Consensus estimates, management guidance and commentary, and questions for management in preparation for the earnings release/call tomorrow.
Q2 2014 CONSENSUS ESTIMATES
- Total revenues: $798 million
- EPS $0.57
MANAGEMENT GUIDANCE
QUESTIONS FOR MANAGEMENT
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Visitation into Hawaii has declined in 2014. Any worries about Pride of America?
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Has the Caribbean pricing environment gotten worse since your Q1 earnings call? We've been hearing a pickup in NCL promotional deals being delivered via email.
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Is the Caribbean weakness mainly attributed to lack of demand from North American source markets? Are international source markets for Caribbean itineraries doing better?
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How confident are you that Breakway will be able to maintain double digit premiums in the NY/NJ market as Quantum makes its arrival in November?
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As your biggest competitors look to new destination markets in 2015 and beyond, at what point would you be comfortable in deploying ships outside of North America and Europe?
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Is onboard and other revenue yield reaching a peak? It declined for the 1st time in 8 quarters in Q1.
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ECA impact in 2015
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Update on pending Genting share sell
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Industry capacity growth in Europe in 2015
FORWARD LOOKING COMMENTARY
Bookings
- Caribbean still has opportunities to improve on booking, but that is the major focus for the NY and Miami markets
- Across the Baltic, the Canaries and the Med, all of which are significantly booked better than last year.
- On par pretty much with Hawaii
- Are heavily booked in the Canada and New England,
- Had significant positive bookings every week for the last 10 weeks, which has put NCLH into a very good book position
Onboard spend
- Pretty solid with onboard as NCLH moves through the rest of the year.
Europe
- Pricing across Europe is very healthy double-digits.
- Seeing the benefits of our strategy of consistent deployment and commitment for the European markets in the form of improved pricing and occupancy as we go into the third consecutive year of our four ship seasonal deployment from Europe.
Alaska
- Alaska is in the zone of being low single-digit positive.
- Norwegian Sun has found its footing and is showing stronger pricing and booked position versus last year demonstrating that our strategy of keeping consistent offerings while it may include some time for awareness to grow during their introduction, results in these products being successfully absorbed by the marketplace and contributing to overall yield growth.
Hawaii
- Hawaii is doing well
Caribbean
- Pricing still a little behind
- Minimal incremental capacity in 2015
Capital Allocation
- 3-yr $500m share repurchase program
Genting ownership sale
- Genting is seeing that the stock prices are not where they would like it to be and are NCLH suspects, will take wait-and-see attitude on selling their shares.
