The Erawan Group Public Company Limited (ERW) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the First Q 2024 Earning Meeting of The Erawan Group Public Company Limited. I am delighted to see you here by person. Let me introduce our management joining us here. Khun Youssef El Khomri, President. And the second one is Khun Apinya Ngamapichon, our new CFO joining from 1st of April this year, we have Khun Jetiya Kitiyodom, Assistant Executive Vice President from the Accounting Department; and Khun [indiscernible] Vice President from management -- financial management part. Without further ado, I will hand over this presentation to Khun Youssef.

Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you for coming today. So again, I just would like to introduce office Khun Apinya, who joined us on the first of April as our new CFO. So Khun Woramon, who you are very familiar with, she's still with the company. So she took up a new role as CFO for our HOP INN -- in our HOP INN company subsidiaries. So yes, so I think we can start the presentation for today. So we're going to be covering initially a summary of the first quarter performance as well as market outlook. We would also look at the industry overview our company performance and then the outlook for the remaining of the year. So for the tourism market, overall, the first quarter has been very strong for -- in terms of tourism for both Thailand, Philippines and Japan. In terms of tourist arrival, we see very strong growth Q-on-Q and also compared to last year. It was a quite of a large influx of Chinese tourists specifically to Thailand during the Chinese New Year in February. Philippines have seen also a good pickup of South Korean and American markets. And in Japan has actually fully recovered overall tourist arrival, which closed over 6% compared to 2019. So overall, the trend is positive. Tourism arrivals continue to grow, and we expect that to continue towards the end of the year. So in terms of target for this year, for Thailand specifically, we are on track for the THB 35 million, which is the consensus, and we expect that, that number will be achieved. For Philippines and Japan as well, of course, we expect the targets to be achieved. And China will be a key driver for the next few months in terms of tourism growth to these destinations. In terms of company performance, so we closed the first quarter with 11% RevPAR year-on-year. This was driven mostly by rate. So our occupancy was up by around 1 point occupancy compared to the Q1 last year, but RevPAR over 11% of rate has been a key part of the growth. So we still see a lot of opportunities in terms of pricing. The demand is really allowing us to price ourselves higher. We see also not only our hotels, but among the competitors that rates are increasing, and we see that trend continuing towards Q2 and remaining of the year as well. In terms of total revenue, so we've achieved THB 1.9 billion so which is 11% growth year-on-year and an EBITDA posted THB 700 million, which is a 21% year-on-year. So overall, a good performance, a strong start of the year. In terms of net profit, so we recorded a normalized net profit of THB 285 million, which is a plus 21% year-on-year growth and a net profit of THB 417 million in Q1, which is a 75% year-on-year growth. So overall, from a financial point of view, we're very satisfied with the start of the year. In terms of outlook, we expect Q2 to be a bit softer. So we are entering into a more of a seasonal period of the year. And historically, it has been the case where Q2, the performance are a bit slower. We -- however, we still expect that China will continue to do well in Q2. If we look at the arrivals from China so far for the month of April and May is still on par with what we've seen in Q1. Of course, excluding Chinese New Year, but the trend is either on par or even slightly up. So we see that China will be a key driver of growth for Q2 and the remaining of the year. India and Taiwan is also showing good signs. Taiwan is mostly due to the visa waiver, which is helping a lot. So we see good growth of arrival from Taiwan for Thailand, but also for our hotels. And India, we're expecting to see also more growth from India in Q2 and Q3. So these 3 markets will be the key driver for us in the second quarter. In terms of mix of business, the leisure market in Q2 has been quite strong in April and is looking also quite positive in May. However, the corporate market is softer. So the [ MICE ] hasn't really shown good results in our second quarter, and we see that across the market. The demand for group business has been a bit slower. But we see more inquiries for group business coming in June onwards. So we're expecting the corporate business to look better from them. So Q2 overall performance was still grow compared to last year, but of course, a smaller growth compared to Q1. Q1 has been quite a substantial performance, especially with the Chinese New Year. From a rate point of view, we see also the rate continued to increase in Q2 compared to last year. However, the growth is lesser than what we've seen in Q1. So that's overall where we see the trend going, and we will touch a bit later on more on the guidance and a bit more detail on the performance for the remaining of the year.

Thank you Khun Youssef for providing highlights of Q1. So now let's move on to tourist industry performance in Q1 of Thailand. So this quarter has been -- the performance is impressive. Number of tourist arrival was 9.4 million, grew 45% year-on-year and recover to 87% compared to pre-COVID level. So if we look at the bar chart on the left, the blue bar chart showing the monthly trend of tourist arrival, so we show there is a rise of number of tourists in February, supported by Chinese New Year period. In that period, we see a number of Chinese tourists grow to 30,000 per day compared to 15,000 per day in January. In terms of a percent contribution of the total arrival, the top 5 of the arrival is China, Malaysia, Russia, South Korea and India. Compared to the last quarter, we see the slight shift in the ranking between China and Malaysia. So this quarter, China become in the ranking number one. However, if you look at the recovery compared to pre-COVID level, the recovery was only at 57%, showing the room for improvement for the rest of the year. And we also see the increasing trend of Russia, which is categorized at European market. Moving on to the company performance. So the top 5 source market of The Erawan Group in terms of revenue, is China, United States, Thailand, Singapore and India. And in terms of the ranking, we see the variation in the ranking as well. So China become #1 in the ranking and replace of United States in the prior quarter. This is supported by Chinese New Year and the recovery of the Erawan Group of the Chinese tourist is on par with pre-COVID already. So this is showing our ability to draw Chinese tourists to our hotels. In terms of the Chinese, they are #1 ranking in mid-scale segment. And also top 5 of luxury segment as well. For the United States, they are top -- #1 ranking in luxury segment and top 5 in midscale and economy. And for Thailand mix, we show the drop in the mix. This is due to last year, we have Drive Tourism Scheme, which drive the traffic of Thai tourist to travel within the country. Also, in this year, we have a Holiday Inn Pattaya Renovation, which Thai people is the base of the customer. So we expect that after the renovation is done we can draw more Thai tourists to the hotels. Next is operating stats of The Erawan Group. So in this quarter, again, we -- the performance is very impressive, driven by the rate -- ability for us to drive the rate. So starting with occupancy rate first, on the diamond shape dot on top, our occupancy rate stood at 82%, so grew 1% from last year. And the average rate in the light blue bar is 1,972. So increased 11% year-on-year, with the increase in average rate. Our revenue par Y-on-Y rate increased 11% year-on-year. Now let's look at the operating stats by segment, starting from Thailand, which is our key market. So overall, occupancy increased 1% year-on-year, and the room rate increased 9% year-on-year. As a result, RevPAR increased 11% year-on-year. So looking at the occupancy rate by segment, all the segment show increase in occupancy rate, except mid-scale segment. The minus 5% of the occupancy rate was mainly due to the renovation of Holiday Inn Pattaya. So if we exclude the impact of the renovation, occupancy rate on the scale increased 2.5% year-on-year. And in terms of the average rate, other segment shows increased in the average rate, especially mid-scale and economy where we can deliver double-digit growth of the rate. As a result, average RevPAR increased 11% year-on-year. Moving on to international market. First, Philippines the occupancy rate is 79% increased 5% year-on-year and average room rate increased 8% as a result RevPAR increased 16% year-on-year. And for Japan, just to recap that, we opened 1 hotel in December and another 3 hotels in quarter 1 of this year. So we are doing ramping up process, so the occupancy rate, it is now 48%. And in quarter 1 and the average room rate is THB 3,000. However, we see a positive trend in April and May. So in April, it was a high season of the Japan. So our hotels in Japan occupancy is 70%, and we can deliver average room rate of around THB 3,700 and the trend continues in May as well. Occupancy is around 60%, and the room rate is around THB 3,000. So we expect to see the improvement along the year. So next is our financial highlights, supported by strong operating stat, our financial highlights also reflects that as well. Starting with normalized revenue first.Normalized revenue is THB 2 billion, increased 11% year-on-year, supported by our ability of the company to increase the room rate. As a result, our EBITDA was THB 703 million, increased 21%, supported by revenue flow-through and cost efficiency initiative, and normalized profit in this quarter is 285%, increased 21% year-on-year as well. So as our profitability increased with the faster rate compared to the revenue, our margin increased from last year. So EBITDA is 35.3%, increased 2.9% from last year. And our NPAT, the net profit is 14.3%, increased 1.2% from last year. Next is our financial position. So in terms of interest-bearing debt to equity, the interest-bearing debt increased around THB 250 million to support our expansion. The total equity also increased, driven by increase in profitability. So with equity increasing at a faster rate than interest-bearing debt, our D/E ratio is 1.6x, compared to 1.7x in the prior quarter and still under the covenant of 2.5%. In terms of average cost of debt, the average cost of debt rise to 4.5% compared to 4% in the prior quarter. In terms of liquidity, we still have sufficient liquidity on hand to support further expansion THB 1.3 billion cash on hand, [ 1.4 ] credit facilities in Thai Baht and JPY 472 million available. So now let me pass on to Khun Youssef to talk about the outlook of the company.

Thank you. Our guidance remains the same as what we presented last quarter. So we're still confident on the trend and the tourism prospect for this year. So occupancy, we expect this year to close between 80% to 82%. In terms of rate, we're expecting the average rate to increase between 5% to 7%. In terms RevPAR, RevPAR is 5% and total revenue 15%. As I mentioned earlier, I mean, one of the key driver for growth is China. So we see the trend of the Chinese market with the airlift, which is an important aspect of the business. The airlift is improving. So we see air traffic from China inbound to Thailand increasing. So that gives us also confidence that the remaining of the year will continue to be positive. We also see that the government policies have shown good results actually on the visa waiver, and we expect that also to continue and hopefully will be extended. Some of the headwinds, geopolitical uncertainty, again, so far, we don't see any impact to our hotel from the tensions in the Middle East or Russia and Ukraine conflict. However, we look at that carefully and assess it whenever needed. But so far, we don't see any impact. Economic growth, this is an area that we also look at carefully. Some countries have also entered into recession. But so far, we don't see any impact to our business or overall global tourism in terms of impact from the economy. However, that is something that we need to watch and see how it will evolve for the remaining of the year. For our key focus on the performance. Rate will continue to be one of the important part of our business. Demand is there. So we need to make sure that we maximize our pricing across all segments. So we will continue to put efforts on revenue management and yielding. Food and beverage is an area where we're still lagging and we're going to put more effort, both outlet and events for our 5-star hotels. So we need to put more efforts as well on that and improve the performance. But we see the trend looking quite positive for events from June onwards. And in corporate, especially international corporate, international [ MICE ] is an area where the overall Thailand destination is lagging and we're working on that, putting a lot of effort to make sure that we get a fair share of whatever is available in the market, but also creating more leads. And with China coming back is a lot of the international [ MICE ] is driven by China. So that's also an area that we expect it to improve as the Chinese market recovers. So that's how we see the trend for the year. I just want to touch a little bit more on Q2. So in April, we closed a 79% occupancy for our company, consolidate. In May, we are expecting to close around 80% and June around 81%. So overall, Q2, we're expecting 80% occupancy which is slightly down compared to Q1. Rates also will be down compared to Q1 due to seasonality. In terms of profitability, so we're expecting to not have much growth compared to last year. And one of the reason is because even though our revenue is growing in Q2, so we're expecting the revenue to grow between 8% to 10%, but profitability will have a bit of impact from depreciation of the new projects. So the Japan hotels that we acquired. Also Philippines, we have a new hotel coming up. So depreciation will have some impact in terms of profitability. But in all, I mean, we're still going to see a decent Q2 for our company. Yes. So that's on the guidance. On the pipeline, so we -- 2023, we closed at 77 hotels. 2024, we expect to close at 91 hotels. So we are well on track for achieving that. For our economy to luxury hotels, we don't have any openings. So the only project we have ongoing is the renovation of Holiday Inn Pattaya, which will be completed by August this year. And after that, we will have the full inventory back and we should see strong upside from that particular hotel. For HOP INN, we have 8 hotels opening in Thailand, 3 in the Philippines and then 3 in Japan. So all in all, will take us to 91 hotels by the end of this year. This is a bit of more detail to see the openings by quarter. So the first quarter this year, we opened 2 hotels in Thailand. Ayutthaya and Suphanburi. In Japan, we opened 3 hotels, Iidabashi, Asakusa and Uneo, these 3 are in Tokyo. In the second quarter, we opened North EDSA, actually North EDSA opened today or yesterday. When is North EDSA opening? Just opened, right? And Sriracha is opening tomorrow. And then Ratchaburi and Iloilo are upcoming so Ratchaburi of curse in Thailand and Iloilo in the Philippines. And the second -- the third quarter, we have 2 in Thailand, Nakon phanom and Prachuapkirikan and then Davao in the Philippines. And in Q4, we have Songkha and Prayao. So these are the upcoming projects for HOP INN in Thailand, Philippines and Japan for this year. So in summary, again, we've had a great start of the year. First quarter was good for us. We are expecting the year to continue to do well. Our focus will be on maximizing rate, of course, maintaining a good level of occupancy across all the segments. Cost efficiency, cost management is very important as well. So we're putting a lot of focus on that to make sure that we keep our profitability at the right levels. F&B performance for our 5-star hotel, key focus. For HOP INN, we've had -- for the hotels that we already opened, we had very good ramp-up. So actually for HOP INN in Thailand, the ramp-up, it takes less than a month to reach the average occupancy of the brand. For the Philippines, the ramp-up is taking a bit longer. Again, it's a new market for us. So we need the time to establish the brand. But as Khun Apinya mentioned earlier, the trend is positive, especially we had the Sakura season in which the hotels have done very well. We had many days with full occupancy. So that was a very good timing for us to launch the brand and establish the brand in the market. So that should help us moving forward. And again, we are on track to complete the remaining openings for the year. So that's on the summary. So thank you very much.