Manchester United Plc (MANU) Q4 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Manchester United Plc  (NYSE: MANU) Q4 2021 Earnings call dated Sep. 17, 2021

Corporate Participants:

Corinna Freedman — Head of Investor Relations

Edward Woodward — Executive Vice Chairman and Director

Richard Arnold — Group Managing Director and Director

Cliff Baty — Chief Financial Officer

Analysts:

Xian Siew — Exane BNP Paribas — Analyst

Randy Konik — Jefferies — Analyst

Presentation:

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Manchester United Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] We would like to remind everyone that this conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the call over to Corinna Freedman, Head of Investor Relations for Manchester United.

Corinna Freedman — Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, Alison. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Manchester United’s fourth quarter fiscal 2021 earnings. Our press release containing our financial results was issued earlier this morning and can be accessed on our Investor Relations website. This call is being recorded and webcast, and a replay of this call will be available on our website for 30 days.

Before we begin, and as a matter of formality, we would like to remind everyone that this conference call will include estimates and forward-looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements. Any such estimates or forward-looking statements should be considered along with the disclosure included with our earnings release as well as additional risk factor discussions contained in our filings with the SEC.

With us today on our call this morning, or this afternoon if you’re in the U.K., is Ed Woodward, our Executive Vice Chairman, Richard Arnold, our Group Managing Director; Cliff Baty, our Chief Financial Officer; and Hemen Tseayo, our Director of Corporate Development.

I will now turn the conference call over to our Executive Vice Chairman for opening remarks, Ed?.

Edward Woodward — Executive Vice Chairman and Director

Thank you, Corinna, and welcome everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As we review our financial results for the 2021 fiscal year, as little that, that those 12 months were among the most challenging in the history of Manchester United. While the financial impact from the pandemic is visible, our continued underlying strength is also clear to see and everyone associated with the club can be proud of the resilience that we’ve shown through these most testing of times.

We said during the depths of the pandemic that the club would emerge in a stronger relative position, and I believe that we are now seeing that borne out, as we build towards recovery from a very solid foundation. The most important part of this recovery is of course the return of fans to Old Trafford and it’s been fantastic to see and hear the stadium full for the first time in almost 18 months. The amazing atmosphere to the opening and games of the season demonstrates the fan or the lifeblood of the game, and we’re so glad to have them back. I’m also delighted to say that we expect to see — continue to see full capacity crowds at Old Trafford, both Premier League and Champions League games this season.

On the pitch, the team has made a strong start in the league and every one of the club is feeling excited about the rest of the campaign. To significantly strengthen the squad over the summer, the addition of Ronaldo, Varane, Sancho, and Heaton. These signings demonstrates at our continued ability to attract some of the world’s best footballers to Old Trafford, and our firm commitment to helping deliver success on the pitch. Furthermore, we recently sold Dan James to Leeds for a fee of GBP25 million plus add-ons.

We’ve been clear on our strategy to build a squad with a blend of top class recruit and homegrown talent comprising a balance of used and experience, with the aim of winning trophies and playing attacking football the Manchester United way. As part of this, we’ve continued to strengthen our recruitment in scouting processes and we’ve also increased our investment in the Academy, to ensure that this success is sustainable. Whilst squad building is a constant process, we’re more confident than ever that we’re on the right track. Same is true of our women’s team, which has made a positive start of the season under our new Head Coach, Marc Skinner, and we’re firmly committed to continuing to build our presence in the women’s game.

Our optimism about on-field prospects goes hand-in-hand with the confidence in our robust operational business model to enable continued investment in our football teams and facilities. It’s not an accident that we’ve been able to invest this summer at a time when many clubs have been retrenching. This reflects a strong commercial model we’ve built over many, many years, ensuring that our spending is always underpinned by revenues that we generate ourselves. However, while we are confident in our relative strength, it remains clear the football as a whole faces major financial challenges caused by years of material inflation in wages and transfer fees, exacerbated by the impact of the pandemic. We are committed to working with the Premier League, the ECA and UEFA to promote greater financial sustainability at all levels of the game.

Global demand for live football is as strong as ever, as evidenced by the robust level of recent domestic and international broadcasting rights deals and record engagement with our own club content. We also remain optimistic regarding the remaining upcoming international rights renewals, notably in North America this autumn, given increased interest in live sports from OTT providers, coupled with the growing appeal of the sport. There is significant potential for further growth as the world digitizes and Manchester United will continue to be at the forefront of that expansion.

That no club can succeed on its own, we want to be part of a healthy vibrant domestic and European football pyramid, working together with our governing bodies and most importantly, the fans, to preserve and enhance the magic of our game. As a club, we are committed to those objectives and we look forward to pursuing them in the months and years ahead.

I’ll now hand you over to Richard for an update on our commercial activities. Thank you.

Richard Arnold — Group Managing Director and Director

Thank you, Ed, and thank you to everyone for joining us this morning. The fourth quarter marked the beginning of the return to normality in club operations as the U.K. took incremental steps towards reopening and began to tentatively emerge from the global pandemic. So that highlighted, it’s a tradition of the clubs ability to adapt and overcome extraordinary circumstances. This is a result of the sustainability of our operating model, combined with the enduring appeal of Manchester United, a Club stood for resilience and excellence for nearly a century in half.

Though a full reopening of the U.K. was ultimately delayed a few weeks into July, our Megastore operations resumed with the April 12th opening of non-essential shops across the country, and Old Trafford welcomed back 10,000 supporters for our last home match of the season on May 18th against Fulham. Our Cafe, Museum and Tour also resumed operations during the quarter.

Following increased crowds for preseason fixtures and a full Old Trafford for our opening two home games, it’s our current assumption that we will continue to welcome full capacity crowds for the balance of the current season. However, we know that this remains subject to public health circumstances and associated regulations in the U.K. as the pandemic evolves. Nevertheless, we are encouraged by the success of multiple larger scale sporting events held this summer in the U.K., including the opening four rounds of Premier League matches this season.

To that end, beginning 7th of June, in anticipation of a full return of fans, we commenced the sale of season tickets for the ’21, ’22 season. We experienced a very brisk sell out once again this year. Executive club suites and boxes have also sold out and our membership program, generally a good leading indicator of ticket demand both in the U.K. and internationally is experiencing another year of record sign-ups. It’s also important to note that the strong demand was in place before the start of the season.

Care for our staff has been a priority for us through the pandemic. As has been documented, we made the decision not to furlough staff and to pay goodwill payments to casual match day staff, it would have been impacted by games being played without fans. As much day operations normalize, we believe this has helped to ensure that we have maintained our match day staffing levels. We’ve also recently committed to paying all club employees including our casual stuff above the U.K. real living wage with the change effective beginning this season. The health and safety of our staff and supporters will remain paramount for us. And while our protocols have altered in coordination with government guidelines, we will remain diligent.

We expect to continue to refine our match day protocols for a more contactless fan experience, building on our recently launched mobile ticketing capabilities and car park automation amongst other initiatives. Behind the scenes, we will continue to maintain appropriate COVID protocols to ensure that our players and support staff remain protected. As our match day operations normalize post pandemic, our sponsorship activity also continues to ramp up, contributing directly to our ability to invest on the pitch.

During the quarter, we announced our new principle share partner, TeamViewer in mid March, and we officially launched the partnership on July 1st. In just the first six weeks of our partnership, we’ve surpassed all recent partner loans impressions globally. And whilst I’ll touch on a few highlights from our U.K. launch in a few moments, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsorship team for completing the sponsorship partnership during the pandemic, no small feat given the macro challenges and headwinds and it’s a significant testament to the strength and power, both the global support — global support and the global appeal of Manchester United.

For the full fiscal year we renewed three global partnerships as we continue to deliver significant value to our partners despite the absence of physical events. In the fourth quarter, we took steps towards the resumption of typical partner activations, hosting our first physical partner events since the onset of the pandemic. This was a hybrid ILOVEUNITED event in China with both physical and virtual activations for partners and fans. We expect to continue to offer hybrid events, including digital components to our partners post pandemic given their success in the field. This particular event with coordinated with the official public grand opening of our Theatre of Dreams entertainment center in Beijing in May. To date, feedback from the opening has been very positive.

Our Harves partnership is expected to deepen our engagement with fans in China by offering our supporters in China interactive museum, restaurant retail and other entertainment. We expect additional locations to open in China in Shenyang and Changsha, followed by Shanghai later in fiscal ’22.

Turning now to our digital media operations. Given the absence of match day supporters through May, we continue to prioritize online initiatives to drive engagement as part of our ongoing club wide digital transformation. The rate of acceleration has increased and we continue to invest not just in our platforms and technology, but we’ve also further strengthened our team in digital marketing and added additional resources to our CRM and data analytics.

Through social media, we continue to broaden our ability to interact and communicate with our fans around the world. The clubs presence in several new and growing social media platforms this quarter, we ended with 175 million social connections and 158 global digital interactions, up 38% on the prior year. On our own platforms, we continue to iterate our mobile app with enhancements and new features, driving a 31% year-on-year increase in daily active use. We also recently launched a new functionality to screen our club podcast directly within our app, and this podcast has become the number one official football club podcast on Apple.

Once again this quarter, we know that our improved engagement trends drove strong fan traffic to our e-commerce channels. E-commerce sales for the full year surpassed the prior season with increases in both unique visitors and average order value. In fiscal year 2021, our 2021 kit launches set multiple e-commerce records, with all three of our previous years kit setting those sales records. With the rollout of our new ’21 one’ 22 home kit featuring the new shirt partnership with TeamViewer this season, we surpassed these prior record levels once again. Overall, we are confident that the learnings and enhanced capability that we’ve developed this year to better provide our supporters with content and access throughout the pandemic will continue to help fans around the world, to continue to feel more connected than ever to third club.

If I may, I’d like to take a few moments to highlight some of the extraordinary work undertaken by our foundation this fiscal year. Whilst we’re proud of our global identity, we remain firmly rooted in our local community. We’ve spoken in the past about local, national and international efforts and helping to address these issues, the issues exacerbated by the pandemic, and we’ll continue to use our platforms to make real life impacts. We’ll also use our platform to campaign globally on important causes and issues such as racism. During the quarter, the club in coordination with all Premier League Clubs participated in a week-long worldwide social media boycott to highlight the discrimination that continues to persist in global football. As part of our All Red All Equal initiative, we also launched the See Red campaign, which calls on fans to celebrate the ethnic diversity of our players and their contribution to our rich history and importantly, providing fans with a mechanism to more easily report discriminatory behavior online. As a club, we remain steadfast in our dedication to help eradicate this toxicity from our sport.

With that, I’ll now turn the call over to our CFO, Cliff Baty, to review details of our fourth quarter results and to discuss our financial outlook for the upcoming fiscal year. Cliff?

Cliff Baty — Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Richard. I’ll now talk you through our fiscal results, which remain impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and then I’ll speak to our current expectations for the upcoming fiscal year. As Richard indicated, though we are hopeful, given current guidelines in the U.K., we cannot be certain that our revenues will not be impacted by further COVID related disruption. And as a result, we are not providing any forward revenue or EBITDA guidance for the upcoming fiscal year.

Turning now to the full year results, I would like to remind you that year-on-year comparisons have been impacted both by the absence of fans as well as the completion of the ’19, ’20 season in this fiscal year. Total revenues for the period to GBP494.1 million. This was GBP14.9 million lower than the prior prior year owing to the impact of the pandemic, including a full season played behind closed doors. Adjusted EBITDA was GBP95.1 million, down GBP37 million for prior year due both to reduced revenues and increased wages from Champions League related uplifts.

Turning to the key items in the results. Total commercial revenues with GBP232.2 million, with sponsorship revenues of GBP140.2 million, GBP42.5 million lower than the prior year due to the impact of no summer tour and COVID related contract variations. Merchandising and licensing revenues were GBP92 million, down GBP4.3 million, reflecting the closure of the Megastore for the majority of the year, partially offset by strong growth — strong growth in e-commerce.

Broadcasting revenues for the year was GBP254.8 million, an increase of GBP114.6 million due to participation in the UEFA Champions League and subsequent progression to the Europa League final, coupled with the carryover of 10 season ’19, ’20 fixtures into July and August of 2020. Matchday revenues of GBP7.1 million, a reduction of GBP82.7 million due to all matches prior to the final home match of the 2021 season being played behind closed doors. The Matchday revenues recognized this year relate mostly to membership fees and ancillary property income.

Moving down the income statement, operating expenses excluding depreciation and amortization increased by GBP22.1 million. This includes total wages, which were up 13.6% primarily due to higher contracted player wages for participation in the Champions League relative to the Europa League the prior year. The wages figure also includes COVID related goodwill payments made to staff throughout the year.

Other operating expenses reduced by GBP16.5 million, primarily reflecting the reduction in costs from playing behind closed doors, together with a disciplined approach to any discretionary costs. Depreciation and amortization costs were GBP139.4 million for fiscal 2021, a reduction of GBP5.9 million. Net finance income for the year was GBP12.9 million credit, a favorable movement of GBP38.9 million due to foreign exchange benefits on the unhedged portion of our U.S. dollar debt.

I would like to highlight our tax charge for the year of GBP68.2 million, which reflects the non-cash write-off of deferred tax assets and has created unusually large loss of GBP92.2 million for the year. This non-cash accounting write-off is caused by the U.K. corporate tax rate increasing to 25% from April 23, which is above the prevailing U.S. corporation tax rate of 21%. This means for accounting purposes, we will now need to write off our U.S. deferred tax assets as they will not have any economic value given that the U.K. rate is higher than the U.S. rate. Please note that any future increase in the U.S. tax rate to above the U.K. tax rate could see a full or partial reversal of this accounting non-cash write-off.

Turning now to the balance sheet. At the end of June, cash balances were GBP110.7 million, up GBP59.2 million compared to the prior year. This increase in cash reflects the drawdown of GBP60 million of our revolving credit facility in 2Q of this year. Our year end cash balance does not reflect around 50% of the seasonal ticket revenues for FY’22 that were collected in July. Player capex for FY ’21 was GBP92.2 million for the period. Net debt was GBP419.5 million, a decrease of GBP54.6 million compared to the prior year due to the higher cash balances, combined with the impact of the favorable foreign exchange movements on a U.S. dollar denominated debt. In terms of cash liquidity, we have access to GBP140 million of undrawn committed facilities.

Now turning to our outlook for fiscal year ’22. We are not providing any revenue or adjusted EBITDA guidance given the uncertainties of COVID. However, we are hopeful based on the success of the initial two home matches this season with full crowds, the Matchday revenues will be significantly increased following the return of fans. The commercial revenues again did not have a significant summer tour for FY’22. However, we are confident in the future outlook for our commercial operations.

In broadcasting, with the start of a new Europa cycle, which has seen a small growth in prize money allocation to the clubs. In terms of costs, we would expect wages to increase by around 20%, which reflects the increased investment in the squad following the summer transfer window. Other expenses are expected to increase — are also expected to increase over the prior year with the return of full Matchday operations. Finally, our current committed net player capex of fiscal year ’22 is approximately GBP80 million, with amortization costs of GBP150 million.

And with that, I’ll turn the call back over to Corinna.

Corinna Freedman — Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, Cliff. Before we open up the call to your questions, we would like to alert you to a change in our reporting. Starting with fiscal 2022, we will hold earnings conference call to review the second quarter and fourth quarters. For the first and third quarters, we will issue a press release only. For the current quarter and for every future quarter, however, we will remain available for your questions, which you can submit via our Investor Relations email address at ir@manutd.co.uk. We sincerely thank you for your continued interest in Manchester United.

And with that, I will turn the call back over to our operator for your questions. Allison?

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our first question today will come from Xian Siew of Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead with your question.

Xian Siew — Exane BNP Paribas — Analyst

Hi, and thanks for taking my question. So congrats on signing Cristiano Ronaldo as well. Can you just talk about its impact on the commercial revenues and in terms of maybe shirt sales boost or marketing awareness? And I know you’re not guiding to commercial revenues, but if you think about it versus, I guess pre COVID levels, it seems like the momentum is there, should we expect that to even be maybe above 2019 levels or how do we think about directionally?

Cliff Baty — Chief Financial Officer

Hi, Xian, it’s Cliff here. I’ll take the initial finance — the first finance question you asked and then I’ll hand over to Richard for the wider impact of Cristiano. I think in terms of commercializing sort of indicated, the best way to look at it as you’ve referenced would be our last pre-COVID season, which would be sort of ’18, ’19. What you’ve got to do is also allow for the fact we had no summer tour, really no effective summer tour for this forthcoming year. So if you take off the effect of that which is so low double digit revenues, we’d expect to be in a sort of a similar place as we were pre-COVID.

Richard Arnold — Group Managing Director and Director

And then just on the point around the impact to Cristiano and summer signings. Yeah, just to make clear, the results that we’re presenting today and the description of them do not include any effect related to Cristiano, obviously, it’s very early in terms of his arrival and his impact on the pitch is immediate and visible, we’ll be providing guidance as to where we are — or providing an update as to where we are in terms of off-pitch activity and any effects there too in the next results we do. We’re not providing information at this stage in terms of where we’re up to on the current quarter.

Xian Siew — Exane BNP Paribas — Analyst

Okay. And just one more on — thanks, that’s helpful. On China, there’s been some recent choppiness, there’s been lockdowns, there’s been some demand issues over there and in other sectors you touched on. It seems like things are going well there for you. Can you maybe just help us understand is there any impact from maybe lockdowns at all? And how you’re seeing engagement with Chinese fans and how that could evolve?

Richard Arnold — Group Managing Director and Director

Yeah, so, I mean, obviously, in the year that we’re looking at here there has been an effect of lockdown in terms of the outcomes received. I think that there are people much better informed than me to give you guidance on exactly how that’s rolled out in the last 12 months. In terms of where we sit on that, there are a number of things to lead to, it’s a very large part of our family. Obviously, as we’ve alluded to previously in terms of the number of fans out in China and that’s reflected in a number of items; A, the relationship we have with Youku and [Indecipherable] in terms of the integrated partnership and how that flows through and particularly not just engaging fans from a digital point of view but also how that then followed up by Adidas in terms of satisfying any need that fans have merchandised and that’s been very successful for us. Yeah, the Harves partnership and the way that that’s been received and indeed it location immediately adjoining Tiananmen Square. And so it’s an incredibly important part of the world for us. I’m really pleased to say that it’s bouncing back in terms of the economic situation and great strides have been made there in terms of building on and enhancing the engagement we have with fans.

Xian Siew — Exane BNP Paribas — Analyst

Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question today will come from Randy Konik of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Randy Konik — Jefferies — Analyst

Yeah, thanks a lot. Hi, guys. I back on Cristiano. I know that his arrival and signing is post the quarter end. So I understand there is not going to be a want to quantify things, but can you potentially give us some qualitative aspects of what his impact has been on — perhaps, I know you gave with the quarter results you gave some color on engagement statistics around your app or what have you — anything you can kind of give us, if not quantify, but like just qualify or talk to what his impact has been around different areas of the metrics you look at, whether it’s website, kit sales, etc., just anything that you can kind of share with us would be very helpful?

Edward Woodward — Executive Vice Chairman and Director

Yeah, I mean, just to reiterate what I said before, all of the updates we provided date to the quarter and pre-season start, so none of the statistics include any of the post commencement of the season activity, specifically around Cristiano. I think the focus in terms of activity around Cristiano has been incredibly positive, not least on the pitch as much better place to describe that than I am. In terms of commercial activity, of course, it’s been positive, but indeed you see a similar positive effect for all the signings we’ve seen over the summer. And again, as I said, in terms of the more quantitative updates, we’ll be providing that in the next set of results in the next analysis we provide.

Randy Konik — Jefferies — Analyst

Got you. And then, I mean, as you think about his ability to drive the commercial segment, are you able to disproportionately utilize him and his likeness to whatever you want if your commercial partners or prospective commercial partners want to use him in trying to sign up with your company, your brand, like how do you think about this type of generational star being utilized disproportionately or not relative to other players on the squad?

Edward Woodward — Executive Vice Chairman and Director

I think in that final line perhaps you’ve you’ve touched on how we view this, which is again all of the players have signed exclusively for their ability to deliver on the pitch. My job in running the commercial operations in the club is to generate as much income as possible to sustain the virtuous cycle and that relates to us a a club, us as a team, and every single one of our players both individually and collectively in terms of the work we do with them. So whilst every signing we make, and again some of [Indecipherable] and others have a positive effect on fine engagement, have a positive effect on the activity we do, that’s very much putting fuel into a well run engine and we’re well renowned in the sports industry for doing a good job of maximizing the commercial opportunity that comes to us, but our focus is on signing players to make sure that they deliver on the pitch and then maximizing the opportunity afterwards, and to single out any one player in terms of their impact, particularly this early after signing would be wrong.

Randy Konik — Jefferies — Analyst

Okay. And then lastly, I guess Cliff you said definitively that there is no summer tour for summer 2022, is that finalized that that will not happen? And as we think about just post 2022, I know it’s early, when do you have to make a decision to — how early do you make a decision to do a summer tour or not, when do the planning stages happen, I’m just curious just to think about when we try to get back to normal, how long its going to be?

Cliff Baty — Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Randy. Just to clarify actually, because while talking about FY 22, so for us that runs from the 1st of July just gone to the end of June. So we’ve already had this summer. And whilst we did play a couple of matches in the U.K., etc., that’s very, very different when we would classes as a typical [Indecipherable] So when I’m looking at the commercial revenues — for you guys I’m giving you indication previous to the previous conversation, looking at the last pre-COVID, so the commercial area, the numbers that we purchased back then and in pre-COVID times you have to take off sort of that amount from a summer tour because we didn’t really have one to get to a sort of underlying view of where commercial might end up. In terms of planning for next season, which is what — which will actually be summer, which we toured in FY’23 for us. I’ll just hand over to Richard, he can talk a bit more about that.

Richard Arnold — Group Managing Director and Director

Yeah, and Randy, the primary objective of preseason tour is to prepare the team for the forthcoming season. So that’s something that is planned more typically on a multiyear basis, but certainly evolves as we go through the year. And as we look ahead to next year and the off-season activity, we are at the point where we are evaluating alternatives, but again we’ll monitor the situation quite carefully in respect to how the pandemic develops and how countries open up in terms of what’s best for preparing us for the succeeding season in terms of travel versus staying at home to prepare, and there’s pluses and minuses on that in terms of the preseason preparation. But yeah, we will be factoring in what’s going on with the pandemic. As we sit here now, I think it’s certainly pause in certain in terms of whether traveling abroad is possible.

Randy Konik — Jefferies — Analyst

Okay, got it. Thank you, guys.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude the question-and-answer session and it will also conclude the Manchester United fourth quarter earnings conference call. We do thank you for attending today’s presentation today.

[Operator Closing Remarks]