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2/17/2021
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Cedar Fair Entertainment Company's 2020 fourth quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this time, you will need to press star then one on your telephone. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero and an operator will come back on to assist you. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Michael Russell. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Amy, and good morning, everyone. This is Michael Russell, Corporate Director of Investor Relations for Cedar Fair. Welcome to our 2020 Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Earlier this morning, we distributed via wire service our earnings press release, a copy of which is available under the News tab of our investors' website, at ir.cedarfair.com. On the call with me this morning are Richard Zimmerman, Cedar Fair President and CEO, and Brian Witherow, our Executive Vice President and CFO. Before we begin, I need to remind you that comments made during this call will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Security's laws. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those described in such statements. For a more detailed discussion of these risks, you may refer to the company's filings with the FCC. In compliance with the FCC's regulation FD, this webcast is being made available to the media and the general public, as well as analysts and investors. Because the webcast is open to all constituents and prior notification has been widely and unselectively disseminated, all content on this call will be considered fully disclosed. With that, I would like to introduce our CEO, Richard Zimmerman.
Richard. Thank you, Michael, and thanks to everyone for joining us on the call this morning. We hope that you, your family, and your colleagues are well and staying safe as we move forward through this pandemic with the anticipation of getting it behind us. A year ago, We opened our fourth quarter call with news of record 2019 financial results and shared with you a very positive outlook for the year ahead based on a strong start to 2020. It goes without saying that much has changed since that call a year ago. What hasn't changed, however, is the company's mission to be the preferred choice for regional entertainment and to make people happy by providing fun, dynamic, and memorable experiences they can share with their family and friends year after year. As conditions continue to improve, we remain optimistic that Cedar Fair will not only return to, but surpass the record levels of performance we achieved before the pandemic. My optimism is not only rooted in our company's resiliency in recovering from prior macro disruptions, but also in how well positioned we are to take advantage of near-term growth and value creation opportunities, including the following positive indicators. First, Entering 2021, we have a loyal season pass base of 1.8 million passes outstanding, with our most active spring sales season still ahead of us, as well as our 2022 season pass sales cycle, which kicks off this fall. The efforts we've taken over the past year to maintain our relationship with our pass holders have been exceptional. A strong measure of this success is that we have received requests for and processed refunds for less than one-half of 1% of the season passes we sold for the 2020 season. We believe this high retention reflects our season pass holders' recognition of Cedars-Fair's unique and immersive entertainment offerings that are not only fun, but also local and authentic, offerings they can't find anywhere else. Second, Steadily increasing attendance at our parks last season and customer surveys showing a strong intent to visit amusement parks this year are solid indicators that demand should strengthen throughout the 2021 season. And third, with most of our revenues in EBITDA generated in the second half of the year, We believe the broader availability of vaccines during the year's first half, combined with pent-up demand for outdoor entertainment and a heightened focus on drive-thru destination vacations, will position us well to benefit from improving attendance trends during the most important stretch of the season. During very uncertain times last year, it was reassuring to watch our leadership team remain strong and resolute, while responding ably to one of the most difficult business disruptions imaginable. For that, I am deeply appreciative of our entire team for the sacrifices they made and their steadfast determination in managing through the challenges of the pandemic. Their efforts and our determination to reopen as many of our parks as possible, despite the challenges we faced, were rewarded both from a strategic and economic value perspective. As a result of our prudent planning and superb execution, today we are in a position of strength poised to benefit from resurgent demand. Before I ask Brian to review our financial results, I'd like to take a few minutes to update everyone on an initiative we began this past year to better position Cedar Fair coming out of the pandemic. As I mentioned on our last earnings call, like many other companies that saw their business models disrupted by the pandemic, We use this time as an opportunity to take a step back and review nearly every aspect of Cedar Fair. These efforts have been focused on a key objective, evolving and optimizing how we do business. Along these lines, we have identified opportunities to enhance the guest experience, create incremental revenue streams, and realize cost savings across the company. We are confident that these initiatives will collectively make Cedar Fair a stronger and more efficient company going forward. With these objectives in mind, we are implementing a business optimization program over the course of the next 12 to 18 months. It will consist of multiple initiatives focused on high value areas on both the cost and revenue sides of our business that will lead to a better guest experience and improve profitability. On previous earnings calls, we've referenced several of the initiatives already in process, including the optimization of our park advertising programs, the build-out of a centralized procurement function designed to reduce spending levels, improve product specification standards, and streamline our buying processes, and the introduction of new consumer-facing technologies aimed at improving customer satisfaction. We also remain laser-focused on the optimization of park-level labor. As we have previously noted, seasonal labor represents our single largest expense item, and it's an area that has been under significant pressure. To help address that, several years ago, we established a workforce optimization committee that was tasked with improving the efficiency and effectiveness of our labor models. We also began to implement a new workforce management solution, which will be fully rolled out to all of our properties in 2021. This new Kronos-based platform will provide better tools for managing our labor force in real time, as well as improved data analytics, enabling us to better align our staffing models with guest demand throughout the season. And, as we have proven in the past, Better staffing leads to a better guest experience, which in turn translates to improved attendance and higher guest spending levels. In addition to these efforts already in process, there are several other strategic initiatives still in ideation and analysis, many of which we anticipate activating yet this year. While it will take time to fully implement all the initiatives associated with our business optimization program, we are confident they will have a meaningful impact on the guest experience and our operating results. Ultimately, we are targeting 200 to 300 basis points of margin improvement on a revenue base that is consistent with 2019 performance levels, implying an EBITDA margin that could approach our highest historical margin when operating in a normal business environment. We will be in a much better position on our first quarter earnings call in May than to provide further detail on the progress of our initiatives. With that, I'll pause here to allow Brian to review our fourth quarter and year-end results in more detail. Brian?
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