Despegar.com Corp

Good morning and welcome to Despachar's first quarter 2022 earnings call. A slide presentation is accompanying today's webcast and is available in the investor section of the company's website, www.investor.despachar.com. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions at the end of today's presentation. This conference call is being recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in listen-only mode. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Ms. Natalia Nirenberg, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. In addition to reporting financial results in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, we discussed certain non-GAAP financial measures and operating metrics, including foreign exchange neutral calculations. Investors should read the definition of these measures and metrics included in our press release carefully to ensure that they understand them. Non-GAAP financial measures and operating metrics should not be considered in isolation as substitute for or superior to GAAP financial measures and are provided as supplemental information only. Before we begin, our prepared remarks allow me to remind you that certain statements made during the course of the discussion may constitute forward-looking statements which are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that will cause actual results to materially differ, including factors that may be beyond the company's control. These include, but are not limited to, expectations and assumptions related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and integration and performance of the businesses we acquire, including Best Day and Coins. For a description of these risks, please refer to our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and our press release. Speaking on today's call is our CEO, Damian Skokin, who will provide an overview of the fourth quarter and update you on our strategic priorities. Alberto Lopez-Hafny, our CFO, will then discuss the quarter's financial results in more detail. After that, we'll open the call for your questions. Damian, please go ahead.

Thanks, Natalia, and good day, everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings call and for your interest in the SPGAP. Our most recent results show that we continue to execute well against our strategy sustaining profitable growth. They also reflect how well positioned Despegar is in a recovering travel market. Omicron impacted demand levels once again, but this was limited to January and February, with the March gross bookings increasing 40% versus January's level. April was equally strong, as we show later in our presentation. For the quarter, gross bookings were 69% of first quarter 2019 levels of performing industry growth. On the other hand, ASPs were sequentially stable at $411, only 6% below the first quarter of 2019. For international transactions, however, gross bookings were 51% of the pre-pandemic levels. It is important to note that across our portfolio, the SPGAS recovery levels in terms of cross-bookings and transactions are higher than air industry growth vis-a-vis 2019. While we are focused on profitability overall, we're investing to gain shares in markets that are performing well, such as Colombia and domestic travel in Brazil. Our revenue margin was exceptionally strong at 14%, up 250 basis points versus first quarter 2018. Travel packages, hotels, and other non-air products accounted for 60% of first quarter revenues. These factors and our improved operational leverage in connection with cost of revenue combined to generate our highest gross margin since the pandemic began, 66.1% versus 66% in the first quarter 2018. We delivered our second consecutive quarter for positive aid justice EBITDA, which was also the highest level for the first quarter since 2018. Excluding COIN, EBITDA rose to over $12 million, even though bookings were still way below our first quarter of 2019 levels. At nearly $30 million, operating cash flow was also solid, as was our cash position at the end of the quarter. We also began the year advancing our M&A strategy with an agreement to acquire 51% of space, the leading channel manager in Brazil's vacation rental market, and adjusting product segments with significant growth potential. More recently, we signed an agreement to acquire 100% of ViaHana, one of Brazil's top travel sites. In a moment, I will elaborate on the ViaHana acquisition and also discuss the strategic alliance we are forming with MOBI in Colombia. Now, please turn to slide four. Now that Omicron is finally behind us and travel restrictions have been lifted in our market, demand has been recovered. The variant also coincided with seasonally slow period. Thankfully, in March and April, we observed the same recovery trend as those last October and November. As you can see in the graph on this slide, gross bookings in March and April reached 85% and 102% of first quarter 2018 levels, respectively. Of note, domestic bookings exceeded first quarter of 2018 by 7%. while international bookings were 51% of that quarter's levels. The recovery of international travel represents an important opportunity for us, as it is where Despelar has a particularly strong track record. On the right side of the slide, we have highlighted the restrictions that impacted travel demand in the quarter, notably Brazil's carnival parades, were postponed to April, while in Mexico and Argentina, travel restrictions were minimized. Slide five. We continue to make targeted acquisitions as another avenue of growth and comprehensive safeguards offered. More recently, we agreed to acquire 100% of Piajanet, one of Brazil's leading OTAs, with $30 million in annual revenues. In addition to expanding our presence in that important market, Piajanet brings a loyal customer base, air travel expertise, and a profitable business that has a great deal of potential when incorporating Espegal's non-air travel products. At the product level, 88% of Viajanet's gross bookings originate in the B2C China and 12% in B2B. Today, 98% of Viajanet's bookings are for air travel. So there's a huge opportunity to cross-sell Despegal's non-air inventory, such as accommodation and travel packages, which also command higher margins. There are other significant similarities that we expect to realize by plugging Despegal's technology platform into the AHAnet system, such as enhanced conversion rates and improved performance marketing capabilities. Finally, total consideration is approximately $70 million to acquire behind it. Let's now move to slide six. Colombia is another key market for us. To cap its large and rapidly growing BNPL market, COINS has established a strategic alliance with MOBI, one of the countries leading B2C and B2B filters. As many of you know, Colombia has a highly underbanked population with limited access to credit. also has fast-growing e-commerce market. The BNPL market there doubled in 2020. Moreover, in six years, BNPL transactions are forecasted to hit $4.5 billion, growing 40% per year. Mobi is expected to be an excellent partner for COVID, with over 3.5 million end users. Mobi has the largest base of active users in Colombia, to whom we can also cross-sell travel products. Mobi also offers the most electronic payments in the B2B segment. Mobi Payments Contractor is offered to more than 60,000 merchants. In Brazil, Coin continues to expand its merchandise beyond Decolar. In the first quarter, merchant TVB, excluding Decolar, increased 117% sequentially. It accounted for 21% of COIN's TTP. During the quarter, we also signed agreements with a number of important merchants, which we have listed on this slide. At the end of March, we had agreements with 92 merchants across verticals that include tourism, education, retail, and others. That concludes my portion of the presentation. Alberto, please go ahead.

Thank you, Damiano, and thank you all for joining us today. Please turn to slide seven to review our top line results. We delivered the highest gross profit since the third quarter of 2019 at slightly over $74 million, with gross margin recovering to the levels reported in the first quarter of the year. This solid performance was driven by a robust take rate together with lower cost of revenue. Actually, our take rate was exceptionally high this quarter at 14%. increasing nearly 100 basis points sequential note that revenues declined sequentially by 10 to 112 million dollars even when growth booking posted a slightly higher drop down 16 during the same period reflecting the impact of omicron in january and february revenues also benefited from our reversal in provisions, which resulted in positive net extraordinary cancellations totaling $2 million. Now, please turn to slide eight. We delivered the second consecutive quarter with positive adjusted EBITDA since the start of the pandemic. Excluding COIN, our fintech operation, adjusted EBITDA was slightly above $12 million, reaching 82% of first quarter 19 levels, despite gross bookings reaching only 69% of pre-pandemic levels. This improved performance reflects TESPEGAL's greater earnings power on the back of a linear operating structure, synergies, and revenue diversification achieved during the pandemic. With respect to COIN's impact on profitability, standalone adjusted EBITDA at our merchant payment operation was a loss of over $5 million as we continue to invest in scaling this operation. As Damian noted, we expect COIN to reach breakeven in the second half of 2023. Now, please turn to slide nine. We closed the quarter with cash and equivalents of nearly $286 million at quarter end, while our net payable position stood at $220 million, up 11% sequentially. During the quarter, Despegar generated operating cash flow of nearly $30 million, including $11 million provided by working capital. All in all, we reported net cash flow of nearly $7 million, up from both fourth quarter 21 and first quarter of the same year, when we generated $3 million and had a use of cash of close to $25 million, respectively. Note that given the anticipated resurgence in travel, we expect an increase in the use of open vouchers, which would have an impact on our cash balances in the following quarters. Now, please turn to slide 10 for a summary of important aspects of what was a strong quarter during which EBITDA expanded faster than gross moving, and we advanced our M&A strategy with two important acquisitions. First, our results reflect Despegar's increasing earnings power in our recovering travel market. Again, it was our second quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA. Although Omicron impacted travel in January and February, our gross bookings recovered to October's level in March and in April. We also achieved our highest gross profit with a corresponding margin at our third quarter 19 level. We benefited from an exceptionally strong revenue margin of 14% and lower installment costs decreased our cost of revenue. Excluding coin, adjusted EBITDA was 12.3 million and expanded faster than gross bookings, reflecting greater operational leverage. Regarding organic growth, We will expand Despegar's Brazilian presence with agreements to acquire Viajanet, a leading OTA that offers significant cross-selling opportunities among other synergies, and SACE, a leading channel manager in Brazil's fast-growing vacation rental market. Coin itself is expanding in Brazil as more merchants adopt its payment solutions, a success that we expect to replicate in Colombia with a new Movi partnership. And finally, we finished the quarter with a solid cash position of nearly $286 million. Now on to slide 11 for some quick remarks on our views for the coming months. First, as travel recovers in the region, we expect to build on our solid performance of the last two quarters supported by the strong underlying fundamentals of our business. We expect to maintain our positive EBITDA trajectory while gaining additional operating leverage. We also expect travel to recover to pre-pandemic levels by year-end and plan to continue capturing the greater upside potential of the international travel market, where we are strongly positioned. For the remainder of the year, we will continue investing in marketing activities that support the SPGAS brand, market position, and overall business, particularly in countries with promising recovery levels. Second, building on past M&A successes, we intend to complete the acquisition of the Ethernet in a timely way and to effectively integrate the business to achieve the various synergies that we highlighted earlier. And finally, at Coin, we are excited about further expanding our network of merchants and partners, not just for BNPL, but also for prevention, which is essential to any effective payment solution. Before opening the call for questions, let me remind you that we will be holding our second Investor Day on June 14th in New York City. We look forward to sharing with you more color on our markets, operations, business strategy, and midterm outlook. We are ready to answer your questions. Operator, please open the line for questions.

Thank you for our Q&A. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by 2. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from Alejandra Aranda from ITAU. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hi, good morning. Congratulations on the results. I have three questions, if I may. The first one is on gross margins for this year. And if you could give us a little bit of color of what to expect going forward to be a normalized level. Then my second question is, what should we expect for coin in terms of breakeven? When are you expecting that to happen? And what's the potential EVDA level coming from that operation? And the last question that I have, if I may, is when do you expect the acquisition to be completed? And if you could walk me through what you expect in terms of the P&L and working capital demand coming from this.

Okay. Alejandra Alberto speaking. I believe you can hear me well. So I will try to address the three questions. Damian, please jump in any time. On gross margin, we have finalized the first quarter of 22 with a gross margin slightly above 9% as percent of gross bookings. What we're seeing is going forward, we certainly see in markets that have recovered the most, and this is very much in line with the strategy and the principle of investment getting out of COVID-19. What we see, we see opportunities to increase market expenditure and to increase with lower margins to gain additional share in those markets. So that will translate into a gross margin in the upcoming quarter of around losing between 125 to 100 basis points vis-a-vis the 925. So going to approximately a gross margin of around 8%. Following that, clearly these margins are much higher vis-a-vis the margins that you have seen pre-pandemic. We believe that Despegar will be having a gross margin and also including sales and marketing and more than operating profit. that will be much higher, given all the synergies that we expect to capture from the different acquisitions and the streamlining of the cost structure. We are looking into, on our investor day on June 14th, to discuss what are the long-term prospects. But the 8% applies to provide some visibility onto the second quarter of this year. Second, with regards to your question on coin, As we noted on the remarks, we expect COIN to reach EBITDA break-even by 2023. Along the same lines, as we present more of the medium and long-term perspective for that business, let's wait for the investor day just to look at the overall Despegar Group results in that context for a longer-term perspective. But short-term, you should think that by the second half of 2023, the EBITDA coin should be at break-even levels. Then with regards to Via Janet, we expect the closing of the deal to occur by the end of Q2 or the very beginning of Q3. So that's the timeframe that we're working on. Our integration teams are already very focused on start extracting synergies well in advance of the closing. But that is why we're thinking about closing. With regards to cash needs for the business, there will be some at the working capital level. We don't expect that to be that material. And last but not least, in line with the way that we have been doing the payments for all the different transactions, the payment of the Ethernet acquisition also has a payment installment out of which, let's say, 60% will be required at closing. So hopefully, Alejandra, I have addressed your question.

Yes, thank you, Alberto.

You're very welcome.

Our next question comes from Kieran Kenny from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. First, a couple on take rate. Could you talk about the underlying drivers of the stronger take rate in 1Q, and then how you think about the sustainability of those going forward? And then on the back of that, could you just comment on the impact to take rate from the ViaGenet acquisition? Thank you.

Hi, Karen. Alberto again here. And so clearly we did present a very strong take rate. We were benefited marginally by cancellations. Cancellations levels for this quarter, first quarter of 22, were actually much lower than actually expected. With regards to the long term, what we're seeing is And we will also discuss that at the investor day. Remember, what we have been discussing so far is a take rate that has expanded vis-a-vis the pre-pandemic levels. Remember there, we were discussing a take rate of 11.5 plus percent. We're seeing a take rate expansion between, let's say, 50, 75, 100 basis points from that level. And we feel very comfortable that we can continue growing with that pricing level that will allow also to cover much better, much higher earnings power of the business going forward. I don't know if there was a second question, Kerry, but that is when it comes to T-Crate.

Yeah, and then what's the impact of T-Crate from the VH and acquisition? Have you sized that yet?

Yeah. And yes, and again, as you know, we do not look for competitive reasons. We do not disclose take rate information at a business line perspective or even for each one of the targets. You should assume that Viajanet, that is a 98% AR business, okay, has a lower take rate than the average take rate that Despegar has. Okay, but of course, Okay, we are looking into extracting strong synergies by improving the product mix that the Avianzenet consumer or customer has today. Okay, and we will address that at the investor day when we look at the overall takers for the company going forward. Okay, but we see ample opportunities to increase take rate as we integrate Avianzenet.

Got it. Thanks a lot.

Our next question comes from Kevin Koppelman from Cohen & Company. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. This is Emily on for Kevin. I just wanted to thank you for the update on the monthly gross booking trends through April. But I was wondering if you could provide us with an update on the latest trends in May to date. We noticed some of the large global OTAs and hotel companies noting a strong April, but stabilization of trends from there. And I was wondering how demand trends are looking in Latin America. Thank you.

Emily, hi, how are you? This is Damian. Thanks for your question. What we are seeing in May is sustainability of the April trend. Actually, the upward trajectory remains strong in May. And that has a lot to do with what we've been talking about over the last earnings calls regarding Latin America lagging behind the northern hemisphere in terms of recovery to pre-pandemic level. Our expectations are very much to point that the market will continue catching up. And we expect and our forecast in terms of that catch-up has been fulfilled completely in May, I would say.

Okay, thank you.

We have no further questions. I'll now hand back to Damien Skokin, CEO, for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator, and thanks everyone for joining our call today. As always, if you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. We'll be happy to follow up with you. We look forward to speaking with you again in our next call, but hopefully we'll speak sooner at our investor day next month. We wish you a good day to all. Thank you very much.

Today's call has now concluded. We'd like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.