Marriott International Reports First Quarter 2020 Results

• First quarter 2020 comparable systemwide constant dollar RevPAR declined 22.5 percent worldwide, 30.4 percent outside North America and 19.5 percent in North America;
• First quarter reported diluted EPS totaled $0.09, compared to $1.09 in the year-ago quarter. First quarter adjusted diluted EPS totaled $0.26, compared to first quarter 2019 adjusted diluted EPS of $1.41. First quarter 2020 reported and adjusted EPS included impairment charges, bad debt expense, and guarantee reserves of $0.45 and $0.42, respectively;
• First quarter reported net income totaled $31 million, compared to $375 million in the year-ago quarter. First quarter adjusted net income totaled $85 million, compared to first quarter 2019 adjusted net income of $482 million. First quarter 2020 reported and adjusted net income included impairment charges, bad debt expense, and guarantee reserves of $148 million after-tax and $138 million after-tax, respectively;
• Adjusted EBITDA totaled $442 million in the 2020 first quarter, compared to first quarter 2019 adjusted EBITDA of $821 million. First quarter 2020 adjusted EBITDA included $79 million of bad debt expense and guarantee reserves;
• The company added more than 14,500 rooms globally during the first quarter, including nearly 2,100 rooms converted from competitor brands and approximately 7,200 rooms in international markets. Net rooms grew 4.4 percent from a year ago;
• At quarter-end, Marriott’s worldwide development pipeline totaled nearly 3,050 hotels and nearly 516,000 rooms, including more than 24,000 rooms approved, but not yet subject to signed contracts. Over 230,000 rooms in the pipeline were under construction as of the end of the first quarter;
• The company issued $1.6 billion of senior notes in April 2020 and raised $920 million in additional liquidity through amendments to its co-brand credit card agreements in early May 2020. Including these capital raises, the company’s net liquidity has increased to approximately $4.3 billion as of May 8, representing roughly $3.9 billion in cash and cash equivalents, and $1.3 billion of unused borrowing capacity under its revolving credit facility, less $0.9 billion of commercial paper outstanding.

Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) today reported first quarter 2020 results, which were dramatically impacted by the COVID-19 global pandemic and efforts to contain it (COVID-19).

Arne M. Sorenson, president and chief executive officer of Marriott International, said, “In the last few months we have seen the impact of COVID-19 spread throughout our business in an unprecedented way. Worldwide RevPAR[1] began the year with a strong 4.6 percent growth rate for January, excluding Greater China, where COVID-19 was already impacting results. For the first two months of the year, worldwide RevPAR grew 3.2 percent, excluding the Asia Pacific region. As the pandemic moved around the world, we saw global RevPAR fall sharply and, in April, worldwide RevPAR declined approximately 90 percent. Currently, roughly a quarter of our worldwide hotels are closed.

“The resilience of travel demand is evident in the improving trends we see in Greater China. Occupancy at our hotels in the region reached 25 percent in April, up from less than 10 percent in mid-February 2020.

“Looking at our occupancy and booking trends, it appears that lodging demand in most of the rest of the world has stabilized, albeit at very low levels. Occupancy was around 20 percent over the past two weeks in North American limited-service hotels, benefitting from leisure and drive-to demand.

“As national, state and local restrictions around travel and business are gradually relaxed, we are preparing to welcome back our associates and guests. A large, and very important, part of that process is addressing their health and safety concerns while on property. To that end, we are rolling out a multi-pronged platform to elevate cleanliness standards and hospitality norms to respond to the new health and safety challenges presented by the current pandemic environment.

“Hotel owners continue to show their preference for our brands. Rooms signed during the quarter were in line with the year ago quarter, and our development pipeline grew slightly to nearly 516,000 rooms, with 45 percent under construction. At the end of the first quarter, our rooms distribution around the world in 134 countries and territories had grown by 4.4 percent compared to one year prior. While we expect COVID-19’s dramatic impact on the global economy will likely result in significantly lower new room openings than we had budgeted for 2020, we are already seeing an uptick in owner interest in discussing conversions to our brands.

“We have taken substantial steps to preserve liquidity and mitigate the impact of these extremely low levels of demand. In addition to reducing our operating expenses dramatically, in mid-April we issued $1.6 billion of senior notes and, last week, we announced amendments to our existing co-brand credit card agreements with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and American Express, raising $920 million of additional liquidity. We are confident we have sufficient resources to manage through this evolving situation.

“Our thoughts are with everyone who has been impacted by the pandemic. These are extremely challenging times, but I am confident that we will be able to successfully navigate through them.”