It’s always a pleasure to share these pages with like-minded people. Today’s post was written by a very smart, very diligent guy — who just so happens to be a long-time friend of mine. During COVID-19, he’s scrutinized one of the most “center of the storm” sectors: the cruise line stocks . I was thrilled when he accepted the invitation to share his thoughts and work on the blog. I know you will be, too.
With almost five months of lockdown behind us, logic would tell most that the outlook for the cruise industry has gone from bad to worse. As you’d expect, most cruise lines have spent the last few months pulling together survival dollars for what could be the worst storm to hit while not sailing. But even in the darkest of times, could there be light at the end of this tunnel? Article #Is it Time to Buy Cruise Stocks? Intrinsic Value Impact from Coronavirus identified what I think is a very counterintuitive point – even when some of the most horrific events have hit cruise lines, their demand has been remarkably resilient in the following year(s).
For those who like bottom lines up front – I think CCL probably has best chance of survival, and a lot of assumptions used in this analysis are pretty conservative. This is a big gamble, and I’m not expecting any potential pay off until 2022 at the earliest (although reckless day traders may create some wild ups and downs along the way), but the payoff could be exceptional.
The case for strong demand recovery
So what happened after a massive pandemic hit, confining people to their homes in March and April…see Carnival swamped with cruise bookings after announcing August return or What pandemic? Carnival Cruise bookings soar 600% for August trips. When CCL announced cruise returns in August 2020, bookings shot up, with the spike reflecting a 200% increase in bookings over the same period in the prior year.
Who are these people making these bookings? Will these spikes in demand last? Even if there is strong demand, won’t governmental restriction stymie all chances for recovery here?
All great questions. The first two cannot really be answered definitively. If the past can be used to determine the future, it is fair to say that cruise demand has historically come back strong even after disastrous events. Further, many people seem to be of the mindset that Covid is here to stay, and are accepting its spread while hoping for a low death rate (whether this is an ethically acceptable position is an entirely different discussion and far out of the scope of this article’s analysis).
The last question is probably the most important here – where does governmental restriction fit in all of this? In my opinion, it is the most important final step in the recovery. If demand is there, but governments forbid sailing, then demand becomes irrelevant. Your guess is as good as mine here, but demand assumptions for the rest of this analysis are:
- No more cruises will sail in 2020 – only revenue accumulated was Q1’20, with a complete halt to revenue for the remainder of the year.
- Demand in 2021 is 50% of what it was in 2019.
- 2022 resembles normal operations – EBITDA falls somewhere between the min and max annual EBITDA generated in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
After diving into the financials of CCL, RCL, and NCLH (“The Big 3”), it looks like these three cruise lines have the ability to survive into next summer with no cruise activity. While some of these may be able to last longer, failure to resume sailing in the peak season for cruises (i.e. the North American summer months) would likely be a final dagger for these businesses. CCL looks best poised to survive of the three, so more of the below will focus on them. Note that as of date of this post, cruises in the US will not resume until October for The Big 3; however, some European cruises are still scheduled to go ahead as planned.
Survival – what does liquidity look like over the next year?
Let’s start by getting perspective on what debt looked like on the balance sheet for The Big 3 pre-Covid. Looking at Net Debt to EBITDA and FCF as a % of Debt (avoid using equity in this kind of assessment, as companies can mess with it via share repurchases, dividends, etc):
CCL looks best capitalized coming into this mess, and has traded cheaper in comparison to the other two – EV/EBITDA ratio is ~20% less than the other two at the end of 2019.
As you’d expect, over the last few months The Big 3 have moved quickly to build up liquidity to survive this next year, drawing down revolvers and issuing new debt. Some of the debt issued at CCL and NCLH are convertible notes, so assuming these companies recover I think it’s important to factor dilution into any analysis that you run. NCLH also took in additional equity investment from both the public and via PIPE from L Catterton.
Now let’s put together some pro formas for CCL. What does a projected income statement look like?
As expected, these next couple years look rough, but I’d like to reemphasize that 2020 assumes no additional revenue, and 2021 assumes 50% demand – unless Covid goes from bad to worse than we could have ever expected, these feel conservative. This analysis also does not bake in the benefit of reduced fuel prices that may stick around these next couple years.
Where does this get my cashflows?
Using rough numbers here, analysis projects that $7.3bn of financing is needed over next couple years ($3bn in 2020 and $4.3bn in 2021). The good news (depending on how you look at it) is CCL pulled $3bn from revolvers in March and issued $5.75bn of new debt in April (some of which is convertible, and should be assumed converted if CCL recovers), meaning they’ve already achieved the financing needed based on these projections. My above cashflow projections also assumes all treasury shares are reissued at approx. 80% loss, and per the below, 62.5m of the 190m shares have already been reissued.
Other comments on cashflow:
- 2020 sales of ships– CCL plans to sell 13 ships in 2020 (approx. 10% of its fleet). I assumed $150m sale price per ship in my above cashflow estimates. I don’t think this is actually that alarming, as (1) these ships are probably older, and needed to go at some point anyway (who wants to ride an old cruise ship), and (2) 10% of fleet isn’t that bad given that they are the biggest cruise operator with ~45% market share. Competitors have also done and/or will probably do the same.
- Cash outlays for ship orders- I’ve assumed that commitments for new ships will be wiped out over next few years. I think it’s fair to assume that CCL is probably under contract to take them, but in this environment they’ll probably tell the shipbuilders to pound sand the next couple years. It’s probably in the interest of the shipbuilders to suck it up as well if they do think CCL can recover – way worse trying to get paid if CCL gets forced into bankruptcy.
- Credit vs cash refunds- so far, approx. 60% of customers have elected a to receive a future cruise credit rather than cash refund for their postponed cruises – definitely a positive sign for pent up demand
- Breakeven point- the CCL Q220 earnings call transcript may be worth a read. David Bernstein (CCL CFO and CAO) notes that the breakeven point on an individual ship basis is generally 30-50% of capacity. He estimates that they’d need to run approx. 25 ships for cashflow to breakeven (approx. 25% of fleet). I view this as validation that my analysis is conservative, as I’m anticipating a cash shortfall in 2021 with 50% demand.
- Debt covenants- I found some of the debt covenant specifics for RCL (net debt to capital ratio, fixed charge coverage ratio, min networth, etc); wasn’t able to find these for CCL and NCLH, but it looks pretty clear that The Big 3 will struggle to meet these. But similar to view on new ship orders, creditors will probably be willing to grant leniency if there is a light at the end of the tunnel – most lenders want to avoid seizure of assets and bankruptcy proceedings.
Other Considerations
- Bankruptcy- while I definitely see potential upside in an investment in CCL, it is definitely risky. If Covid continues to unfold in a horrific way into 2021, The Big 3 could be pushed into bankruptcies. But important to consider impact to CCL if RCL and/or NCLH go down while it stays afloat. RCL is the 2nd biggest behind CCL – if it files Chapter 11 and is relieved of some of its debt payments, it could suddenly have the opportunity to compete more aggressively. If RCL drives its prices down, it could force CCL to follow, driving CCL into bankruptcy. Takeaway here is that bad news for the other two could ironically lead to bad news for CCL.
- NCLH differentiation- while NCLH’s balance sheet looked bad going into Covid, two points that I think help its survival case:
- (1) It historically focused on cruise routes that the other two were not focused on. See snipit from 2019 10-k:
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- (2) its ships are significantly smaller (~30+%) than RCL and CCL. This could come in handy if governments put official caps on the number of people that can be on a cruise at a given time (regardless of ship size).
- Cruises sailing in 2020– analysis assumes no cruises again until 2021, but if some of these carry on (unlikely in the US, but maybe more likely in Europe), it will be very important to track the outcomes and potential regulatory responses.
Bottom line
If betting on the survival and recovery of cruise lines is something that you’re interested in, I think CCL is the best bet. Back in March the market priced death into the Big 3 stock prices, and stock prices of these at the time of this post are not far from those March prices. Applying the lowest PE ratio from the last 10 years (excluding Covid) to this analysis’ EPS estimate shows a sizable ROI is in the cards. By no means should you view this as a real way to project the stock price, but point is that there’s a lot of potential upside here if you can handle the risk.
Caveat emptor. Hope you find this helpful!