Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings announced that it will host its 2024 Investor Day on May 20 at the New York Stock Exchange, NYC.
According to a press release, the event will feature presentations and a Q&A session with Harry Sommer, president and chief executive officer, as well as other members of the company’s senior leadership team.
Attendance at the live event is by invitation only and will be broadcast online, available to all interested parties. A replay of the webcast and related slide presentations will remain accessible on NCL’s website for an additional 30 days.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings today announced that S&P Global Ratings (S&P) has recently upgraded NCLC’s (NCL Corporation, a subsidiary of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings) issuer credit rating and issue-level ratings.
NCLC’s issuer credit rating has been upgraded to B+, marking a notable improvement in the company’s creditworthiness, according to a press release.
In addition, S&P has raised the issue-level ratings on NCLC’s existing secured and unsecured debt. The company’s senior secured debt ratings were raised to BB/BB- and its unsecured debt rating was upgraded two notches to B.
S&P highlighted several factors for the upgrade, including NCLC’s current forward-booked position, increased capacity, occupancy recovery, and higher pricing providing good revenue and cash flow visibility for 2024. In addition, S&P noted that the Company’s leverage will benefit from higher revenue, EBITDA, and cash as it generates a full year of operations from its 2023 ship deliveries, without incurring incremental ship delivery debt in 2024.
Further enhancing its financial position, on March 7, 2024, the company successfully completed the refinancing of its $650 million backstop commitment. This commitment has been refinanced from a secured to an unsecured commitment, and as part of this refinancing, the company has repaid its $250 million 9.75% senior secured notes due 2028, eliminating its highest interest rate debt.
“The upgraded ratings are an important recognition of the strength of our business and our ability to reduce leverage,” commented Mark A. Kempa, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. He continued, “Our recent refinancing, which reduces interest costs while releasing the related collateral, is a clear demonstration of our commitment to de-levering and improving our balance sheet.”
A key cornerstone of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings’ long-term strategy is measured capacity growth, said Harry Sommer, president and CEO, speaking on the company’s year-end and fourth quarter earnings call.
He pointed to the company’s newbuild pipeline of five ships and its 2023 to 2028 capacity growth, which represents 28 more supply for the company’s trio of brands in Norwegian, Oceania and Regent.
That averages out to a compound annual growth rate of five percent, he advised.
“Historically, capacity growth has led to outsized revenue and EBITDA growth and we expect this capacity growth to be no different and deliver meaningful top and bottom line growth,” Sommer noted.
“We believe that these measured capacity additions will enable us to further enhance our long-term profitability and continue to significantly strengthen our balance sheet while providing guests new and innovative experiences,” he said.
“We continue to experience strong and resilient customer demand across all three of our brands. The strong momentum we saw in 2023 has continued into 2024 with an all-time high booked position and pricing buoyed by strong wave season demand. This has led to some of the best booking weeks in the company history, which began with successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions.
“In general, we continue to see healthy demand across all markets, brands and products.”
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