Cinemark Holdings Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to Cinemark's first quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during that time, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Chanda Brashears, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Natalia, and good morning, everyone. At this time, I would like to welcome you to Cinemark Holding, Inc.' 's first quarter 2020 earnings release conference call, hosted by Mark Cerati, Chief Executive Officer, and Sean Gamble, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Given our circumstances with a reduced workforce and work-from-home policy protects our employees and their families, we opted to rely upon the relief provided by the SEC and delay the filing of our first quarter results, as disclosed in the 8K filed May 8th. In accordance with the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, certain matters that are discussed by members of management during this call may constitute forward-looking statements. Such statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause Cinemark's actual performance to be materially different from the performance indicated or implied by such statements. Such risk factors are set forth in the company's SEC filings. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Today's call and webcast may include non-GAAP financial measures. The reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in today's press release, within the company's quarterly filing or form 10Q, or on the company's website at investors.cinemark.com. I would now like to turn the call over to Mark Cerati.

Thank you, Chanda, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us to discuss our 2020 first quarter earnings result on this virtual call. Chanda, Sean, and myself are all at unique locations this morning. Before beginning with my formal comments, I felt compelled to note all that we as a society are enduring with numerous crisis simultaneously. A global pandemic, dramatic economic downturn, unemployment rates mounting to historic levels, and social upheaval sparked by racial justice. It is a most challenging time, and I sincerely hope we're able to find a path forward as a united country and people. Given the extraordinary circumstances associated with the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic, we are modifying the standard format of our earnings call. Rather than providing a detailed summary of our first quarter results, as well as an update on our key strategic initiatives, our prepared commentary on these topics will be abbreviated. Instead, we will concentrate on our liquidity position, as well as our plans to reopen our theaters before we turn to Q&A. The social and economic effects of COVID-19 have been widespread and hard-hitting in our industry, like many others that have been especially impacted. For context, through February, the North America industry box office was up more than 7% quarter to date, compared to the same period last year, driven by strong performances from Bad Boys for Life, 1917, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Jumanji The Next Level. However, the severity of COVID-19 increased throughout the month of March, which resulted in a complete shutdown of the industry by mid-month. Box office rapidly declined, and the quarter ended down 25%. One positive detail we felt worth highlighting is that Cinemark modestly surpassed the industry box office performance by 20 basis points, which is an impressive feat given our comparison of 450 basis points outperformance in the prior period. We've now extended our trend to over indexing 40 of the past 45 quarters. Cinemark's consistency has been the cornerstone of our performance over the years. Consistency in terms of our financial results, balance sheet strength, operational and strategic execution, capital allocation strategy, and highly experienced management team. Our ability to deliver in these areas year after year in varied economic climates gives me confidence in our ability to continue to excel even as we adapt to an evolving landscape. Sean will now walk you through our first quarter results and liquidity position with a bit more specificity before turning it back over to me to cover our reopening plans. Sean?