Cineplex Inc.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Cineplex Inc fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. We will begin shortly. If you would like to register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Please kindly only ask two questions to allow others the chance. Thank you for your patience. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Cineplex Inc. Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Daisy, and I'll be your moderator for today. If you would like to register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Please kindly only ask two questions to allow others the chance. I would now like to hand over to your host, Masa Rajali, Executive Director of Corporate Development Investor Relations, to begin. So, Masa, please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome. With me today is Ellis Jacob, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Gord Nelson, our Chief Financial Officer. Before I turn over the call to Ellis, let me remind you that certain statements being made are forward-looking and subject to various risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements are based on management's beliefs and assumptions regarding the information currently available. Actual results could differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could result cause results to vary include, among other things, the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, adverse factors generally encountered in the film exhibition industry, risks associated with other national and world events, discovery of undisclosed material liabilities, and general economic conditions. Following today's remarks, we will close the call with our customary question and answer period. I will now turn the call over to Ellis Jacobs.

Thank you, Masa. Good morning and welcome to our Q4 and year-end 2022 conference call. We are glad you could join us today. Before we review the fourth quarter results, I'd like to address two important topics that I know are top of mind with our investors, namely the industry box office recovery and Cineplex's strategies for continuing growth in the current economic environment. In assessing the future state of box office recovery, there are two primary drivers we are monitoring closely. First is consumer demand, and the second is content supply. We have been pleased to see demand for moviegoing increase since our theaters reopened. Looking back over the last year, there are many examples that stand out which demonstrate the resilience of moviegoing. In May of last year, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness delivered 75% more domestic box office revenue than the original release in 2016. Also in May, we saw Top Gun Maverick become the fifth highest domestic grossing film of all time after a remarkable 30-week run. Last July, Minion The Rise of Gru set a record for largest 4th of July weekend in box office history And a few months later, Black Panther Wakanda Forever broke the record for highest grossing November weekend of all time. And while negatively impacted by winter storms in North America during its opening weekend in December, Avatar the Way of Water has since demonstrated its staying power. Avatar is now the fourth highest grossing film of all time, crossing the $2 billion mark in global box office and still going strong and attracting audiences as we speak. These record-breaking results, and others like them over the past year, demonstrate a point you hear me say on each and every one of these calls. When there's compelling content, consumer enthusiasm for theatrical moviegoing is as strong as ever. Even more promising is that we continue to see significant growth in attendance for premium offerings, even in the midst of recessionary concerns. This quarter, we delivered an all-time quarterly BPP of $13.06, an increase of 6.3% over the prior year, and a CPP of $8.93, an increase of 19.2% compared to Q4 2021. These results are further validation than when guests enter our theaters, they treat themselves the full escape our venues offer. Investments and premium experiences in our theaters continue to deliver returns, as an impressive 50% of box office revenue in the fourth quarter was derived from premium formats. Not only is this a record for us, but it's also the highest percentage for any exhibitor in North America. Avatar, The Way of Water is breaking records when it comes to premium experiences, accounting for Cineplex's highest 40X, ScreenX, and VIP cinemas viewings in our history. Having said that, like our exhibition peers around the world, our business continues to be impacted by COVID-19-related production delays. Content supply remains a near-term industry challenge. For example, both Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and Shazam! Fury of the Gods were originally slated for the fourth quarter of 2022, but were moved into 2023. Such shifts and delays resulted in the overall volume of major releases in fourth quarter 2022 recovering to approximately 70% of the fourth quarter of 2019. These shifts also led to a few number of wide release titles in this quarter as compared to the fourth quarter of 2021, leading to lower year-over-year attendance. As we move forward, however, we have full confidence in the ongoing recovery of content supply as COVID-19 related production delays subside. Studios are clearly recognizing the promotional and financial value of a theatrical release window. We are still the engine that drives the train, and we are encouraged by recent large commitments from non-traditional studios. These commitments further validate the importance of the cinematic experience and the role theatrical exhibition plays in elevating content to its full financial potential. The remarkable performance of the horror film Smile proves exactly this point. Smile was originally slated for direct streaming, but instead was given an exclusive theatrical release. After nine weeks on the big screen, the film generated over $200 million at the global box office. As I referenced on our Q3 earnings call, last October we reached an agreement with Netflix for the theatrical release of Glass Onion, a Knives Out Mystery. The film performed extremely well and generated an estimated $15 million at domestic box office over a seven-day period in fewer than 700 theaters, including ours. And just last week, Amazon announced the exclusive theatrical window for the release of the Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Nike film, Air. These examples and others like them continue to highlight the power of theatrical exhibition in elevating the overall success of movie content. In addition to non-traditional studios, we are also broadening our content opportunities by expanding our distribution business, Cineplex Pictures. Last month, we announced a Canadian theatrical distribution agreement with Lionsgate for its 2023 film slate, which will bring 11 titles to the big screen and create additional distribution fees for Cineplex Pictures. We are excited to bring these titles to Canadian audiences, which include exciting titles Like John Wick Chapter 4, Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, and Hunger Games, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. This is in addition to the ongoing successful efforts we are seeing with alternative programming through Cineplex events, as well as the growing importance of international film product to our business. Without a doubt, Cineplex is an industry leader in international cinema programming, consistently over-indexing the North American market share, particularly with Bollywood product. Bataan, the recent Bollywood feature in January of this year, generated the highest ever opening weekend for a Bollywood title in North America, and even outperformed Hollywood's avatar, The Way of Water, then in its sixth week. Cineplex again took the number one position in North America with 27% of the market share for this film, and we continued to gross more than three times the domestic average in our circuit. We also saw great success with the film The Wandering Earth 2, which is now Cineplex's number one opening for a Mandarin language film. And of course, we were pleased to see RRR make Bollywood history as the first Indian feature film to be nominated for an Oscar outside of the international film category. The bottom line is that we are focused on expanding our content offerings to appeal to wider audiences and drive incremental attendance. While this doesn't fully close the content gap resulting from production delays, it gets us closer. This is particularly evident that Cineplex outperformed the fourth quarter North American box office recovery compared to 2019 levels by a notable 533 basis points. These results also benefited from our team's efforts to drive attendance through strategic marketing and loyalty initiatives. We will continue tapping into our rich customer data for personalized content engagement and targeted ScenePlus offers. This allows us to introduce moviegoers to alternative content, upselling campaigns to our premium experiences, and do everything we can to ensure our guests always have a memorable escape when they're in our venues. Speaking of venues, this quarter we celebrated the grand opening of our first Cineplex Junction location. This is a new concept for us that features multiple entertainment options, including movies, gaming, live events, and expanded food and beverage offerings, all under one roof. Our first location, Cineplex Junction Caldonen, opened to much fanfare in December in Winnipeg, Manitoba, sorry, replacing an older theater. Junction provides additional revenue per square foot by driving incremental attendance and spend from the expanded offerings. While it is still early days, Cineplex Junction Kildonan is performing extremely well with metrics exceeding our internal projections, which is welcome news as we work towards opening our second location in mid-2023. Our first junction location is a great example of asset optimization, a key focus for us in the current exhibition landscape. In addition to novel concepts like junction, we are also exploring other ways to optimize the results from our exhibition footprint. We continue to advance our data analytics capabilities to increase operating efficiencies, improve film bookings, and enhance our marketing efforts. Overall, we remain disciplined and focused on maximizing the use of our square footage and resources, driving attendance, and effectively managing costs. Turning your attention to our fourth quarter results, despite the 10.1% year-over-year attendance decline, our revenue grew 16.7% to $350 million and adjusted EBITDA increased 54.5% to $31.2 million. Looking at our segmented results, while exhibition performance was impacted by the content supply challenges that I spoke to earlier, Our diversified businesses delivered very strong fourth quarter results and continue being an important pillar in our growth. We are particularly pleased with our amusement and leisure segment, which continues to outperform pre-pandemic results on both revenue and bottom line metrics. During the fourth quarter, LBE same-store sales reached 2019 levels and P1AG same-store root revenue exceeded 2019 levels. In addition to strong top-line demand, B1AG and LV's record quarterly EBITDA results showcase our team's ability to effectively manage costs. On the media side, we remain encouraged by strong signs of recovery for Cineplex Media and Cineplex Digital Media, both showing significant improvement in overall revenues for the quarter. With further content supply and mall traffic recovery underway, we expect further momentum in these divisions moving forward. Overall, we are pleased with our fourth quarter results, which we believe illustrate the effectiveness of our strategies to manage the current fluid environment. Gord will speak to the numbers in more detail shortly, but before I pass things to him, I want to address the ongoing litigation with Cinnabon. As you know, Cineworld remains under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and we continue to work closely with our advisors to consider any value optimization opportunities. I have no further comment, but this remains an important priority for us. With that, I will turn things over to Gord.

Thanks, Ellis. I'm pleased to present a condensed summary of the fourth quarter results for Cineworld. For further reference, our financial statements and MD&A have been filed on CDAR. and are also available on our investor relations website at cineplex.com. Our MD&A and earnings press release include the fulsome narrative on the operational results, so I will focus on highlighting and quantifying some of the key operating results and provide commentary on our liquidity and outlook. As Ellis mentioned, we were pleased with our Q4 operating results. We reported adjusted EBITDA of $31.2 million, And although the film exhibition segment faced some film release schedule challenges, our diversified business model continues to deliver, with our amusement and leisure business reporting its strongest quarterly adjusted EBITDA ever. For the fourth quarter, total revenues increased 16.7% to $350.1 million from $300 million in the prior year. Net income was positive $10.2 million as compared to a net loss of $21.8 million in the prior year. And adjusted EBITDA increased 54.5% to $31.2 million from $20.2 million in 2021. In our film exhibition and content segment, box office revenues were approximately 66% of the pre-pandemic period for 2019. And total segment revenues were approximately 75% of the pre-pandemic period. The film exhibition and content segment adjusted EBITDA, $4.6 million, decreased from $9 million in the prior year, primarily related to the attendance decline, which Ellis mentioned in his remarks. And this was due to fewer releases this quarter due to schedule shifts. On the media side of the business, we reported fourth quarter media segment revenue of $44.1 million as compared to $32.5 million in the prior year. The increase was primarily due to cinema media revenue per patron, increasing 25% to $3.33 from $2.42 in the prior year. In comparison to the pre-pandemic period, Our media segment revenue was approximately 64% of our Q4 2019 levels, but this was impacted by strong hardware sales in Q4 2019 with one client in our digital place-based media business. If we exclude hardware sales, our overall media segment revenue would be approximately 71% of Q4 2019 levels. The results in our cinema media business are encouraging as we generated 72% of Q4 2019's level with 55% of the attendance level. Our overall Q4 media segment adjusted EBITDA increased to $29 million from $19.3 million in the prior year with segment margins increasing to 65.7% from 59.5%. As we continue to see growing traffic in our cinemas and in malls, we expect to see further recovery in our media businesses. Our amusement and leisure segment had another incredible record-breaking quarter. This business segment continues to outperform the pre-pandemic period on a top-line and bottom-line basis. Segment revenue increased to $71.8 million as compared to $51.2 million in the prior year, and segment EBITDA increased 70% to $13.7 million from $8.1 million in the prior year, with combined margins of 19.1% as compared to 15.8% in the prior year. Our amusement and leisure segment total revenues exceeded pre-pandemic levels, coming in at 115% of Q4 2019 levels. G&A expenses increased 2.5% to $16.2 million from $15.8 million in the prior year, primarily due to increased payroll costs as a result of a decrease in wage subsidies and increased costs related to certain digital and technology initiatives, partially offset by reduced litigation and advisory costs. These items are described in more detail in our MD&A. For the fourth quarter of 2022, we reported net CapEx of $20.5 million as compared to $4.4 million in the prior year. Included in the CapEx in the fourth quarter is approximately $4.4 million related to the distribution of projection assets on the windup of CDCP. Full year 2022 CapEx came in at $53 million, well below our earlier guidance as we responded to the shifting film slate. For 2023 and beyond, we will continue to be prudent with our growth initiatives. Our guidance for net capex for 2023 is reduced to approximately $60 million. Before discussing our liquidity position, I wanted to briefly touch on two additional items, taxes and impairment reversals. First, I want to remind you of the benefit of the tax asset that was de-recognized during 2020 as a result of uncertainties related to the pandemic. As described in Note 8 of our year-end financial statements, we currently have non-capital losses totaling $436 million to utilize against future periods, and as such, you should expect minimal cash taxes over the next two years. We continue to evaluate the recoverability of these deferred tax assets and will recognize such assets when and if appropriate. Second, in addition to the deferred tax assets, as our business continues its recovery and returns to profitability, the reversal of a portion of previously recognized impairments may be appropriate. During the fourth quarter of 2022, we recognized a net reversal of previous impairments of long-lived assets of approximately $20 million. In other words, a pickup primarily related to the LBE portfolio. This segment has been experiencing significant improvement in business volumes and operating results throughout 2022, and we saw results approach or exceed pre-pandemic levels. I'd be happy to answer further questions about these items in the Q&A, However, I would like to move on for the time being and speak to our balance sheet, in particular, our liquidity position. For Q4 2022, we reported net repayments of $5 million under our credit facilities, which left us with $327 million drawn and approximately $204 million available under our credit facilities as at December 31st, 2022. We resume financial covenant testing in Q4 and we're compliant under the two leverage covenants with total leverage at 3.69 as compared to a covenant of 3.75 times and senior leverage at 2.15 times as compared to a covenant of 2.75 times. During the fourth quarter, we approached the bank group and received their support to extend the maturity of the credit facility by one year to November 13th, 2024. This extension provides us with additional timing and flexibility during the current turbulent economic environment as we look forward for opportunities relating to our capital structure and cost of capital. I would now like to address the macroeconomic factors in today's environment, including the recessionary concerns, inflation, and interest rates. With respect to any recessionary concerns in the economic outlook, it is important to note that the exhibition industry has fared extremely well during past recessionary cycles. As consumers trade down their out-of-home experiences, moviegoing becomes the affordable option. In fact, during seven of the last nine recessionary periods, box office revenues increased. As we contend with rates of inflation that haven't been seen in decades, it is important to understand the overall cost structure of an organization to weigh potential impact. For Cineplex, our top four cost categories make up approximately 75% of our overall costs. Film cost is approximately 25% of our overall costs and is 100% variable based on the related box office revenues. Rent and occupancy related costs represent approximately 20% of total costs and are typically contractual and fixed in nature. Payroll-related costs are approximately 20% of total costs and are subject to wage markets and minimum wage impacts. Finally, food costs represents approximately 10% of our overall costs, and this is a cost category that is impacted by inflationary pressures. As you can see, our cost structure is not as significantly impacted by inflationary cost pressures, but to the extent that we do experience cost pressures that we cannot offset through other means, We are confident Cineplex can turn to pricing as others are doing. The last macroeconomic factor I want to discuss is the interest rate environment. We believe we are well positioned in this regard. Cineplex is currently in an over-hedged position with our bank credit facility. We have hedges totaling $450 million at fixed rates between 2.83% and 2.945%. maturing between November 2023 and November 2025. In addition, our $250 million high-yield offering is fixed at 7.5%, and our convertible debenture is fixed at 5.75%. As we look at our balance sheet, our capital allocation strategy is to remain focused on delevering and strengthening the balance sheet as we navigate towards our target leverage range of 2.5 to 3 times. Since fully opening without restrictions in April 2022, we have generated positive adjusted free cash flow. We expect this trend to continue as business volumes increase. And during the next year or so, we will continue to define and move towards our optimal capital structure. So let's recap by segment. In the exhibition segment, product supply issues resulted in box office revenues at 66% of pre-pandemic levels, and total revenues at 75% pre-pandemic levels, demonstrating the ability to drive more revenue off of our attendance base. Pre-pandemic, this segment had an EBITDA margin of 14.8% in 2019. And given the high cost structure of the segment, our EBITDA margin was 3.1% in a COVID and product supply challenged year in 2022. We continue to focus on revenue opportunities, such as our online booking fee and cost management, including our fixed costs. And as product supply stabilizes, this segment will benefit in the future. In the media segment, we achieved revenues, excluding hardware sales, of approximately 72% of Q4 pre-pandemic levels and reported strong growth in cinema media revenue per patron. We are excited for this area as product supply stabilizes and attendance levels return, including continued mall traffic growth, which approached 90% of pre-pandemic levels in Q4, despite the challenging influenza season. With the media segment's low fixed cost base and annualized margins of approximately 55%, This segment is also poised to benefit from further recovery and contribute to overall EBITDA. And finally, in the amusement and leisure segment, we are already exceeding pre-pandemic levels in revenue, EBITDA, and segment margins, which were 19.1% in Q4. We look forward to continued success and growth in this segment. We are also being prudent in managing our CapEx. And as I mentioned earlier, we have reduced our guidance for 2023 CapEx to $60 million from $100 million, and we'll focus on projects delivering the highest and most immediate returns. Our investment in the diversified business model is paying off, with the growth in the amusement and leisure segment helping offset the challenges and recovery in the exhibition segment. And as Alice mentioned, there's a lot for our exhibition business to be excited about, And with that, I would like to turn things over to Ellis for closing remarks.

Thank you, Gord. Looking ahead, we remain optimistic about the future of our business. Our investment in diversification is paying off as we continue to see growth and record results in our amusement and leisure businesses. We have high confidence in the ongoing recovery of content volume and box office and our team's ability to capitalize on the opportunities that lay ahead. We are excited by the robust slate of blockbuster and international film product for 2023, and off to a great start to the year with January's box office coming in at 88% of 2019 levels. For the remainder of Q1 2023, just to name a few, we have the following. Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania, which is releasing next week, and the pre-sales results so far are fantastic. Disney's Bollywood Feature, Selfie, Scream 6, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, John Wick Chapter 4, and for the remainder of the year, we have Super Mario Brothers, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, Fast X, The Little Mermaid, Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse, Indiana Jones 5 and the Dial of Destiny, Mission Impossible 7, Dead Reckoning Part 1, Dune Part 2, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. In closing, we remain focused on maximizing value across all our businesses and driving shareholder returns. With the backdrop of recessionary concerns, Cineplex is well positioned to provide an affordable and compelling entertainment experience that can't be replicated at home. The consistent discipline we have placed on capital and cost management and revenue and margin generation will serve us well for years to come. That concludes our remarks this morning, and we would now like to turn the call over to the moderator for questions. Thank you.

Thank you. As a reminder, if anyone would like to register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure you are unmuted locally. And if you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. Please kindly only ask two questions to allow others a chance. As a reminder, that staff live by one to register a question. Our first question today comes from Derek Lessard from TD Securities. Derek, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yeah, good morning, everyone. Glad to see some positive trends back in the business. My first question is, is I was curious, and Gord, you might have alluded to this in the pricing, but as you look out further on the box office and opportunities around pricing, I know it's a difficult balance. Just wondering if you think there's any opportunity to enhance the pricing model through things like dynamic pricing or through your loyalty program. Just curious on your thoughts there.

It's Ellis, and bottom line, as we mentioned in the script, we have basically provided our guests with so many different experiences, which allows us to have different pricing levels and helped us drive our BPP higher. And we will continue to look at opportunities, and we feel that it's really important for our guests to have that incremental benefit of coming out of their homes and experiencing something they cannot replicate. So we will continue to look at that. And from a pricing perspective, as you know, Cineplex was one of the first companies to introduce Tuesday pricing many, many years ago. And we continue to look at opportunities as it relates to pricing with different age groups, with different time of day, and all kinds of opportunities that are available.

Okay, thanks. And maybe just one last one for me before I recue. Gord, you did talk about the reduced guidance on CapEx and it being limited to high-return projects. Maybe you could just add some colours to what you're thinking. Is there maybe the split between, you know, the spend between theatres and rec rooms and other projects on the books?

Sure. So, and I've broken it down into various categories historically. So, you know, from a maintenance CapEx perspective, you know, I'm guiding you in sort of the range of $20 to $25 million in an annual basis for growth and premium. So, that would include new locations as well as adding premium initiatives roughly in the $15 to $20 million range. You know, our media business, and it's primarily digital media to the extent that we have new external customers, you know, somewhere in the $5 to $10 million range. P1AG, very similar. There's maintenance CapEx levels, and there's new customer CapEx costs in a range of $5 to $10. And, you know, Corp, another roughly $5 million. So, you know, a range of between $50 and $70, and so, you know, say the midpoint guidance of $60. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Mayor Yagi from Scotiabank. Mayor, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes, thank you for taking my questions. I have two questions for you guys. I wanted to just go back on Q4 in order to better understand and appreciate what could be ahead. You know, by no means this is Cineplex Cineplex fault, but more of an industry situation where we saw a good difference in actual results versus initial expectations on the box office side due to some shifts in movie releases. Ellis, when we look forward, how would you qualify your optimism for 2023 in the context of these continuous push-outs of movie releases as we saw in Q4. I'm just trying to make sure we remain grounded in our expectations and make sure that we're aligned with what's happening in terms of movie releases. And my second question is on BPP. So you had a very strong print on BPP. I wanted to understand a little bit what drove that number, how much of the increase was due to Avatar versus other movies, just so that we can maybe model it properly as we go back maybe to regular releases rather than a three-hour movie release like Avatar. Thank you.

On the question as it relates to product, when you look at the 2023 film slate, it looks much stronger than the last three years from an overall release perspective and also the blockbuster titles that are coming through. I still feel that it's going to take a year or two before we can get back to the 2019 levels. But what we are seeing, as I mentioned in the script, is these big titles are performing significantly stronger now compared to their original releases. And if that continues, we should have a strong year with less blockbusters, but being able to deliver a strong revenue as we move forward. The attendance will probably be impacted, but how significant that will be will depend on the results we see from some of the big movies that are coming out. So hopefully that answers your question as we move into the second, third and fourth quarters. The other thing is we have done extremely well in international product and we feel that that's a good opportunity and we will continue to do that, use our data, use artificial intelligence to drive more people and more diverse guests into our theaters across Canada. And you saw in the first month of January, we came 88% of the 2019 numbers, and Patan and Wandering Earth 2 were both very big films for us, and we did extremely well. And we are continuing to do that as we move forward, and there's some other big Bollywood films expected for the balance of the year, and also Mandarin, Arabic, Persian, and other films, Filipino films that we see doing very well for us moving forward.

And, Mar, just, you know, we do disclose in the box office revenue discussion in our MD&A The percentage of box office in any given quarter, that comes from premium product. This quarter, as we mentioned, it was 50%, which showed that the audiences wanted to see Avatar and some of the other product in a premium offering. Now, that compared to 47% last year and 41% for the full year. So as you go in quarter by quarter, you'll see through our disclosures the impacts that the premium mix is having on our overall BPP.

Right, Gord. So I was just trying to figure out with the mix as it is, how much of it was impacted by Avatar versus, you know, are we seeing a steady increase in premiums it's being sold across the board or it was mainly due to Avatar. That's what I'm trying to understand.

Yeah, so I would say about 20% of it was due to Avatar.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Adam Shine from National Bank Financial. Adam, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks a lot. Good morning. So obviously, good run through on the various segments. I don't want to rehash a lot of what was said, Gord, but If we take some of what Ellis was talking about in terms of a revitalization of the box office evolving over the course of the next year or two and the incremental prudence in regards to stepping down on the CapEx score per what you said, we saw you squeak by on the Covenant testing in the Q4 and certainly no changes there. in terms of amendments to the credit facility. So can you speak just a little bit more in terms of perhaps how you see the early phase of Q1 unfolding? Ellis is talking about, you know, more products certainly coming post-January, but in the meantime, Avatar has certainly done its job to backfill January. So maybe touch on how you're looking at the positioning around the covenant, particularly acknowledging, you know, the 25B stepped out, number one, And then perhaps number two, partly related to that, there was a much bigger performance out of other. And I know we don't want to fixate on that per se. And part of that, at least $5 million related to the booking fee. But how should we think about the other line going forward? Because you certainly seem to be getting incremental traction there than even back in 2019. Thanks.

Yeah. So thanks, Adam. And I fully expect the question about sort of what the EBITDA levels are that we would require in Q1 to sort of hit that test. And so in advance of getting that question, the amount is roughly about $36 million. We were very encouraged by the start of 2023, and we released our January box office results um in today's press release at 88 percent um of the 2019 levels um and as i was mentioned we're encouraged about product coming out and and in particular for the remainder of the year um so um you know so at this juncture um you know we're encouraged by where was what we'll see in january um and uh are encouraged by the product for the rest of the year um and then um on your Your second question. Sorry, the other revenue. Yeah, thanks. I'm just getting the reminders. So thanks so much. So another revenue, I'm looking for the, and our focus is on to drive, you know, other streams of revenue for the organization. And, you know, so elements you discussed, the online booking fee, I was discussed, you know, a bit about, you know, our Cinebox Pitchers initiative. So I would say, you know, if you were to look at, you know, where we were in Q4 of 2022, you know, and looked back to the pre-pandemic period, Q4 of 2019, we're up roughly $14 million in those two periods. And it was roughly equally split an increase between increases in the online booking fee Um, additional margins, um, on, uh, drive through scene, um, and additional breakage revenue on our gift cards and corporate. Certificates, um, coming out of the pandemic.

Okay, so you did mention pictures though. Is that is there something related to that? Be it a distribution fee or something else that will be coming through other at some point going forward.

Yes, yes, you will see that moving forward. And obviously, we just initiated that, so there's very little coming from – the Winesgate arrangement was announced in January, so what you saw in Q4 was a very small amount related to other projects.

Okay, I'll leave it there. I appreciate it. Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Aravinda Galapatia from Canaccord Genuity. Aravinda, please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. A couple for me on the media side. I think the Q4 margin was sort of particularly attractive, I think, if you kind of back into it, I think north of 70%. You know, I know that even with some headwinds in the media, you seem to be sort of managing the cost there. I was wondering if you can kind of Give us a sense of what we should be looking for as we look to kind of project that margin forward. And then in terms of ad trends, Alice or Gord, maybe just talk about what you're kind of getting in terms of feedback from the sales team and from clients, you know, recognizing the macro, but also sort of, you know, your sort of specific targeting capabilities. I'll leave it there.

Okay, thanks. So, Aravinda, I'll take the first question on the margins. And, you know, as we've described historically, and particularly the cinema media advertising business is a very high margin business. In that segment, we do not, there's no charge from the exhibition segment to the media segment for access to the theatres. So, on the increment, You can imagine that the revenue is very accretive to the bottom line because it's a relatively low fixed cost business and that primarily the additional costs on any revenue generated is sales commissions. On the digital place-based media business, there's a technology component to it. There's a licensing of technology, so it's a lower margin business than the cinema media business. but we blend into the number that I described earlier, which is roughly about a 55% segment margin for the entire media segment. So, you know, as that volume grows in the future, that has huge bottom line contributions to our overall results.

And Arvinda, on the actual future, as we look forward, the numbers are still, you know, very strong and our advertisers at the cinema level basically look at that as the best opportunity to get the message across. And on the digital media, we've got mall traffic returning very close to pre-pandemic levels, and it's a great way for our advertisers to get their messages across. We feel even with the recessionary periods, we feel quite strong that our business will continue to move forward.

Thank you. And just a quick follow-up, and I apologize if I missed something that was said earlier. With respect to CPP, given the inflationary conditions and the execution that you've been able to deliver recently, Do you sort of see, you know, more kind of, you know, CPP level growth, you know, going into 23? Do you think that's something, as high as the levels are, do you feel that's achievable?

Sorry, as high as sort of the historic numbers? Is that what you're asking about? Yeah. We've seen over the last couple of years. Yeah. Yeah, so Aravinda, I want to just make a couple of comments on that. One is, you know, in the pandemic, I think we all sort of noted and saw that there was an accelerated level of growth in CPP, you know, significantly over levels that we had seen historically. So in the mid-teens, in certain quarters. You know, at the time, we had always said that level of growth is not necessarily achievable on a long-term basis. But what we are seeing is that you know, our customers that are coming in, they definitely want to indulge in the overall experience and they want to spend at the concession stand. So now that we've returned and had a number of quarters back at sort of a more normalized kind of business without any operating restrictions is, you know, you'd expect a more normalized level of growth going forward from a CPP perspective.

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. Our last question today comes from Drew McReynolds from RBC. Drew, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks very much and good morning and congrats on all the moving parts coming back to normal. Two for me. One is, Gord, you alluded to the media revenue that you're generating relative to the attendance for Cineplex Media. Can you just kind of remind us, and obviously I will equate the dollars, but what would you expect in terms of revenue uplift, you know, as attendance continues to build through 2023? And then second question, you highlight the defensibility of a box office, which I think we all fully acknowledge. On the location-based entertainment and the amusement, businesses. Can you just remind us what kind of cyclical exposure or sensitivity from your perspective these two businesses could have? Thank you.

Sure. So on your first question is, you know, I think one thing from our perspective is cinema advertising has and always will be a compelling medium for advertisers. And as we look forward, as I mentioned, you know, this great traction you know, confidence in placing ads across our screen. The one thing is we've focused over the last number of years on our data capabilities and providing advertisers what they're looking for in terms of determining returns and the data related to some of their campaigns, which is a really compelling and a value-added offering that others don't do. We started to introduce and talk about the cinema media per patron. You know, I'd like to highlight that, you know, our statistics tend to significantly outperform our peers, in particular in the U.S. markets, and that has to do with some of the, you know, the initiatives that we're undertaking to deliver more value and opportunities, the opportunities to our customers in the cinema environment. And on your second question, it was related to kind of LBE and And one thing I want to talk about is particularly with respect to P1AG is some of the seasonality with respect to P1AG. And one thing to remember is that primarily related to amusement gaming, the route business, so this is where our equipment is in third-party venues, drives a significant amount of the overall margin. That's the higher margin component of the business. It performs stronger during sort of the Q2, Q3 summer months. when students are off on school holiday. So when you look at cyclicality and seasonality, that's a trend and as you saw, some of the higher margins in Q2 and Q3 in the LBE space, once we hit the fourth quarter and the mix shift and the product shift changes a little bit, it goes down, but we're still confident with the 15 to 17% overall blended EBITDA margin for the P1EG business on an annualized basis.

Super. And Sorg, we're just on the location-based entertainment. Okay. Sorry.

And the LBE business. So, again, you know, we're really pleased with, you know, the achievements that we did versus pre-pandemic period. Because if you remember, the business performed, you know, quite strong in the summer period. Again, very similar types of thoughts. It's, you know, it's holiday season. but also during Q4, particularly with the holiday parties. And we do a significant amount of our business on corporate parties and events. And so if you're looking at seasonality in the LBE business, it would be more heavily weighted to Q3 and Q4.

Got it. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. I would now like to pass back to Ellis for any closing remarks as we have no further questions.

Thank you everyone for joining the call this morning. We look forward to speaking with you again in May for our first quarter 2023 results. Thanks again and see you at the movies.