PARSIPPANY, N.J., Oct. 31, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Avis Budget Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAR) today reported results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2019.
Third Quarter 2019 over Third Quarter 2018 Highlights:
- Revenues of $2.8 billion were comparable to prior year, up 1% excluding currency exchange rate movements
- Net income was $189 million or $2.50 per diluted share and Adjusted net income was $223 million or $2.96 per diluted share
- Adjusted EBITDA increased 1%, excluding a negative impact of 2% from currency exchange rate movements
- Per-Unit Fleet Costs improved 6% excluding exchange rate effects
- Repurchased approximately 2.1 million shares for a total of $59 million during the quarter
Total Company
Third quarter revenues increased 1% compared to prior year excluding a $44 million impact from currency exchange rate movements, primarily due to a 2% increase in Rental Days, partially offset by a 1% decrease in Revenue per Day. Per-Unit Fleet Costs, excluding exchange rate effects, improved by 6% year-over-year and utilization improved 20 basis points. For the quarter, net income was $189 million, or $2.50 per diluted share. Adjusted EBITDA was $471 million including a $9 million impact from currency exchange rate movements and Adjusted net income was $223 million, or $2.96 per diluted share.
“Our Adjusted EBITDA margin was more than 17% for the quarter. Our Americas segment had record Adjusted EBITDA performance. Our operations achieved record Net Promoter Scores for the second quarter in a row, showing the impact of our efforts to improve our customer experience,” said Larry De Shon, Avis Budget Group President and Chief Executive Officer. “In addition, we made further progress on our strategic partnerships with Uber, Lyft and Via where we increased our ride-hail fleet by nearly 60% from prior quarter. We remain focused on improving our core rental car business, while driving innovation to continue our transformation into a mobility service provider.”
Americas Segment
Third quarter revenues increased 1% to a record $1,868 million compared to prior year primarily due to a 3% increase in Rental Days, partially offset by a 2% decrease in Revenue per Day. Per-Unit Fleet Costs improved by 9%, with utilization improving 30 basis points. As a result, Adjusted EBITDA increased to a record $321 million.
Joe Ferraro, President, Americas commented, “Positive revenue growth in the quarter, along with strong ancillary performance and corporate account volume growth contributed to our success. Also, stable residual values and a record 70% of our vehicle dispositions through alternative channels drove fleet cost improvements. Altogether, this generated all time record revenue and Adjusted EBITDA.”
International Segment
Third quarter revenues decreased 1% compared to prior year, excluding a 4% negative impact from currency exchange rate movements, primarily due to a 1% decrease in Rental Days. Revenue per Day, excluding exchange rate effects improved compared to prior year. Per-Unit Fleet Costs were up 1%, excluding exchange rate effects, and utilization was flat. As a result, Adjusted EBITDA was flat to prior year, excluding a $9 million negative impact from currency exchange rate movements, primarily due to mitigating cost reduction actions.
“We focused on higher rate rentals in a challenging environment to improve our pricing, and we were able to increase our customer approval ratings to record highs,” said Keith Rankin, President, International.
Capital Allocation and Liquidity
In September 2019, we called $75 million of our 5.5% Senior Notes due 2023 for early redemption, which we paid in October 2019 with cash on hand. We also repurchased approximately 2.1 million shares during third quarter 2019, for approximately $59 million under our share repurchase program.
As of September 30, 2019, our corporate debt was approximately $3,483 million and cash and cash equivalents totaled $615 million, bringing net corporate debt to $2,868 million, and our net corporate leverage ratio to 3.6x.
Weighted average diluted shares outstanding were 75.7 million in the quarter compared to 79.5 million in the prior year, a 5% year-over-year reduction.
Investor Conference Call
We will host a conference call to discuss third quarter results and its outlook on November 1, 2019, at 8:30 a.m. (ET). Investors may access the call at ir.avisbudgetgroup.com or by dialing (877) 407-2991 and a replay will available on our website and at (877) 660-6853 using conference code 13695307.
Outlook
Our full-year 2019 outlook includes non-GAAP financial measures and excludes the effect of future changes in currency exchange rates. We believe that it is impracticable to provide a reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP measures due to the forward-looking nature of these forecasted Adjusted earnings measures and the degree of uncertainty associated with forecasting the reconciling items and amounts. We further believe that providing estimates of the amounts that would be required to reconcile the forecasted adjusted measures to forecasted GAAP measures would imply a degree of precision that would be confusing or misleading to investors. The after-tax effect of such reconciling items could be significant to our future quarterly or annual results.
2019 guidance: