The Marcus Corporation (MCS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Marcus Corporation's second quarter earnings conference call. My name is Jonathan, and I will be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will conduct a question and answer session towards the end of this conference. If at any time during this call you require assistance, please press star zero and an operator will be happy to assist you. reminder, this conference is being recorded. Joining us today are Greg Marcus, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Chad Paris, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of the Marcus Corporation. time, I'd like to turn the program over to Mr. Parris for his opening remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning and welcome to our 2026 second quarter conference call. I need to begin by stating that we plan to make a number of forward-looking statements on our call today, which may be identified by our use of words such as believe, anticipate, expect, or other similar words. risks and uncertainties, which may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expected or projected in our forward-looking statements. These statements are only made as of the date of this conference call, and we disclaim any obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. The risks and uncertainties which could impact our ability to achieve our expectations identified in our forward-looking statements are included under the heading forward-looking statements in the press release we issued this morning announcing our 2026 second quarter results. And in the risk factor section of our fiscal 2025 annual report on form 10 K. which you can access on the SEC's website. Additionally, we refer you to the disclosures and reconciliations we provided in today's earnings press release regarding the use of adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure, in evaluating our performance and its limitations, a copy of which is available on the investor relations page of our website at investors.marcuscorp.com. All right, with that behind us, let's begin. I'll start this morning by spending a few minutes sharing the results from our second quarter and discuss our balance sheet and liquidity. I'll then turn the call over to Greg, who will focus his prepared remarks on where our businesses are today and what we see ahead. We'll then open up the call for questions. This morning we reported our best second quarter since 2019, and it was a quarter where the intersection of strong demand and both businesses outperforming their respective industries and concepts combined to deliver new post-pandemic second quarter records for consolidated Marcus Corporation revenue and adjusted EBITDA. As we shared on our last call, the second quarter got off to a strong start in our theater division with the Super Mario Galaxy movie creating great momentum heading into a strong slate for the summer movie-going season. Audiences headed to our theaters for one great movie after another to deliver several positive surprises and our strongest second quarter in theaters since the pandemic. In our hotel division, we continue to benefit from strong group business and resilient leisure travel demand that drove overall revenue growth and another quarter of performance against our peers and the industry. Overall, we are very pleased with the second quarter results we reported this morning. Shifting to the numbers, I'll start with a few highlights from our consolidated results for the second quarter of 2026. Consolidated revenues of $232 million were up 12.5% compared to the prior year quarter, with revenue before cost reimbursements growing in both divisions. Operating income for the quarter was $27 million, more than doubling compared to $13 million in the prior year quarter. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was 46.2 million, a 43% increase over the second quarter of 2025. And finally, net earnings for the quarter increased 116% to 15.8 million, and net earnings per share increased over 121% and $0.51 per diluted common share, both compared to the prior year second quarter. According to our segment results, I'll begin this morning with our theater division. Second quarter 2026 total revenue of 150.6 million increased 14.4% compared to last year's second quarter. Comparable theater admission revenue for the second quarter increased 16.6% and comparable theater attendance increased 10.9% compared with our fiscal second quarter 2025. According to data received from Comscore and compiled by us to evaluate our second quarter results, U.S. box office receipts increased 11.5% during the 2026 second quarter compared to U.S. box office receipts during the second quarter of 2025, indicating our admissions revenue outperformed the industry approximately five percentage points. We believe that our box office outperformed during the second quarter was primarily attributable to strategic pricing actions as well as favorable films, a favorable film slate that featured a higher mix of films that played well in our Midwestern markets, particularly family films. This contrasts with the second quarter last year when our top markets underperformed the overall increase in the national box office and a quarter that was light on family film product. The average admission price increased 5.2% during the second quarter of 2026 compared to the prior year quarter, primarily due to strategic pricing actions. Our average concession, food and beverage revenues per person at our comparable theaters increased by 2.4% during the second quarter of 2026 compared to last year's second quarter, which was driven by an increase in merchandise sales, pricing and an increase in incidence rate. Our top five films in the quarter represented approximately 55% of the box office in the second quarter of 2026, compared to 59% for the top five films in last year's quarter. The slightly less concentrated film slate resulted in a less than one percentage point decrease in overall film cost as a percentage of admission revenues compared to last year's second quarter. Finally, Cedar Division adjusted EBITDA during the second quarter of 2026 was $36.3 million, a nearly 37% increase over the prior year quarter. Turning to our hotels and resorts division, total revenues before cost reimbursements were 70.8 million for the second quarter of 2026, a 9.6% increase compared to the prior year. REVPAR for our comparable owned hotels increased 13.9% during the second quarter compared to the prior year, which benefited from an overall occupancy rate increase of 5.9 percentage points and a 4.7% increase in our average daily rate. later ADR. Our average occupancy rate for our owned hotels was 73.2% during the second quarter of 2026. Our occupancy rate increase benefited from the Hilton Milwaukee being fully back in service compared to the second quarter last year when the hotel was under renovation and guest rooms were out of service. We estimate that the impact of the renovation in the prior year favorably impacted our RevPAR growth by approximately 4.4 percentage points during the second quarter. According to data received from Smith Travel Research, comparable competitive hotels in our markets experienced rev par growth of 7.8% for the second quarter of 2026 compared to the second quarter of 2025, indicating that our hotels outperformed their competitive set by 6.1% After adjusting for the prior year impact of the Hilton Milwaukee renovation, we believe our hotel's rev par growth outperformed the competitive set by 1.1 percentage points, which we attribute to continued strength in group business and strong leisure demand. When comparing our RevPAR results to comparable upper upscale hotels throughout the United States, upper upscale segment experienced rev par growth of 5.7% during our second quarter compared to the second quarter of 2025, indicating that our hotels outperformed the industry by 8.2 percentage points and outperformed the industry by approximately 3.9 percentage points when adjusting for the impact of the Hilton Milwaukee renovation. With the steady growth in group business and events, our banquet and catering operations continue to grow with food and beverage revenues up 5.7% in the second quarter of 2026 compared to the prior year. Finally, hotels adjusted EBITDA increased 3.5 million, or just over 31%, in the second quarter of 2026 compared to the prior year quarter, which primarily benefited from our revenue growth and improved operating efficiencies on higher occupancy. Shifting the cash flow and the balance sheet, our cash flow from operations was $54 million in the second quarter of 2026 compared to cash flow from operations of $31.6 million in the prior year quarter, with the increase in cash flow primarily due to higher earnings. Total capital expenditures during the second quarter of quarter of 2026 were 10 million compared to 16.9 million in the second quarter of 2025. Our capital expenditures during the second quarter were primarily invested in maintenance and ROI projects in both businesses. For the first half of 2026, our capital expenditures the total cost of the program decreased 23 million compared to the first half of fiscal 2025. Given that we are now halfway through the year, our capital investments project planning continues to evolve, and we now expect capital expenditures of $45 to $50 million for 2026. We will continue to update our capital expenditure estimates as the year progresses. As we have discussed since the beginning of the year, we continue to expect our lower capital expenditures to result in a significant increase in free cash flow in 2026. In the second quarter of 2026, we generated $44 million in free cash flow, nearly tripling our free cash flow from the second quarter last year. For the first half of 2026, free cash flow was $22 million, a $65 million increase compared to the first half of fiscal 2025. We ended the second quarter with approximately $26 million in cash and over $245 million in total liquidity with a debt to capitalization ratio of 25% and net leverage of 1.1 times. With that, I will now turn the call over to Greg. Thanks, Chad. Good morning, everyone. Today, we are thrilled to report a quarter with great financial performance in both of our businesses. In our theater division, our admission revenue growth outperformed the domestic box office, by a strong film slate and a mix of films that played well in our predominantly Midwestern markets. In hotels, momentum built throughout the quarter with strong group bookings and steady leisure demand that delivered a record second quarter for the division with results that exceeded our expectations. Overall, we are very pleased with the results for the quarter and first half of the year, and we entered the third quarter with solid momentum. I'll start with our theater division. If there is one overarching takeaway from the second quarter, it is this. The theatrical experience is not merely holding steady, it is thriving. When studios deliver compelling, high-quality stories across diverse genres, consumers choose the big screen first, frequently, and with clear enthusiasm. As we shared on our last call, the second quarter got off to a great start with the Super Mario Galaxy movie. and a strong carryover performance from Project Hail Mary. But that was only the beginning. A string of blockbuster successes followed with huge audiences coming out to see Michael, The Devil Wears Prada 2, Obsession, Star Wars, The Mandalorian and Grogu, Backrooms, Scary Movie, and the record-breaking Toy Story 5. The slate was robust and well-balanced with films that hit across a variety of genres with something for everyone. meaningful contributions to the box office coming from multiple titles. This year, there were nine films that grossed over $100 million in the second quarter, which compares to seven such films last year, five in 2024, and six in 2023. While established IP and SQLs were certainly an important core component to the overall box office, the breakout success of new originals, Obsession, and Backrooms connected with Gen Z and young adult audiences to deliver huge surprise contributions to the box office. The success of small and mid-sized original films played a critical role in diversifying the box office and making the industry less dependent on the success of individual tentpole films. Original cinema serves as the essential lifeblood of the theatrical ecosystem. It is both the birthplace of tomorrow's legacy franchises and the primary engine of creative innovation. Original films like these are an opportunity to engage new demographics, create fresh cultural touchstones and deliver the thrill of discovery that draws audiences out of their homes. Ultimately, a sustainable resilient box office requires strategic balance. leveraging trusted sequels to generate dependable cash flow, while actively nurturing bold original stories that expand the total movie-going audience. And this quarter, we saw a balance of both. The mix of film genres was also favorable to our circuit, with a higher mix of family and horror films resulting in our circuit achieving above average market share on seven of the top ten movies in the quarter. As Chad discussed, we again outperform the industry in box office growth and we remain focused on providing customers with a variety of price points to both optimize pricing for peak demand periods while offering various promotional programs for value-oriented customers, including Value Tuesday, Everyday Matinee, Marcus Mystery Movie, and Marcus Movie Club. These programs have two goals, providing customers with the right price at the right time based on demand levels and growing attendance through increasing the frequency of movie going. Looking ahead to the third quarter, the streak of hits continued in July with the epic opening of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, and pre-sales for this weekend's opening of Spider-Man Brand New Day are very strong. This weekend will be another great example of how our investments in premium large format screens provide a significant operational advantage that continues to to pay dividends for us. Not only do we have a PLF screen at 84% of our theater locations, we actually have multiple PLFs at 75% of those PLF theaters, giving us greater opportunity to capture PLF demand. In addition, because our PLF screens are almost entirely our proprietary ultra screens and super screens, We have the scheduling flexibility and PLF film selection to maximize the box office. The remainder of the summer includes Super Troopers 3, Insidious, Out of the Further, End of Oak Street, and Practical Magic 2. We are looking forward to an exciting fall and holiday film slate with Digger, Verity, The Social Reckoning, Clayface, Focker and Law, Hexed, Avengers Doomsday, and Dune Part 3, just to name a few. Looking even further ahead, the 2027 film slate also looks strong with major franchises including Shrek 5, Star Wars Starfighter, Minecraft 2, Frozen 3, Sonic the Hedgehog 4, Spider-Man Beyond the Spider-Verse, Man of Tomorrow, The Legend of Zelda, Legend of Zelda, Avengers Secret Wars and many more. There are many more great films coming noted in today's earnings release. In summary, with a great slate of films and audiences once again are showing that the best way to see the hottest movies of the summer is on the big screen. We are on pace for the best summer box office in years. Moving to our hotel and resorts division, you've seen the segment numbers and Chad shared some additional detail on the performance metrics, including our outperformance to our comp sets in the industry. We set new records for revenue and adjusted EBITDA for any fiscal second quarter in the Division's history, which we believe speaks to the quality of our hotel assets and the great execution by our team. We are happy to report that the summer season is off to a good start and we saw growth at most of the properties in our portfolio. Revpar grew at six of our seven comparable hotels during the second quarter compared to the prior year quarter, with both occupancy and average daily rates growing at five of our seven comparable hotels. While the dynamics in each market vary, during the second quarter we generally saw continued strength in group business and a more resilient higher income consumer that has continued to support steady transient leisure demand in our portfolio of upper upscale hotels and resorts. Combination of strong group bookings at higher rates at our newly renovated assets, along with stronger transient leisure demand, drove average daily rate growth, which increased 4.7% overall. Our rate growth has benefited from our ability to command higher rates at our hotels with newly renovated room product, including the Pfister, Grand Geneva Resort and Spa in Hilton, Milwaukee, with these three properties achieving a nearly 9% average increase in ADR over the second quarter of 2025. Group business during the quarter continues to grow. The bookings continue to look solid with our group room revenue bookings for 2026, our group pace in the year for the year, running approximately 3% ahead of where we were at this time last year. Looking a bit further ahead to 2027, group room pace is running approximately 9% ahead of where we were at this time last year for the next year out. Although, this far out, the timing of bookings can vary significantly. Banquet and catering pace is running similarly ahead for the remainder of 2026 and 2027. As we previewed earlier in the year, we opened We Nip, our new 11-hole short golf course at the Grand Geneva Resort and Spa with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in May. First, I would like to congratulate our entire Grand Geneva team for their successful opening of our new course. In particular, I'd like to thank Skip Harless, Ryan Brown, and our entire golf operations team. team for all the hard work over the last two years that went into getting the course into great shape for the opening. The first few months of play, WeNip has enjoyed an overwhelmingly positive reception from golfers and golf critics alike, with customers looking for distinctive experiential destinations. This added amenity aligns with industry trends, and we expect the short course to enhance the overall appeal of the resort to both leisure customers and group customers looking to mix in another social activity with conferences. training events and outings. We are already well on our way booking group events and outings on the WENIP for 2027 as event planners see and get to play the course for the first time this summer. Golf has long been an important part of the guest experience at Grand Geneva and it continues to be an area of growth. During the second quarter, the number of rounds played on our 218-hole courses, the Brute and Highlands grew over 11% and greens fees grew 21% with increases in group outings and higher weekend leisure demand driving our growth. Overall, the division had a very good quarter, and the current state of our hotel business remains stable and on track with our expectations for the year. While transient demand has remained healthy, I want to again acknowledge that there continues to be volatility in key travel costs, including gas prices and airfare. If market conditions change and we begin to see softness, we are prepared to react and adjust quickly. Finally, I would like to briefly comment on capital allocation. As Chad discussed, our free cash flow for the year has significantly improved, which is due to a reduction in CapEx to a more normal level following several years of significant reinvestment in our hotel business. It is also due to our revenue and earnings growth. We continue to look for opportunities to deploy capital. to grow both of our businesses with value of creative investments. We have a strong balance sheet that allows us to move quickly when we see good opportunities to acquire quality assets. And we have a history of executing when they arise. To the extent that we don't see attractive investments that are actionable, we expect to return excess capital to shareholders through our long-standing dividend or share repurchases. Before we open the call up for questions, I want to once again thank all the people that work so hard every single day making our ordinary days extraordinary for our guests. We talk a lot about the investments that we make in our businesses, but we can never lose sight of the fact that our people are our most important asset, and they proved that once again this quarter. With that, at this time, Chad and I would be happy to open the call up for any questions you may have.

We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimal sound quality. are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question is from the line of Mike Hickey at StoneX. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, Greg, Chad, congrats guys on a record quarter. Pretty incredible performance. I guess the first question, Greg, obviously, obsession and backroom is very topical here, a huge breakout for you and the industry, especially with younger audiences. Are you seeing a broader return of younger moviegoers and audiences? if some of that demand into more frequent attendance, whether through loyalty or other avenues. And also curious if either film index materially better at markets than it did nationally.

What you're seeing is actually not new. We've been following the data. pretty closely as an industry as to which demographics have been returning to the theaters. And we're seeing really positive signs out of the younger demographic. They really, Obsessions in Backrooms has highlighted it, but it's not new. We, for the last year or so, been noting that that customer has been coming back at levels that we haven't that are really you know like back to back to old times in a way and you know we there's a great stat that they track and that is you know where would you prefer to see a movie at home or in a theater and that demographic is back to preferring to see a movie in the theaters. Which, you know, I like having the younger demographic that's coming back and saying that's where they want to see it because that's got the longest runway for a customer base. So it's not new, I'd say everyone's seeing it now and the good news is when things work. they get copied. So we're going to, I think that that, when you ask how we're going to get those customers to be more frequent, I think we're going to see, you know, more, more attempts to provide movies that are going to continue to attract that customer out of Hollywood. That's the way it works. So, and then we continue to use, you know, our programs, whether it's, or our movie club, little frequency, you know, we all, we've got all that in our mystery movie. We've actually over, our mystery movie overlaps with, with, with, with our movie club, because if you're in the movie club, you get to come to the mystery movie, it's included. So we're trying to lever all those programs. As I think you are aware, I shouldn't admit this publicly, but I, because most of the people on this call don't see our social media probably, but I think you know I have a pretty, the Marcus Theater has a pretty active social media account and they use me, And boy, we get some real traction. And that group is, and I promise you, none of my contemporaries see my social media posts, fortunately.

Like, just on just on sharing those on those films for for our circuit. You know, it's on those particular two. It's a little bit mixed. We were in line with our normal share on obsessions, but meaningfully above normal market share for backrooms. So, you know, So it's a space and a demographic where we do well in. Nice.

color. On theater margins, looks like for the quarter, incremental EBITDA flow through is about 52%. I guess looking forward here, is that the right framework, Chad, to be modeling future box office growth? And sort of what are the biggest drivers of, I guess, levers of leverage here moving forward for you?.

Yes, I mean, the way that I look at it over time, because I think if you look at any given quarter, it can move around a little bit, call it, you know, plus or minus two or three points. But I always think of it as the incremental dollar falls through in that business to EBITDA at about 50 percent in a quarter. Quarter like this where you get the benefits of the additional operating leverage from higher attendance. We were a little bit above that and and so you know we benefit in those kinds of quarters in the seasonally slower periods of the year. or when we have a negative surprise at the box office, you know, execution there can be a little bit tougher, but generally on average, about 50% is how to think about it.

I think it also depends on the cadence because you know what happened one of the things we bump into is when things get slow and we do a floor to man this to man the theaters and so you know if you have like one pop but a bunch of slow weeks that's more challenging than a better cadence and we just had a better cadence too.

Maybe squeeze one quick one wild card obviously Spider Man coming out this weekend that seems like a film that would do exceptional on your network just curious what you guys are seeing in terms of the advanced man for that film.

Spider-Man's opening? Yes. That's a rumor. Yes.

I heard about, yes, it's very positive, and even better. Again, the thing that I like the most is I was looking at the review score, and it's very high. And so, you know, when you mix enthusiasm with a great movie, or perceptually a great movie, that's, I mean, just look what happened with The Odyssey. I mean, it's just...

That's just wild what's happened with that. I think on Spider-Man, particularly this weekend, Mike, the other thing for our circuit that I think we will benefit from and that Greg started to allude to in his comments is we have a lot of flexibility on our PLF screens. And so with our locations with multiples, we can play, Spider-Man and we can play Odyssey and we can get the showtimes right to optimize for demand on the two films. And I think that'll help our performance on Spider-Man.

Awesome. Thanks, guys. Best of luck. Your next question is from the line of Patrick Scholl at Barrington Research. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking the question. With the outperformance of the industry in the quarter, I was wondering if you could provide maybe a little bit little bit of an update on how you see like your overall market share uh it maybe just in your markets uh since the since the pandemic or just yes just overall market share in the theater segment.

Yes, I mean, our market share in our markets, has been good. We were immediately coming out of the pandemic. We were quite a bit ahead. And we've seen some normalization of that over time, but still quite strong. And on a national basis, our market share is a touch below where it was, but we've also optimized store footprint and gotten out of some locations that generated some box office, but really didn't contribute to the bottom line. Okay. I think we're comfortable with where we're at. And we've been, as you know, Pat, we've been optimizing price here quite a bit in the last year. That's been a big driver of our, our admission revenue per cap growth, and I think we should expect to see that certainly moderate in the second half of the year as we anniversary some of those changes that we made mid-year last year. But I still think you're looking at sort of low, low single digit type of inflationary growth, but don't expect additional changes that would drive any meaningful changes in market share.

near term. David Okay. And then just in terms of the potential M&A opportunity, you know, just with the longer tail of operators, I guess my understanding is that the lease structures could be kind of a gating factor for the attractiveness of acquisitions. As kind of the long recovery from the pandemic, is that like enabled some, you know, I guess, rationalization and some of those leaf structures to make a broader pool of potential M&A targets, or maybe just a little bit more commentary on that opportunity?.