Hedgeye - MAR YOUTUBE

In preparation for MAR’s Q2 2011 earnings release tomorrow afternoon, we’ve put together the pertinent forward looking commentary from MAR’s Q1 2011 earnings release/call and subsequent conferences/releases.

June 28: Timeshare Form 10

Royalty Fees, paid quarterly in arrears

A vacation ownership business royalty fee equal to: a fixed fee of $12.5 million per quarter or $50 million per year, plus two percent of the gross sales price paid to us or our affiliates for initial developer sales of interests in vacation ownership units, plus one percent of the gross sales price paid to us or our affiliates for resales of interests in vacation ownership units, in each case that are identified with or use the Marriott Marks.
The fixed fee will be increased every five years by 50 percent of an inflation rate index, compounded annually.
A residential real estate development business royalty fee equal to: two percent of the gross sales price paid to us or our affiliates for initial developer sales of units of accommodation in our residential real estate business, or “residential units,” plus one percent of the gross sales price paid to us or our affiliates for resales of residential units, in each case that are identified with or use the Marriott Marks.

Marriott anticipates the receipt of an IRS private-letter tax ruling in September, confirming that the distribution of shares of Marriott Vacations Worldwide common stock will not result in the recognition, for U.S. federal income tax purposes, of income, gain or loss by Marriott International or Marriott International shareholders

June 23: Amended Multi-currency Revolving Credit Agreement

Reduced the facility size from $2.404 billion to $1.75 billion
Extended the agreement's expiration from May 14, 2012 to June 23, 2016

May 6: Revision to dividend/stock repurchase

Increased quarterly dividend by 14.3% to $0.10 from $0.0875
Increased stock repurchase program by 25M shares

When combined with the approximately 9M shares remaining from the previous authorization, the company's total outstanding repurchase authorization is approximately 34M shares.

Year-to-date through May 4, the company has repurchased approximately 15M shares for slightly more than $540M.

Post Earnings Business Commentary (GS Lodging, Gaming, Restaurant and Leisure Conference; Robert W. Baird & Co Growth Stock Conference)

[Leisure vs. business trends] “Yeah, I think both are reasonably strong. I think the leisure is consumer-driven, broadly consumer confidence is going to be relevant to that and I think there’s more reason to be cautious about that than there is about business travel.”
[Development financing] “Well, if you compare it to the deals that were being done in 2009, we are seeing a higher level of development activity, but it’s all relative. So, I think we were doing 25, maybe 20 – 20 to 25 limited service deals a month in 2007; these are U.S. numbers. I think we probably fell to 5 or 6 a month in the depths and maybe we’re starting to climb out of that, coming back towards 9 or 10 or 11 a month. So, we’re still down 50% to 60% where it was in 2007.”
[US Market share] “According to Smith Travel, Marriott has about 10% market share in the United States.”
[Timeshare inventory] “Timeshare right now has about $1.5 billion of inventory. About $600 million, $700 million that is finished inventory, another $400 million, $500 million is under construction and will be finished soon, and then $100 million or $200 million that’s land. So it’s got lots of runway. It doesn’t have to go out and raise all kind of capital to build assets to sell. It’s got lots of inventory to sell over the next couple of years.”
[Fees/EBITDA] “Based on room growth of about 35,000 rooms and worldwide system-wide RevPAR our growth of about 6% to 8%, we would expect fees to grow to somewhere between $1.3 billion and $1.33 billion, 10% to 13% increase. We would think EBITDA to be around $1.2 billion, about 11% to 16%, just a little bit more than that. And even after spending $500 million to $700 million on capital, we would expect to have approximately $1 billion of free cash flow remaining at the end of the year and we use that cash flow either for opportunistic investments, not contemplated in the $500 million to $700 million, or we’ll return it to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchase.”
[G&A] “You look at our cost structure, it’s G&A, and our G&A is up about 3% to 5% this year. It was up in the first quarter. There was a lot of noise in the first quarter but for the full year we think it will be up around 3% to 5% and if history holds true, it will be closer to the 5% than the 3%.”
[No change in 6-8% guidance] “Yeah, our guidance for as we announced, Dave, and we haven’t changed anything there was 6% to 8% worldwide system-wide. We think that’s what we would expect for this year. And there is really nothing other than that.”

YOUTUBE from Q1 earnings release and call

[Profit margins] “We expect domestic house profit margins will increase 100 to 150 basis points and international house profit margins will increase about 100 basis points for the full year.”
[Timeshare earnings] “We launched some special promotions near the end of the quarter to accelerate sales and expect better segment earnings for the full year than previously guided in February ($35-40MM).”
[International REVPAR] “Our international REVPAR growth is likely to slow from the first quarter pace. The 2010 World Expo will be a tough comp for our Shanghai hotels later this year. For our 31 hotels in the Middle East and 10 hotels in Japan, we expect REVPAR to remain weak although we also expect modest improvement over the current levels later this year. As a result, for the second quarter and the full year, we expect international REVPAR growth to total 5% to 7%. Excluding the Middle East and Japan, we expect international REVPAR will increase by 8% to 10% in the second quarter and 6% to 8% for the full year.”
[Group/transient] “Today, we have significant group business on the books for 2011 and special corporate rate negotiations are complete with rates increasing consistent with our expectation. We see strength in transient business demand and continue to estimate 6% to 8% REVPAR growth for our North American system-wide hotels for the second quarter and the full year.”
[ME/Asia/Europe] “Compared to our full year guidance in February, today we expect our fees in Asia will be better than earlier anticipated, but will be more than offset by weakness in the Middle East. On the owned, leased and other line, we expect to benefit from stronger performance among our European owned and leased hotels as well as a higher termination fee, but we also expect a $10 million decline in profits from Japan.”
[G&A] “In the second quarter, we expect G&A will be impacted by higher costs in international markets as well as higher workouts and legal costs.”
[Interest income] “Interest income for the full year is likely to be a bit lower than we anticipated as we expect we will be repaid early on an outstanding loan. Our share count is coming down quickly as we continue to take advantage of recent share price weakness to repurchase shares.”
[Maintenance spending] “For 2011, $50 million to $100 million in maintenance spending.”
[Market share] “We’ve been in the Washington market for over 50 years and today we have a 33% market share of upper upscale and luxury rooms in our hometown. We’ve been in New York for over 40 years and today we have a 21% market share of the upper upscale and luxury rooms there. But our share of upper upscale and luxury rooms and other global gateway markets has reached impressive levels in much less time…. Today in a highly fragmented industry, we have a 9% share of the upper upscale and luxury market in Paris, 16% share in London, 20% share in Hong Kong, 20% share in Beijing, 21% share in Shanghai and a 40% share in Moscow, and we continue to grow our share in these valuable markets.”
[Japan/ME] “Generally, I would say that our expectations ex-Japan and ex-Middle East are higher than they were a quarter ago, modestly, and that’s basically on strength in Asia and strength in Europe. And so under the company guidance we gave you, you get to the next level of detail. And basically we, compared to a quarter ago, we’re losing probably a full $0.03 a share something like that based on the Middle East and Japan.”
[Spin cost] “One thing we have not put in our guidance, the incremental cost of the timeshare spin. Our intention on that was to, as those numbers become material or meaningful, we’ll point those out as we give you our earnings, because as you can imagine there will be onetime cost just related to the transaction itself.”
[Incentive fee forecast] “So, the numbers are not huge, but we’re talking about $10 million or so of incentive fees that compared to a quarter ago we could not achieve in 2011 because of the turmoil in those markets, and you can do the math on what you would expect the full-year number to be, but that’s a number of points of growth year-over-year…. We mentioned in the first quarter Washington, D.C. was soft, and we do earn incentive fees in Washington, D.C. So that – and we would expect that to grow back as the year goes along. And so given the Middle East that Arne talked about and little bit on Washington, D.C. we’ll probably be between 15% and 20% up in incentive fees.”
[Slowdown in international markets in 2H] “Shanghai would be the most significant, I think. I suppose on average you’ve got comps that get a little tougher as the year goes along I expect to be a piece of it. But generally, we’re not building in an expectation of moderating economic performance in those markets.”
[Booking window] “I think generally we are seeing still not much of a lengthening in the booking window. So, I think group customers, some big meetings maybe are coming back on the books that wouldn’t have been booked certainly a couple of years ago but compared to a few months ago, I wouldn’t say that there’s anything that’s meaningful shift.”