focus on investing in offer and order capabilities is a pivotal aspect of our future product portfolio. We are actively developing our offer and order platform within the Google Cloud environment and we recently completed a successful pilot program with a major airline partner. This successful program validated our ability to efficiently integrate shopping and ordering functionalities within the platform. Overall, we believe our technology transformation and commitment to innovation will continue to help us deliver modern technology solutions and execute on our strategic priorities.

Speaker 2

Please turn to Slide 11. In addition to the significant customer announcements we highlighted Earlier in 2023, I am pleased to review a number of more recent business wins. The Highlight Sabre is consistently being selected as a partner of choice by leading global travel suppliers seeking modern distribution and retailing technology. Continue to see momentum in Hospitality Solutions. Our implementation work with Hyatt to provide them with our SynXis central reservation system technology continues and we are on track for initial go live in the first half of twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2

We also recently announced a new agreement with Frasier's Hospitality, a luxury management company in Asia Pacific, which selected our retail studio software to provide its guests with greater personalization. Earlier this week, we announced a key partnership with Riyadh Air, the new national airline of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to utilize our network planning and optimization solutions, where the airline will be using our advanced data analytic and intelligent decision making capabilities to improve data efficiency and help optimize flight times for incremental revenue gains. In distribution, we continue to expand our relationship with Air India. And as of January 1, 2024, Travel agencies in India now have access to that carrier's expansive domestic content through Sabre. We were also pleased to sign a new multi year agreement with International Airlines Group or IAG that will allow Sabre connected buyers and agencies to sell Edifact and NDC content.

Speaker 2

Furthermore, we are accelerating our investment to offer more robust NDC functionality. Our recent agreements for NDC content with Hawaiian, Malaysian Airlines and LOT Polish Airlines highlight that customers seeking modern distribution technologies consistently choose Sabre to meet their evolving needs. We also had a number of meaningful agency wins including one of the leading providers of online travel, Priceline. In summary, our team achieved a number of commercial wins during the Q4 and we are confident that our modern technology solutions and pipeline of business will help us execute on our strategic priorities. Now on to Slide 12.

Speaker 2

I will take a few moments now to look forward and discuss the latest trends in global air travel, how the travel marketplace is evolving and how we believe we are positioned for success in this environment. This chart depicts the long run upward forecasted trend in air travel demand and the expected resilience of global air passenger growth. As you can see in the chart, industry forecasts suggest healthy growth in passenger traffic will continue and approach nearly 7% per year over the next 5 years. Looking forward, we see a number of reasons to be optimistic that broader industry volume growth will continue such as moderating airfares, solid capacity growth driven by robust international demand and less acute industry supply constraints. Sabre and the GDS industry experienced significant growth years as global travel recovered.

Speaker 2

However, overall air travel rebounded at a faster pace over this period. We believe the GDS industry has recovered at a slower rate for several reasons. First, the GDS industry has which is more complex in nature. As discussed in the marketplace, global corporate travel has recovered to about 75% on a unit basis of its pre COVID levels. Note that with air and hotel yields much higher in 2023 And pre COVID, the dollar recovery often cited by suppliers is higher than this unit percentage.

Speaker 2

And as I mentioned earlier, a greater proportion of our business' corporate or TMC business as compared to our competitors. While there may be a structural element to this, in that corporate travel today is smaller than it was historically, we believe this is an opportunity for Sabre as we are well positioned to grow volumes and share as corporate travel grows prospectively. 2nd, Longer haul international capacity has generally returned more slowly than shorter haul and domestic capacity. Given that shorter haul and domestic This has had the effect of reducing the proportion of overall bookings going through the GDS channel as compared to airline direct. We believe that this is not a long term issue for the industry.

Speaker 2

3rd, NTC volumes today comprise only about 1% of total volumes for travel management companies and brick and mortar agencies. And we believe the NDC volumes of these buyers are flowing almost entirely through Sabre and other GDSs. However, while not a new construct, we have seen over the COVID period an increase in airline direct connect volumes with online travel agents, some of which may be characterized as NEC. While a generally lower margin business, OTA volumes remain a very meaningful contributor to the GDS industry and this OTA dynamic is a negative volume impact to to deal with their content, retailing and operational needs, there may be opportunity to recapture volume as well as provide additional services. And last, low cost carriers have traditionally outgrown full service carriers and we and other GDSs have been a smaller part of the LCC distribution footprint given their general short haul and leisure focus.

Speaker 2

Prospectively, we believe this is a largely untapped opportunity for Sabre. In addition, there have been a number of recent positive comments from large airlines and industry experts around corporate and international travel demand growth in 2024, which should be supportive of the industry volume scenarios that Mike will discuss shortly. On to Slide 13. Looking at the future of travel and the evolving marketplace, our growth strategies are designed to deliver modern distribution and retailing technology. Our multi source content platform strategy is designed to efficiently increase agency and buyer access to relevant air content from a wide array of airline products, including Edifact, NDC and low cost carrier content through all channels and points of sale and with leading shopping, retailing and automation capabilities.

Speaker 2

Agencies and other buyers consistently tell us that we have one of the leading NDC solutions in the world to support their businesses. Next, our distribution expansion strategy consists of targeted resource and product investments To help drive growth in specific geographies and marketplace segments, including countries and segments in which we are under indexed today. We expect to realize continued strong share growth in the months and years ahead as existing and new agencies and other buyers see us as their preferred technology partner. In hotel distribution, We believe Sabre can become the premier business to business intermediary lodging platform globally by investing to enhance our current product suite, tapping more deeply into our existing distribution customer base and increasing the attachment of hotel bookings to our GDS market offering. In payments, we are excited about the long term and believe our Confirma platform can become a leader in virtual cards.

Speaker 2

Market penetration of virtual cards for commercial payments remains in the early stages, but adoption is accelerating. Overall, our payment solutions experienced With $14,000,000,000 spend volume already flowing through the payment gateway, we see Confirma as an important contributor to the future of our business. Sabre's core capabilities in Airline IT address the changing needs of global carriers that are demanding greater personalization and flexible technologies. We plan to grow our Airline IT business with intelligent retailing solutions built on a modular platform with offer order technology at the core. These products and solutions are already gaining traction with customers.

Speaker 2

In our Hospitality Solutions We have a strong revenue pipeline of new customer wins in our CRS and our retail studio suite of solutions. This offering brings the power of personalization to our hotelier customers to significantly expand Their revenue opportunity is beyond the standard booking process, improving the overall guest experience. In summary, we are committed to focused investments in these strategies to deliver winning modern retailing and distribution technologies and deliver sustainable growth. I again commend our team members globally for their hard work and I am confident that we have the right strategies in place to continue delivering on our priorities. I will now hand the call over to Mike to walk you through our financial performance and forward outlook.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Kurt, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to Slide 14. I'm pleased to share our 2023 accomplishments That highlight the dedication and hard work of our Sabre team members. As Curt mentioned previously, We achieved our free cash flow objective for the year on solid revenue growth, effective cost management that led to significant margin and working capital initiatives that delivered meaningful cash flow benefits. With the actions we have taken, We have developed significant operating leverage in our business that is allowing strong flow through of top line revenue to the bottom line.

Speaker 3

To illustrate this increase in operating leverage, note that in the 4th quarter and in the second half of twenty twenty three, we saw adjusted EBITDA grow at a meaningfully greater rate than revenue. For the year, Sabre generated a substantial improvement in both cash from operations and free cash flow. Our distribution business generated a 27% year over year increase in revenue on 18% more bookings and solid improvement in our average booking fee. Hospitality solutions achieved better financial results faster than we had anticipated on strong growth in CRS transactions and higher average revenue per transaction, driven by strong growth in ancillary sales. This led to an approximate $40,000,000 improvement in adjusted EBITDA in 2023 versus 2022.

Speaker 3

In addition, we are pleased to have refinanced the vast majority of our 2025 maturities. Please turn to Slide 15. I will now briefly review recent GDS industry booking trends. During the Q4, we experienced softness of GDS bookings late in the year below our expectations. We believe this is largely attributable to the slowdown in corporate travel in Q4, as Curt mentioned earlier.

Speaker 3

Despite this, I'm pleased to share that we are seeing significant improvement in GDS volumes and GDS market share performance year to date. Now moving to the table. As I highlighted earlier, we reported substantial year over year increases each of our key financial metrics in both the Q4 and for the full year 2023 with significant improvements in both revenue generation and adjusted EBITDA. We also achieved positive free cash flow for the year after excluding restructuring, which was once again one of our primary financial objectives for 2023. Furthermore, the 4th quarter's $77,000,000 in free cash flow generation was the highest in 4 years.

Speaker 3

Turning to Slide 16. Total Q4 revenue was $687,000,000 an increase of $56,000,000 or 9% versus last year. Distribution revenue totaled $476,000,000 a $59,000,000 or 14% increase compared to $417,000,000 in Q4 2022. Our distribution bookings totaled $78,000,000 in the quarter, a 3% increase compared to $76,000,000 in Q4 2022. Our average booking fee was $6.09 in the 4th quarter, up 11% from Q4 2022 as we continue to realize favorable mix into higher rate regions and types of travel.

Speaker 3

IT Solutions revenue totaled 140 $1,000,000 in the quarter. This was an $11,000,000 decline versus revenue of $157,000,000 in the prior year driven by demigrations, a large portion of which is the result of changes in Russian law in October 2022. Hospitality Solutions Q4 2023 revenue totaled $75,000,000 a 10 percent improvement versus revenue of $65,000,000 in Q4 2022. The 16 points of revenue growth was driven by 5 points of central reservation system transactions growth and 11 points of higher rate per transaction. Hospitality Solutions generated $5,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA in the 4th quarter $13,000,000 in 2023, representing an approximate $40,000,000 improvement in 2023 versus 2022.

Speaker 3

And as a reminder, We believe that our recently announced CRS agreement with Hyatt will contribute to the momentum we are already seeing in Hospitality Solutions. Sabre's adjusted EBITDA of $96,000,000 in Q4 2023 versus $1,000,000 in Q4 2022 represented a $94,000,000 improvement year over year. Before I move on, I want to highlight the significant impact that our cost reduction program continues to have on our financial performance. While our total revenue was up $56,000,000 year over year in the Q4, our adjusted EBITDA increased by $94,000,000 over the same period. Free cash flow was $77,000,000 in the 4th quarter, including the impact of restructuring as improving margins and our working capital initiatives delivered strong results.

Speaker 3

We ended the Q4 with a cash balance of $669,000,000 Turning to Slide 17. Regarding guidance, we expect Q1 2024 revenue of approximately $750,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of approximately $115,000,000 As a reminder, we typically experienced higher working capital and cash outflows in the Q1 due to the seasonality of our business. Therefore, it is typically our weakest quarter of the year from a free cash flow perspective. This seasonality is driven primarily by timing of when we receive airline partner receipts in the Q4 versus when we make agency payments in the Q1. Additionally, during the Q1, We pay our annual incentive compensation payments and we will also begin to lap the benefits of some of our working capital initiatives in 2023 that are not expected to provide additional benefits to 2024 cash flow.

Speaker 3

For the full year 2024, we expect revenue of approximately $3,000,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of greater than $500,000,000 or an approximate 50% increase compared to 2023 with additional upside to this outcome based on potential GDS market growth. As you can see in this guidance, we continue to expect strong operating leverage from our cost reduction efforts We expect flow through of incremental revenue growth to adjusted EBITDA to remain above 100% for full year 2024. In addition, in 2024, we also expect cash interest of about $350,000,000 which includes the impact of payment in kind on a portion of our debt and capital expenditures of $100,000,000 In 2024, we once again to generate positive free cash flow. Notably, we have increased our CapEx assumption moving forward to support the growth strategies that Kurt outlined earlier. Now on to our 2025 targets.

Speaker 3

As a quick reminder, Our previous targets for adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow included an assumption for GDS industry market growth of 1 to 2 points sequentially per quarter. And as we mentioned in our Q3 earnings call in November, we have seen GDS industry market growth come in below these levels. Given flatter trends in GDS industry volumes, we are now targeting 2025 adjusted EBITDA to be greater than $700,000,000 and free cash flow of greater than $200,000,000 with upside to these figures based on potential GDS industry market growth. Turning to Slide 18. Now I will walk you through how we expect our 2023 adjusted EBITDA to build toward our 2025 target of greater than $700,000,000 and the illustrative impact of GDS industry volume growth to our adjusted EBITDA baseline assumption.

Speaker 3

Due to the early achievement of cost savings, we expect the combined savings from our technology transformation and expense reduction efforts announced last year to drive approximately $250,000,000 in adjusted EBITDA growth by 2025. As you can see on the page, we expect 2 thirds of the improvement in adjusted EBITDA from 2023 2025 to be driven by lower costs. We expect the growth strategies that Curt highlighted earlier on today's call will generate approximately $115,000,000 toward our 2025 adjusted EBITDA target. We expect Hospitality Solutions to provide nearly half of the $115,000,000 in improvement given the strong momentum we have seen in 2023 3 and the robust pipeline of additional business including our recent Hyatt agreement. We believe our other growth strategies led by distribution expansion initiative will provide the remainder of the $115,000,000 improvement by 2025.

Speaker 3

This adjusted EBITDA benefit from our growth strategies is lower than our prior $150,000,000 target, primarily from earlier achievement in 2023, specifically from Hospitality Solutions and lower GDS market growth during 2023 and assumed prospectively. Moving to GDS Industry volumes, The greater than $700,000,000 baseline target assumes only flat to nominal GDS industry growth, which we believe is the low end of potential market growth outcomes. As you can see from the chart, we have illustrated a range of potential outcomes for the GDS Industry market up to 4 points of annual growth above our baseline assumption. Note that 4 points of potential annual market growth improvement is not meant as a ceiling. If we see as illustrated four points of annual GDS market growth over 2024 and 2025, then we would expect to achieve approximately $800,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.

Speaker 3

To provide more color on the potential benefit from stronger GDS market growth, we estimate that each point of additional growth is worth approximately $13,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA per year. Note that GDS market share growth is separate from these volume figures and included in our aforementioned growth strategy projections. As Kurt and I stated earlier, we believe there's reasons for that industry volume growth will exceed our baseline assumption. Looking forward, IATA has projected high single digit capacity growth over the next several years. Many of the largest global airlines have articulated continued capacity increases skewed toward long haul international travel and business travel surveys have indicated strong growth in corporate travel spend.

Speaker 3

Turning to Slide 19. This chart provides the path for how we plan to achieve our 2024 adjusted EBITDA guidance for greater than $500,000,000 We expect the vast majority of our adjusted EBITDA gains in 2024 to come from greater cost efficiency. Both our technology transformation and cost reduction program announced last May remain on track to deliver the expense savings that we have previously communicated. It is important to note that our baseline guidance of greater than $500,000,000 in 2024 and baseline target of greater than $700,000,000 in 2025 does not include meaningful benefits from GDS market growth, even though we are optimistic based on positive external commentary and data points that we have referenced. We believe our growth strategies, primarily driven by further gains in Hospitality Solutions will provide approximately $30,000,000 toward our 20 24 adjusted EBITDA target.

Speaker 3

Please note that the expected gross benefit from our growth strategies is substantially above this level and that the $30,000,000 represents a net amount. The investments we are making this year will drive future growth. With positive GDS industry market growth, we would expect to realize upside to these baseline targets and as illustrated, We expect that 4 points of annual GDS market growth would drive targeted adjusted EBITDA outcomes of $550,000,000 $2024,000,000 $800,000,000 in 2025. In closing, we are targeting to more than double EBITDA between now 2025 with upside potential based on GDS industry growth. While this would be a strong outcome, we understand that this new target is below what we articulated last year.

Speaker 3

This is due to external GDS market conditions that evolve during 2023 and the likelihood of slower prospective GDS market growth, lower than the 6 points of annual GDS market growth that we assumed when we provided earlier guidance. We delivered strong 2023 results from our team's excellent execution and we remain keenly focused on continuing to run the business to deliver on our strategic priorities, which are to generate free cash flow and delever the balance sheet, deliver sustainable growth, drive innovation and to reduce our cost structure. We believe the outlook we have outlined today will enable us to accomplish those objectives. And with that operator, please open the line for questions. Certainly.

Operator

And our first question coming from the line of Josh Burt from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Great. Thank you for the question. Thinking about what 2025 EBITDA margin could look like, if you make some assumption on The EBITDA contribution from growth strategies and gross that up, you might get to like $3,500,000,000 $3,600,000,000 in revenue in 2025 with $700,000,000 EBITDA. So talking about 20% or slightly below margin, high teens, And that's lower than the EBITDA margin from 2019, but 2025 has the cost savings from a successful tech transformation and all the rounds of layoffs and focus on efficiency. So with just cost of compute down and kind of success on the tech transformation, I guess, question is just why is margin why could margin be lower in 2025 versus 2019?

Speaker 3

Thanks for the question, Josh. This is Mike. And first, we haven't given more recent update on margin guidance. But if you go back to what we had previously stated In prior earnings calls, we had talked about the adjusted EBITDA margin being essentially in the range by 25 of 2019, we actually still would think that is the case. We think we'll still be roughly in that range for 2025 compared to 2019.

Speaker 3

And you really see a lot of the growth initiatives that we're generating have really flow through to the bottom line. So if you look at what we're doing both in terms of cost, there's really strong flow through in the bottom line. You could tell by the math we presented, We had a 12% margin on adjusted EBITDA in 2023. We see that expanding to 17% based on the guide that we gave today. And we would also expect continued margin expansion from 24 to 25 because the initiatives that we're pursuing actually have really strong flow to the bottom line.

Speaker 3

So we still think we'll be roughly in the range in 2025 of where we were in 2019.

Speaker 4

Got it. Thanks, Mike. And then maybe just one more on sort of the CapEx free cash flow side. Talk a little bit more about where the $100,000,000 in CapEx dollars are going to be going toward over the next few years? A little bit surprised with That level of CapEx and that I think it's higher than what we've seen in the last 3, 4 years.

Speaker 4

But then again, like you're Going to be out of your data centers and not spending on server and network equipment, some more kind of context on that CapEx spend and how that contributes to the free cash flow targets? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks for the question. By definition, our capital expenditure is almost primarily R and D. It's essentially capitalized labor for software development. And we've been very strategic and we're thinking beyond 2024, And as we've looked at driving our strategic growth initiatives forward, there were investments that we thought were really important to make over the course of time.

Speaker 3

It's really focused on supporting the growth the 6 growth strategies that Kurt outlined earlier, investment in our multi source content platform, Investment in distribution expansion, investment in our hotel B2B distribution, further investment in digital payments. On the next generation airline IT, you see a lot of progress on airline retailing products. There's continued investment in there that we stepped up, as well as hospitality solutions. So we really focused on leaning into our 6 growth strategies. We think that's going to have legs Well beyond the period we're talking about here.

Speaker 4

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question coming from the line of Jed Kelly with Oppenheimer, your line is open.

Speaker 5

Hey, great. I joined the call a little late. Just a couple of questions for me. If we just look at like the overall trajectory of GDS growth kind of where it was versus 2019, Can you kind of dig into that more? Is that more capacity or are we starting to see an impact from NDC?

Speaker 5

And then can you mention, how you plan them to manage some of your upcoming converts that are due? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Jed, thank you for the questions. I'll take the this is Kurt. I'll take the first piece and then let Mike deal with the converts. Excuse me. When you look at the overall GDS industry, it's recovered to somewhere in the low 70s on a percentage basis versus 2019.

Speaker 2

A reminder that our number now excludes Expedia, which migrated off of us during COVID. As I described in my prepared remarks and Jed you may not have heard them. I talked about why there has not been full flow through of industry capacity growth or return to the GDS industry and I'll go through those very briefly here. Number 1 is corporate travel has recovered only to about 75% of its pre COVID levels on a unit basis. The GDS industry is traditionally a fifty-fifty corporate and leisure mix.

Speaker 2

And for Sabre, corporate and TMC comprises a higher proportion of our booking and client portfolio than it does for our competitors. Secondly, if you look traditionally, domestic leisure or short haul traffic tends to accrue more to airline direct, more complex travel such as long haul international tends to accrue more to intermediaries or the GDS channel. We believe that is still true. If you look at where capacity has been put back during COVID recovery, it has been put back disproportionately on short haul and domestic versus international long haul as compared to the historical proportion of long haul versus short haul. We do not believe that that is a long term or permanent trend.

Speaker 2

So on each of those on corporate travel and on short haul versus long haul capacity, we're very optimistic about where the industry is headed. Jed, I also spoke about For OTAs, GDSs and Sabre remain the predominant booking channel for OTAs. It remains an important part of our business And we believe we provide the most efficient platform for them to search, book and service their customers. That said, during the COVID period, as I acknowledged in my remarks, there has been an increase in the volumes transacted through The airline direct connect channel largely with larger OTAs and larger full service carriers around the world. Now that said, if you look at online travel agencies, what we're hearing from them is that where they have done that, They're having challenges with the cost and the complexity of managing those direct connects.

Speaker 2

They're looking to us for solutions around automation, shopping and caching and we believe there may be opportunity for volume recapture. So suffice to say, We understand the reality of the market today. We're optimistic that the GDS industry and therefore Sabre are well positioned for growth as we go forward. When you look at NDC specifically, NDC for brick and mortar and for TMC customers only comprises about 1% of the airline tickets that they're purchasing. That is going effectively all through the GDSs from what we understand and can see.

Speaker 2

We've invested very significantly not only on connections with carriers, but also on building out about 600 new functionalities or use cases to solve the needs of the brick and mortar and TMC customer base around automation, workflow capabilities, etcetera. And so we're very well positioned there. And we don't think that the impact of NDC to date has been that material on that sector. With OTAs, we think the adoption for NDC is higher. Some of that may be going through their direct connect channel.

Speaker 2

But again, they're looking to us for help. So Overall, we're optimistic about where the industry is headed.

Speaker 4

Yes.

Speaker 3

And with Jed with regards to your question on our converts, So a couple of things. I would just first remind you, we ended the year in 2023 with $669,000,000 of cash in our balance sheet. We do expect to generate positive free cash flow this year. We expect that to start building meaningfully in 2025. And so we really see our cash position continuing to strengthen over the course of time.

Speaker 3

2nd, I would highlight, you could see over this past year, we've been very proactive in terms of addressing our maturities and aligning that over time with cash flow generation of the company. And what I would say is you should look for us to continue to be proactive and manage our debt maturities in a way that's most efficient as possible. But Beyond that, I wouldn't get into specifics in terms of thoughts around any specific instruments or how we would address it.

Speaker 5

Got it. And just one follow-up. I mean, I think typically before COVID, 1Q used to be the high watermark for EBITDA. Looking at your guide, I don't know if that's going to be the case this year. So can you just give us a sense on like just the quarterly trajectory, How we should be thinking about the cadence?

Speaker 5

Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes. So thanks for the question. So a couple of things. And in general, you're right. Seasonally, 1st quarter is the strongest volume quarter.

Speaker 3

Now there's a couple of things that are helping as we progress through the year. First of all, our growth strategies, Hospitality solution, GDS expansion, our growth in our payments business, increased Hotel attach on air, we see that all building momentum as the year progresses. And so that offsets some of the seasonal difference. At the same time, If you look at in our build on 2024, where we have, the cost initiatives, About 1 third of the $115,000,000 of cost savings that we expect in 2024, about 1 third of that is from tech transformation and we expect that to be realized through the P and L, I'm sorry, 1 third of the 135 that we expect year about $45,000,000 of tech transformation costs. We expect those benefits to be realized in the P and L as the year progresses and we'd expect them to be greater as we get to the Q4 than the Q1.

Speaker 3

So you're right in that the Q1 generally has stronger seasonality, But the benefits of our strategic growth initiatives and the tech transformation support higher EBITDA as the year progresses.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question coming from the line of Dan Westylic with Morningstar. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Yes. Hey, thanks for taking my questions. So just looking at the 2025 targets, I just want to make sure on the cost efficiencies, dollars 250,000,000 that that's not a change from prior guidance. I believe tech transformation $150,000,000 and then the cost savings annualized $200,000,000 That's $350,000,000 So just kind of wondering if there's been any change with that. And then when you talk about GDS flat to nominal, I'm wondering if you can provide any further quantification on what nominal might mean for overall GDS funds that you're incorporating in that $700,000,000

Speaker 3

Yes. I mean, I would start with the last question first. The flat to nominal is pretty darn close to flat in terms of that baseline assumption. So that's the way I would think about it. With regards to the cost efficiency bucket, you previously had indicated on our May earnings call last year that we expected about $300,000,000 in cost efficiency benefits.

Speaker 3

About $100,000,000 of that was annualization of actions that we were taking in 2023 that would annualize that you would get a run rate benefit in 20 Greater than $150,000,000 of that was from tech transformation and the remainder was some other non labor cost savings. What I would say is we're on track and more than on track to achieve all of that. However, what occurred in 2023 is we actually realized A lot of the benefits earlier than we expected. We were able to accelerate them and that essentially was able to set some of the lower volumes that ensued throughout the year. So I would remind you that on May when we had our earnings call volumes in terms of industry recovery of air distribution bookings were around 61%.

Speaker 3

At that time, we had indicated that we expected going forward 1 to 2 percentage points of sequential air distribution booking volume. That would have had us exiting the year Around the mid-60s in terms of recovery relative to 2019, we exited the year at 58%. And that difference essentially was offset by accelerated cost savings. So we more than achieving the full 300 that we set out to achieve, but because we were able to complete those actions earlier, the lapping benefit is less on a year over year basis.

Speaker 6

Okay. No, that's perfect. And then just maybe one more for me on the revenue per air booking, up nicely like you talked about. And it seems like you guys had pointed out some, I guess, potential to be Optimistic that kind of that mix benefit that you saw in 2023 might take place in 2024. Is that fair to kind of assume that maybe that revenue per that pricing might be enduring maybe in 2024?

Speaker 3

So on the average booking fee, I would say particularly around Q4, I would view Q4 as a high watermark. 1, we had a very, very rich, better than typical mix of booking traffic in terms of both the mix of carrier and region. We also saw when we saw a pullback in December in addition to corporate travel, we saw a very big pullback in group bookings. And those group bookings tend to come at a much lower average booking fee. So when you have the absence of them, it causes a skew up in booking fees.

Speaker 3

Now what I would say is as we've come into the year in January February, we have seen a significant step up in our air distribution bookings as we've seen strength in corporate bookings and we've seen a resumption in air distribution bookings from group bookings. And so because group bookings are a lot stronger as we've entered the year, we would see we would expect to see that the the average booking fee to moderate somewhat from the 609 that we saw in the 4th quarter.

Speaker 6

Okay, perfect. Thanks guys.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question coming from the line of Alex Irvin with Bernstein. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Hi, good morning. 2 for

Speaker 8

me please if I may.

Speaker 7

First of all, just thinking about your GDS unit booking fee, that was up 9% year on year in the 3rd quarter and 11% in the 4th quarter. What's driving that acceleration, please, if you help us to disaggregate into its constituent parts? My second question more around the cost side of things. Do you have any leeway on travel agent incentives as a lever to reduce costs and improve your EBITDA. Is that something you could cut?

Speaker 7

And is it something that you would cut? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Alex, thank you. On the first piece, which is the average booking fee, remember that's looking at all components of revenue as compared to the units of air booking. And so you have a few things going on. One is the mix of the type of air booking we're getting globally. The other is that as we grow our land, ground and sea bookings, which grew at a very strong rate through the year.

Speaker 2

And secondly, with payments, you'll see that accrue into the average revenue per booking. With respect to the incentive structure, we compete in a vigorous industry, Economics, which are one of the mechanisms by which we compete, which is a very normal construct for a B2B industry. And we value the business that we get from our buyer or agency customers. So I'm not going to comment prospectively on the way we view that, other than say it's a competitive dynamic along with Content and Technology and Product and Service.

Speaker 7

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question coming from the line of Victor Cheng with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Maybe, first of all, I want to break down a bit more on the corporate travel. I believe we can broadly break it down to managed corporate travel versus unmanaged corporate travel. And I think Managed corporate travel, which is where GDS over index has been recovering a bit slower. Do you think this is structural or this will reverse over time with more managed corporate travel coming back?

Speaker 8

And then secondly, can you provide any comments on the Hyatt contribution? Is it start has it started to implement? I think you said in start of 2024, so should we expect some revenue contribution this year? And then finally, You've talked about this early in the call as well. But on the 'twenty five outlook about the GDS growth that You're making.

Speaker 8

Can you talk a bit about some of the tailwinds and headwinds? Because when I think about in the last couple of years where It's more domestic and more leisure. That's why GDS growth has been slower versus the year travel. But in the next year or 2, should we not expect international and especially corporate to recover more and so GDS could be recovering in line or at least not flat growth versus the broader air recovery? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Victor, thank you for the three questions. This is Kurt. Let me take them in order. First of all, on corporate travel, you're right. What we look at when we talk about corporate travel largely managed corporate travel, which is what largely transact through TMCs.

Speaker 2

And if you look structurally, that's a business that on a unit basis is about 3 quarters the size it was globally versus pre COVID. If you read all of the analysts reports and you listen to market conjecture, signs are that corporate travel will grow prospectively very well. I believe on a 20 year CAGR preceding COVID, corporate travel or managed corporate travel had grown basically at 4% to 5% per year to a $1,300,000,000,000 industry. So again, you'd say structurally today, it's a smaller industry. And the question going forward, will it grow at that historical rate We may grow faster because there's still some recovery left in there.

Speaker 2

There's a wide range of potential scenarios And I think that's uncertain, but we're confident that that growth is going to come. And again, we think we're very well positioned because we are proportionally more highly indexed against TMC and corporate travel than our competitive peers. With Hyatt specifically, as we indicated, We'll be beginning the implementation of Hyatt in the first half of this calendar year. And we'll see that ramp up, we think starting in Q2 pretty well going forward. The last question is about headwinds and tailwinds on our 2025 outlook with respect to GDS market growth.

Speaker 2

As I indicated in my prepared remarks and the question earlier, with respect to both corporate travel recovery prospectively or growth and 2, International long haul capacity coming back more robustly in the years ahead, we feel very optimistic and confident that we're going to see both of those trends continue. OTAs have obviously performed relatively well during COVID and I mentioned Some level of Direct Connect activity there. But based on the conversations we're having with this clientele, we think there's recapture and growth opportunity there as well. So I'd say that a lot of the headwinds that the GDS market has faced, we have faced here through the COVID recovery period. Our hope And our optimism is that we're going to see more tailwinds prospectively than what we've realized in recent years.

Speaker 8

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And I see no further questions in the queue This time, I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Eckert for any closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you everyone again for joining us this morning. We do appreciate your interest in Sabre and look forward to speaking with all of you again very soon.

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Earnings Conference Call
Sabre Q4 2023
00:00 / 00:00