EPR Properties (NYSE:EPR) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Greg Zimmerman: Yes. I’ll echo Greg’s comments. I don’t think it’s actually, but I think most people in the industry are seeing this as a short-term issue. I mean, if you think about, these have occurred periodically, I think they’re more encouraged by all the studio’s commitment to theatrical and how it is bound back. And I would say there’s probably more rather than less optimism right now in the theater space. As far as turning it on and ramping up new production is really about probably not now into latter half of ’24 and ’25 most everything through the first-half of ’24 is in post-production and so there’s just, kind of, small minor reshoots or voice over or promotional aspects of it. So I would think we believe that really right now, if we solved it sooner rather than later, we’d have minimal impact on ‘24.

Todd Thomas: Okay, great. Thank you.

Greg Silvers: Thanks, Todd.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Eric Wolfe with Citi. Mr. Wolf, your line is open.

Eric Wolfe: Hey, thanks for taking my questions. So I understand your comment about the restructuring agreement not providing any sort of extra percentage rent from Regal this year. But just to confirm that the $12 million that’s in your number, that doesn’t include any sort of Regal contribution whatsoever? And then if I were to think about, you know, let’s just say the box office next year is $9.4 billion in line with that presentation you put out, is all of the Regal percentage rent and all of that extra operating income sort of incremental to 2024 or some of that being included in the 2023 guidance?

Greg Silvers: So none of the percentage rents are operating at theater profit is in ’23 guidance, because the percentage rents are lease year driven and it really will hit sort of second and third quarter next year. And as far as operating theater, while there could be some profitability, we’re budgeting that or including in our guidance sort of a breakeven amount this year. And then as Regal transitions to both Cinemark and Phoenix. And then as we go into next year though, we definitely expect those to be profitable. And I think in our presentation, we said to the tune of about $6 million. So none of that’s in this year and should hit next year.

Eric Wolfe: Okay. All right. So I’ll — yes, right, I mean, that was actually mean it’s incremental to it. But, so if I think about that, the $9.4 million box office, you know, I’m just curious, you outlined in your presentation like $14 million in percentage rents and operating income that would come from that. I’m talking about the restructuring agreement presentation you put out before. I guess, how much variability could there be around that number assuming there’s a $9.4 billion box office? Could that be $10 million or $18 million? Just curious if you assume a certain box office level how much variability there would be around some of those numbers? Thanks.

Greg Silvers: Yes, I think you mentioned a $14 million number that’s the deferral and stub payments for ‘23 in our presentation for Regal. The number we put at that box office of around $9.4 million was $8.7 million…

Greg Zimmerman: And he’s combining the two, $8 million and the $6 million.

Greg Silvers: Oh, the $6 million. Okay, gotcha. So first of all, I think one of the benefits as we set that number basically at trailing 12-months, I think 2022.

Eric Wolfe: Yes, I mean, again the…

Greg Silvers: We should be as far as variability. The percentage rent is — was really based upon, Regal maintaining their current market share. So again, there was no — so could it go up or down? But historically, if you look over years, they’ve had that market share. Now they’ve closed some theaters, so there could be that traffic’s going to move to other places. So we could see a little bit of up in that. I would say the variability is going to be in the operating theaters. I mean, again, these are new theaters for these guys to operate. They — now the good thing is they’re getting their hands on them now and we didn’t budget anything. So they’ve got four or five months to get their hands on. But we worked with them, to kind of come up with those numbers. But I — so I think if the box office delivers it, it’s I think we’re in good shape there.

Greg Zimmerman: We put together a schedule in our Regal presentation that kind of showed that variability. So if box office, for example, was at $9.4 million, it was $9 billion percentage rents of sort of $8.7 million and $7.1 million. And in profitability of the operating theaters. You can see that variability on the chart that we showed in our Regal presentation to kind of vary based on box office. Now as Greg said, there’s other things that could impact the individual performance of theaters versus box office, but the primary indicator of performance for both the percentage rents and operating theater profit is box office.

Eric Wolfe: Got it. That that’s very helpful. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you for your question. Our next question comes from RJ Milligan with Raymond James. Your line is open.

RJ Milligan: Hey, good morning guys. So I’m going to take a different stab at the box office projection questions. But on slide seven, you guys show the projections for — it’s the median, I guess, for multiple analysts for the box office projections for ’23 and ’24 $9 billion and $9.8 billion. I’m curious if you’ve seen any movement in sort of that mean, estimate for ‘23 or ‘24, just giving what’s going on with the writer strike. And I’m curious and I think Josh asked this question, but how long before you adjust your own internal projections of I think it was $9.4 billion for the lease year and $9.8 billion for 2024 to sort of get to your numbers. How long does the strike need to last before you relook at those estimates and say, maybe we need to take those down?