Amadeus IT Group, S.A. (AMS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Amadeus New Segment Reporting Presentation. The CFO of Amadeus will run you through the presentation, which will be followed by a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I'm now pleased to hand over to you Mr. Till Streichert, CFO of Amadeus. Please, sir, go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As you remember, some years ago, Amadeus embarked upon a growth strategy to expand into new customer segments and activities. We believe we have successfully progressed towards that goal. And going forward, we will be presenting our information to you with more detail. We're pleased to announce today our new segment reporting, which we will use starting from Q3 2021. It will -- I will start by explaining what [indiscernible] consists off and then we will share the figures of the new segment side-by-side the old one and going back to 2019. Half year and quarterly data is provided in the appendix. We've also uploaded an excel file to our website with all the information for your convenience. Please turn to Slide 3, to go through the details of the new layout. It is relatively straightforward. We've broken out our IT solutions segment into 2. In one, the largest revenue caption will be airline IT and in the other the largest revenue caption will be hospitality. So from Q3 2021, we will report 3 segments. One will be the air distribution segment, which is very similar to the former distribution segment, but with a higher weight of pure airline distribution. The second, airline IT solutions, which includes results from both our airline IT and our airport IT businesses. And third, the non-air segment labeled hospitality and other solutions or HOS, which includes the results from our hospitality and payments businesses. For each segment, you will continue to have the same elements you had before, revenue, cost and contribution. Below contribution, we've got indirect costs. As in the former segment reporting, if we subtract indirect costs from group contribution, we arrive at EBITDA. For clarification purposes, group contribution indirect costs and EBITDA are unaltered by this new segmentation. Please now turn to Slide 4, for an overview of the changes made to the former segmentation to arrive at the new segment reporting. The new air distribution segment is fundamentally airline distribution, as the other distribution that is hospitality, car rental and insurance distribution as well as payments distribution business now form part of the third segment hospitality. The second segment, airline IT solutions, is the prior IT solutions segment, but now focused only on airline IT and airport IT. The hospitality and payments IT businesses, which were included in the former IT solutions segment will now be included in the HOS segment. Therefore, the third segment, hospitality and other solutions, is fundamentally composed of hospitality and payments, both the IT and the distribution business. Let's now review each new segment in more detail. For your ease of reference, we are going to review the new segments in terms of our 2019 figures first and then we will show you the new segments in our 2020 and first half of 2021 results. Please now turn to Slide 5. The new air distribution segment primarily includes our results from providing solutions to airlines, travel sellers and corporations for the distribution of airline content through our travel platform. In 2019, this new air distribution segment generated EUR2.944 billion in revenues and EUR1.324 billion in contribution, with a 45% contribution margin. As you can see on the slide compared to the former distribution segment in 2019, this new segment is a bit smaller in size as it no longer includes the hotel, car rental and insurance distribution as well as payments distribution that we mentioned before, which accounted for 6% of the former distribution revenues and contribution. Also, these other content and payments distribution revenues in aggregate grew faster than the rest of distribution. Therefore, comparatively, the new air distribution revenue growth in 2019 was a bit lower, growing at a low to mid-single-digit pace. It is true that in 2019 growth -- it is true that 2019 growth was impacted by the situation in India. If you recall, at the time -- at that time, our bookings excluding India grew by 2.7%, but including India, our bookings did not grow that year. In this new air distribution segment, margins are similar at 45%. Margins diluted in 2019 mainly as a consequence of competitive pressure on incentives paid to travel agencies. However, margin dilution in this new segment was somewhat lower than the report -- than that reported in our former distribution segment due to the absence of payments distribution whose growth was a driver of margin dilution in our reported 2019 performance. In this new air distribution segment, the growth drivers and the margin dynamics should remain quite similar to what they were in the former distribution segment and the key KPI for this segment will continue to be travel agency air bookings. If we turn to Slide 6, we show our distribution results in 2020 and into 2021. As you know, that was severely impacted by COVID-19 and we are displaying both under the new air distribution segment and under the former distribution segment. As you can see, the trends and dynamics under both definitions are quite similar. In the new air distribution segment both in 2020 and in 2021 relative to 2019, revenue declined resulting from the COVID-19 impacted volumes and it was coupled with margin dilution driven by the loss of scale and operating leverage partly offset by our fixed cost reduction plans. Please turn to Page 7, for the second segment. The new air IT solutions segment includes results from a comprehensive portfolio of technology solutions provided to airlines, airports and ground handlers, including among others the Amadeus offer, order and operation suites, data and intelligence suite, and digital experience suite for airlines and the airport management systems and passenger and baggage solutions for airport. In 2019, the new air IT solutions segment generated EUR1.820 billion in revenues and EUR1.355 billion in contribution, with a 74.5% contribution margin. The change in this new second segment is that hospitality and payments IT move into the third segment. In 2019, together, they accounted for 25% of the former IT solutions segment revenues and 14% of the contribution. In terms of growth, in 2019, the new air IT solutions segment revenue grew at a high single-digit rate of 9.5% driven by PB growth and an expansionary average revenue per PB in the period as a result of the positive revenue contribution of several revenue lines offsetting the dilutive impact from faster growth of low cost and hybrid carriers in our customer base. In this new air IT solutions segment, margins are higher than in the former IT solutions segment. And in 2019, margin evolution was dilutive driven by the lower capitalization ratio we had in the period. So to recap, this new air IT solutions segment will grow at a slower pace than the former IT solutions segment, which included the faster growing hospitality and payments businesses, but it will have higher margins. The key KPI for this segment will continue to be passengers boarded. If we turn to Slide 8, we display the former IT solutions segment results and the new air IT solutions segment results for 2020 and the first half of 2021. In the new air IT solutions segment, again, here, as you can see in 2020 and the first half of 2021, revenue declined by the COVID-19 impacted volumes coupled with margin dilution driven by the loss of scale and operating leverage, partly offset by our fixed cost reduction plans. Please let's turn to Slide 9 now for the third segment. The hospitality and other solutions segment is composed of hospitality and payments, including both the IT and distribution businesses. HOS includes the results from a comprehensive portfolio of technology solutions that we provide to hotels and other players in the hospitality space, as well as from the provision of our payment solutions to travel providers and travel sellers. In 2019, this new third segment generated EUR806 million of revenue, EUR296 million in contribution and had a contribution margin of 36.7%. In 2019, revenue reported in this segment grew at a double digit rate driven by the TravelClick consolidation and by the underlying double digit growth at both hospitality excluding TravelClick and the payments. Excluding TravelClick in 2019, growth in this segment amounted to 27%, margins diluted driven by the fast growth of payments distribution, a lower margin business. For this segment, due to the wide breadth of hospitality solutions that Amadeus offers, there is not a thing -- not a one or single operating metric that drives hospitality revenue. We have revenues driven by many different KPIs, properties, rooms, users, clicks, bookings, reservations, et cetera. Please turn to Slide 10 now for evolution in the new third segment in 2020 and the first half of 2021. As you can see, revenue growth was impacted by COVID-19, although to a lower degree than in air IT solutions. We saw margin contraction driven by the loss of scale and operating leverage, partially offset by our efforts to contain cost. Please turn to Slide 11 for a snapshot of the weights of the new segments within the Group. Again, we will review this under 2019 -- under the 2019 view first and then in 2020 and 2021, and there the weights have been distorted by the COVID-19 effect. Under the new segment reporting, in 2019, air distribution represented 53% of revenues, air IT solutions accounted for 33% of revenues, and hospitality and other solutions for 14% of revenues. With respect to contribution in 2019, 46% was from air IT solutions, 44% was from air distribution, and hospitality and other solutions accounted for 10% of Group contribution. Please turn to Slide 12 to finish. We are not yet in a position to provide you with an outlook for each segment. As the pandemic situation develops and drives the travel recovery curve, we will become better placed to share our views on how we expect each new segment to grow. Nevertheless, I would like to recap briefly on the revenue performance of each segment historically and today. In 2019, we saw growth at air distribution in the low to mid-single digit rates, air IT solutions revenues grew at a high single digit rate. With respect to hospitality and other solutions, we grew at a double digit rate. The growth dynamics we saw in 2019 were very similar to what we had seen in the past years and what we would reasonably expect or aim for as targets in normal circumstances. Today, in air distribution and air IT solutions, we will be very much driven by the volume recovery curve. These businesses are composed to a high degree by transactional revenues. We are seeing volumes improve every quarter and we expect to continue to make progress as we advance in the pandemic. Unitary revenue metrics are distorted at the moment, as you know. The revenue per air booking in 2021 will be diluted in the single digit percentage range versus 2019 and should remain pressured downwards, while booking mix remains with a higher than usual weight of domestic bookings. Down the line, as international travel recovers and the booking mix trends to where it was before, revenue per air booking should broadly go back to where it was pre-COVID-19. Revenue per PB is currently abnormally high and we expect this metric to continue to trend downwards as volumes recover impacted by non-transactional revenues. With respect to hospitality and other solutions, it is a bit different. We have a large variety of revenues here. Only about half of our revenue base in 2019 was transactional. And within these revenues that are transactional, there are multiple KPIs. Over the past quarters, we've seen our HOS revenues progressively improve from minus 46% versus 2019 in the last quarter of 2020 to minus 37% in Q2 of 2021. We expect our HOS revenues to continue to gradually improve with the evolution of the pandemic. With this, we finish the presentation and we'll be happy to answer any questions you may have, or please feel free to contact as well investor relations to help clarify anything that may not be clear. We have attached a supplementary material to this presentation, all the 2019, 2020 and first half of 2021 figures under the new segment reporting, that is quarterly revenue by segment as well as half year and year-end contribution by segment. We've also made an Excel file available on our website with all of this information. And with that we are happy to take any questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Michael Briest from UBS.

Good afternoon, Till. A couple from me. Just thinking about the cost base, can you give some sense of fixed versus variable costs within the division? I mean, how much on the air distribution would be related to incentives? And then just within air IT solutions, any flavor for the relative importance of airport IT and should we assume that is the only non-transactional revenues within that business? Because I heard you say that there's some distorting factors today, but I'm puzzled why PB -- revenue per PB this year when volumes are higher is sort of better than last year when volumes were lower, as if there was some sort of base of nontransactional revenues. And then finally just on hospitality and other solutions, can you talk about the margin progression for that business over time? Should we expect the profitability to improve from these levels?

Maybe I'll start in reverse order, and just a little bit of a view on hospitality and the way forward in terms of margins. Look, we've given you the margin in the HOS segment as a starting point. Both our payments and the hospitality business compared to our mature airline IT business and the distribution business are at an earlier stage in terms of its evolution. So these businesses in essence have not yet reached the scale or the scalability that basically those mature businesses have. So I would expect, and that's basically an opportunity as we basically gain further scale within the hospitality segment that also margins can grow. But bear in mind that within the hospitality -- within the HOS segment, we have a mix of different business lines and we've spoken about it before in terms of our CRS solutions, our PMS business, the media business. Those different business lines follow different KPIs and drivers. Approximately half of the revenue is transaction based and the other one, the other half, is basically following number of rooms [indiscernible] et cetera, et cetera. So there's also a little bit of a different dynamic underneath basically the revenue profile that we've got in this new segment. If I go back to the second question in terms of airport IT within the airline IT solutions segment, airport IT is important, but it is basically a smaller piece in the overall revenue equation. But nonetheless, as you know, our objective is to have many touch points and through that generate -- many touch points on the travelers journey when you start off from in essence looking and booking towards basically then boarding and moving through the airport. And through that, we also believe that we can generate synergies, and both of those segments follow -- both of those elements follow basically a little bit similar dynamic. And in terms of your first question, in the --.

Fixed and variable.

Yes, fixed and variable. We are not breaking out -- we are not breaking out the fixed and variable part as such as we've done before in that segment. So you've got a follow in essence the logic of what we display as cost of goods sold or variable cost that you see there and then you've got the indirect cost line that we've got below our -- below the segments.

So indirect is more the sort of fixed cost, is fair to say?

Yes.

The next question comes from Neil Glynn from Credit Suisse.

And if I could also ask 3, please. The first 2 with respect to air IT, maybe following on from Michael's question. The operating costs within that division has now presented of EUR388 million in 2020. It tied into the fixed versus variable element, but I wonder, can you give us some kind of feel for should we see much -- on the back of operating costs as PBs recover or per the guidance that we've had over the past 12 months, should we view that as pretty fixed, so it's not necessarily going to be PBs that drive any recovery in that cost line. Then second question on revenue per PB. Till, you were quite clear on your expectations with respect to the air booking revenue per travel agent or per air TA booking. Can you be as clear or can you be helpful in terms of how you expect revenue per PB to trend over the medium term? Should we be thinking about a 2019 level or should we see a structurally higher level, given some of the transactions you're striking? And then a third question, I know you've given us 2019 -- enough data before 2019, but you mentioned payments distribution growth was a driver of margin dilution in air distribution in 2019. Can you give us any kind of feel for the years before 2019 whether payment distribution growth also contributed to margin dilution before 2019 or not?

Okay, let me start with the first one, airline IT and operating costs. Those costs here are not variable costs, that's basically the fixed costs. So yes, as you say, that is fixed cost. The second question on the revenue per PB, we are in an extraordinary situation still and we have seen substantial growth rates in our revenue per PB compared to 2019. Just as a reminder, in the last quarter, it was about EUR1.4. And in 2019, it was just below EUR1 at about kind of EUR0.90 or so. So what I am saying is I do expect as basically the transactional elements in the revenue per PB line continue to trend upwards that also there you are actually not seeing this significant positive differential going forward. And look, I would expect that considering kind of normalization that it also goes back to basically pre-COVID-19 or 2019 levels roundabout, but it depends on the speed of PB recovery. And on your third question, the payments distribution business in prior years, so in earlier years, there was not as much growth. The growth actually was quite prominent in 2019. So speaking about the specific dilution effect that we had highlighted earlier, it is pretty much a 2019 -- or that is where it becomes visible.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Carlos Ais from Bestinver Securities.

Yes, thanks for taking my question and for providing these additional detail. I just have one question. I was wondering, if you could provide some detail on the CapEx breakdown by divisions. I know you've provided a lot of detail on the contribution margin, but I was wondering a little bit about the CapEx requirements for each business.

Yes -- look, on the CapEx breakdown, this is made available on an annual basis on the segment split. And I think we have included it actually in the information for the new segments, so it should be visible there.

You mean in the Excel file as you said?

Yes, I think it should be visible there. So -- and in the presentation, sorry, I don't have...

Complementary material.

Yes, in the supplementary material, actually, you can see those figures.

So disclosed by segment. Okay, thank you.

Yes.

The next question comes from Victor Cheng from Bank of America.

Just one from my side. Just thinking in terms of progression of the recover for air booking and PBs, is it correct on my understanding that air bookings is -- distribution side, a bit more skewed towards corporate. And as you've mentioned previously that right now recovery is leisure based, but air bookings -- or distribution recovery will lag a bit behind the broader air travel. And in that regard compared to your PBs and airline IT solutions, is it correct to think that PBs recovery should trend a bit closer to the broader air recovery? And then on that note then, how do we reconcile the PB growth that you have had in Q2 versus the broader travel industry? It feels like the PB recovery is a bit slower in that regard.

On the -- okay, let me just give you a bit of context on the recovery that we are seeing and then on the air bookings side and PB side. When we spoke last time at the end of Q2, we had basically progressive recovery every month both in bookings and equally PBs. And since then, we equally highlighted that in July and August we saw a little bit of a slowdown. North America was affected by the Delta variant, but other regions actually made up for it. So it was net, net basically a bit of a flattish situation. So -- however, we are equally seeing in September some green shoots and kind of some momentum, which we are happy with. Now, if I go into your question of the PB growth, on the PBs, we actually have grown kind of over the quarters pretty much in line with the industry. We benefited obviously from the fact that we've got a higher weight of -- that we've had a higher weight of Navitaire recovery. Navitaire had been leading the recovery curve. And with that, we actually benefited from it. And on the bookings side, look, leisure had been leading the recovery and that we saw in the domestic itineraries, but we are equally seeing that the weight of what we see through our travel management company bookings is actually increasing now also. So yes, it's true that the corporate segment, will probably going to take longer to recover, but equally we are seeing that there's pent-up demand. And -- look, time will tell how those volumes will continue to evolve.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions in the conference call. I will now give back the word to Mr. Till Streichert for the final remarks. Thank you.

Thank you for joining us today. And as said before, if you've got further questions, please contact Investor Relations. And we do look forward to speaking to you again at our Q3 results call. Thank you.