Life Time Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:LTH) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Life Time Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:LTH) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript May 1, 2024

Life Time Group Holdings, Inc. misses on earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.12 EPS, expectations were $0.13. Life Time Group Holdings, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Greetings, and welcome to the Life Time Group Holdings Inc., First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Dani Matzke, Vice President of Corporate Finance. Thank you, Dani. You may begin.

Danielle Matzke: Good morning, and thank you for joining us for the Q1 2024 Life Time Group Holdings earning conference call. With me today are Bahram Akradi, Founder, Chairman and CEO; and Erik Weaver, Senior Vice President, Interim CFO and Chief Accounting Officer. During this call, the company will make forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements made today. There is a comprehensive discussion of risk factors in the company’s SEC filings, which you are encouraged to review. The company will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted net income, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted diluted EPS, net debt to adjusted EBITDA or what we refer to as net debt leverage ratio and free cash flow.

This information along with reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included when applicable in the company’s earnings release issued this morning, our 8-K filed with the SEC and on the Investor Relations section of our website. With that, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Erik Weaver. Erik?

Erik Weaver: Thank you, Dani, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you all joining the call this morning. I will provide an update regarding our first quarter results, the full details of which can be found in the earnings release we issued this morning. We are pleased with the strong financial results we achieved this quarter. Total revenue for the first quarter increased 16.8% to $596.7 million versus the prior year, driven by a 19% increase in membership dues and enrollment fees and a 10.5% increase in incentive revenue. Access memberships increased 5% to end the quarter at more than 802,000 memberships, and total memberships ended the quarter at approximately 853,000. Average monthly dues were $186, up 12.7% from the first quarter last year.

Revenue for access membership increased to $745 from $667 in the prior year period, as we continue to benefit from higher dues, increased visits, and increased incentive activity. Net income for the first quarter was $24.9 million, down 9.5% versus the first quarter of 2023. Q1 2023 net income was elevated as a result of one-time net benefits of $8.7 million related to the sale leaseback transactions and the sale of two triathlon events. Adjusted net income was $30.5 million, an increase of $7.3 million versus the first quarter 2023′. adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.15 compared to $0.11 per share in the first quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA increased 21.6% to $146 million, and our adjusted EBITDA margin of 24.5% increased 100 basis points as compared to the first quarter 2023.

Our strong financial performance continues to drive growth in cash flow and a reduction of our net debt leverage versus the prior year. Net cash provided by operating activities increased 21.7% to $90.4 million as compared to the first quarter 2023. We reduced our net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage to 3.6 times in the first quarter versus 5.2 times in the prior year period. We are excited about the continued execution and success of our business. With momentum on our side, we are very optimistic about the opportunities in front of us in 2024. I will now turn the call over to Bahram.

Bahram Akradi: Thank you, Erik. As you would expect from what you just heard, we are especially proud of our continued progress, and it is my pleasure to provide a little color with respect to the numbers Erik shared with you. Addressing revenues, we were pleased with the $597 million we achieved for the first quarter, nearly $2 million above the top end of our guidance with the outperformance derived principally from incremental membership dues and dynamic personal training. Adjusted EBITDA of $146 million was at top end of our guidance and we achieved a 24.5% adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter. As pleased as we are at our progress here, we are going to reiterate our previously issued adjusted EBITDA margin expectation of 23.5% to 24.5% for this year.

Consistent with absolutely normal predictable seasonality, a portion of the revenue gain we anticipate for the middle of every year will be from summer activities which generate incremental EBITDA but at lower margins. Even more gratifying, access membership at the end of Q1 2024 were $802,000, which is substantially above our expectation. This overperformance has been a direct result of the strategic initiatives we have previously discussed with you, which include Pickleball, Aurora, and a small group training and the improved member retention we are currently experiencing, which is the best we have ever seen. Additionally, we believe we have some membership pull forward into the first quarter from the second quarter, as some people joined earlier in anticipation of the full season.

Average dues were $186 a month in line with our expectations. Based on the positive trends we are seeing in our business, we are raising our revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance modestly. Our full year’s revenue guidance is now $2.5 billion to $2.53 billion and our adjusted EBITDA guidance is $603 million to $618 million. Our priorities for this year remain growing revenue and adjusted EBITDA per our guidance, second, delivering positive free cash flow. We’re on track to achieving this objective during the second quarter and we expect to remain free cash flow positive going forward. Finally, reducing our net debt leverage ratio two under three times, sooner than later, and certainly before end of the year. Lastly, I want to personally thank each and every Life Time team member for your relentless commitment to delivering the ultimate experience from the member point of view, which drives the amazing financial results we’re enjoying today.

Thank you.

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Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. [Operator Instructions] One moment please while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is from John Heinbockel with Guggenheim Partners. Please proceed with your question.

John Heinbockel: Hi, Bahram, I wanted to start with engagement, right? So, I know you’ve given that metric and that continues to improve. I think it was 135 a year last we heard. So, what does continue to happen with engagement? And, you mentioned dynamic personal training. How do you guys think about wallet share with in-center revenue and the opportunity there because obviously your members have a pretty big wallet?

Bahram Akradi: Thanks, John. From a personal training standpoint, dynamic personal training really has been some initiative we launched almost two years ago. I’ve been working on that brand and we really have amazing success with it right now. We have the most number of almost double the number of personal trainers applying every each month as they did a year ago. The momentum is strong. The execution is the best I’ve seen. The casting is great. And we are really extremely pleased with what my team is delivering right now. We are seeing continued growth and engagement in the personal training. The connectivity between the members and personal training is improving. And so, that was the most important piece of our in-center as we’ve talked about before.

The kids’ programming has been great. Summer camps have been great. Spa and cafe have been the focus for this year to improve and we have tons of opportunity there and we’re seeing really the initial baby steps in improvement in those as well. So, at this point, John, we just really have a very, very optimistic view of how all these programs are coming from an engagement standpoint. We’re seeing the most engaged customer that we have ever had in the history of the company, which directly resulting in the best retention that we are seeing and it’s continuing to trend better than our own expectation, which is pretty awesome.

John Heinbockel: Great. Maybe as a follow-up, right, without stealing thunder from your Analyst Day, but I know you recently, I think, introduced this concept, right, of large format equivalent clubs and how you want to think about the pipeline? So, just maybe at a higher level, how do you think about that? And obviously, you can mix and match urban residential and office buildings and you have a lot of optionality. But how do you think that plays out over the next two or three years?

Bahram Akradi: Yes, that’s a great question again, John. At the end of the call today, we’re going to talk about our Investor Day that we’re planning and give you full details of that for May 30th. Our goal is to flush out the description, but in a nutshell, we, as we’ve stated before, have the same expectation on the levered rate of return out of any type of facility we do, which is roughly between 30%-35% levered return on our invested capital, net invested capital, whether if it’s upfront investment coming from landlords or building owners, et cetera, or it’s at the end with a sell-lease-back conversion. The net invested capital that we’re looking for is always between 30% and 35%. And what we’re going to do on that day is demonstrate to everybody with a variety of examples that all of these are the same.

So then to eliminate the confusion for the investors, our target is between 8 and 12 LFEs in a given year and really averaging about 10 per year. Now, a lot of these things, as they have very long gestation time, so sometimes you may have a year that comes in on that lower end, the 8th. That means a couple of those clubs should have opened that year would have some delays in it, so the following year we should do 12. So for modeling purposes, what we’re going to guide everybody to is to about 10 LFEs per year, and the remainder of what it takes to deliver a double-digit, 10% plus revenue and EBITDA growth. This is not for this year, obviously, based on what we have just guided to. It’s much higher than that. But for 25 and beyond, to get to the 10% revenue and EBITDA growth, we will then need to have about 4% to 5% of that come from the same store, and the rest of it needs to come from additional LFE expansions and other initiatives that we have in place.

And we feel really, really great about our strategy, outlook, and the execution of our team.

Erik Weaver: Yes. Hi, John, this is Erik. If I could just add to that, I think another key benefit of the various formats here is our total addressable market is substantially bigger, and I think that’s one thing that’s very important as we continue to think about our growth.

John Heinbockel: Great. Thank you, guys.

Bahram Akradi: Thanks.

Operator: Our next question is from Megan Alexander with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Megan Alexander: Hi, good morning. Thanks so much.

Bahram Akradi: Good morning.

Megan Alexander: Thanks. Just wanted to follow up. Bahram, you alluded to it a bit in terms of the updated guide and taking it up by more than the 1Q be. You talked a little bit about it driven by current trends. You also talked about some pull forward and membership into 1Q. So maybe can you just give us a bit more color on what’s exactly changing in the outlook? Is it that you’re getting some of these pool numbers a bit earlier, which tend to have a higher dues number given the pool activation fee, and you’re just getting more revenue out of them over the season? Or maybe just help us tie those comments together in terms of what’s changing in the outlook?

Bahram Akradi: Yes, that’s great. So the most important thing, Megan, is retention. We keep going back – we keep going back and emphasizing to everyone, there’s a high-end leisure business that is based on subscription. The most important factor, the most important KPI is retention. And we are trending to roughly 10% better retention than we have had ever in the history of the company. And that alone allows to see that our forecast for our dues is basically significantly higher than three months ago at this point. And therefore, our forecast is just purely based on facts – our guidance is purely based on our forecast. And the forecast just easily suggests we should be able to deliver the numbers we just guided to, both on top line and bottom line.

Megan Alexander: Okay, that’s helpful. Thank you. Again, you alluded to this a bit, wanted to talk a little bit more just about the EBITDA margin. Center OpEx was a bit higher than what the street was looking for, and you didn’t take the guide up as much on the EBITDA line, so maybe not getting the leverage on sales. It seems it’s driven by where that upside is coming from. But I guess just bigger picture, what are you seeing in the cost of the club? And how are those trending? And is there some gating factor to getting EBITDA margins above 24.5%? Is this the right level for the business? How should we think about that a bit longer term in terms of you letting that EBITDA margin kind of drift higher over time?

Erik Weaver: Yes, let’s go through this. We are extremely happy with a 23.5% to 24.5% EBITDA margin. Our focus is always to deliver the best member experience and a long, long-lasting enduring business. So what I’m really proud of is the work that my team has done here. We reinvented this business over the last four or five years with a clear vision that the business is not going to be going forward the same as it was before all the decisions that was made during the last four or five years. We anticipated higher cost. We anticipated higher interest rates. We anticipated way more wages and much, much higher construction costs, development costs. Therefore, we made the proper adjustments. We made all the necessary adjustments.

The EBITDA plus rent margin is now roughly 5% higher than it was at our banner year of 2019. Therefore, we have all the latitude, all the space to pay a little higher cap rate for our sell lease backs and get those deals done. We have the ability to cover all the increased payroll so we can continue to hire the best talent and pay them what we need to pay them to keep them in the clubs. And the business, the new business model, the whole model, inclusive of all these increased costs are superior to the model we had 2019 and before, so all of it has been anticipated. There is no surprise and we are super happy. Is there a chance that the EBITDA margin could be more than 24.5%? Yes. Do we want to guide you to that right now? Absolutely not. So we are just giving you the 23.5% to 24.5% firmly and making sure that we can deliver our objectives and our promises through that range.

Megan Alexander: Great. Thanks, Bahram.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Brian Nagel with Oppenheimer & Company. Please proceed with your question.

Brian Nagel: Good morning.

Bahram Akradi: Good morning, Brian.

Brian Nagel: First and foremost, congrats on another nice quarter, nicely done.

Bahram Akradi: Thank you, my friend.

Brian Nagel: Bahram, the first question I have, we talked a lot about driving the business towards free cash flow, positive free cash flow. You reiterated that today. Debt leverage ratios are coming down. You could talk or any color you can give us on how you plan to – your plans to address the debt and your balance sheet that comes due in early 2026?

Bahram Akradi: As you would anticipate better than anybody, Brian, we are always months and months and months ahead. We are working on those things right now. We do have some, we do have all sorts of things planned out. Our expectation is that debt will get done sooner than later with much better interest rates for our next year. And we have had the most massive club opening in the first half of the year instead of spread out or the back half like I have seen some years this year. So, we just opened three or four amazing successful clubs, beating our expectations, beating our records in every case. But we spent a lot of money to get those opened up. But as we go to the second quarter, you are going to see at the end of the second quarter the shift where we deliver free cash flow positive this quarter.

That is after all growth capital. We start seeing the debt coming down, the debt to EBITDA, just the EBITDA coming down pretty nicely from this quarter forward. And so, we are absolutely thrilled. We are exactly on our plan or better in every case.

Brian Nagel: That is very helpful. I appreciate that. And then my follow-up question, it is bigger picture. Again, we are looking at the results, your comments, the businesses performing extraordinarily well. The question I will ask, I mean, just given market concerns of consumer, economic, et cetera, I mean, as you look across the business, in particular in the membership side, are you seeing anything at all, anywhere, to suggest a more cautious member within your model?

Erik Weaver: So, every month is a fantastic question, Brian. I am glad you are asking it. And I am thrilled to answer it. Every single month, we are seeing a record month on our personal training over the month before. We are seeing record retention over the month before. We are getting more clubs, as I told you guys on the last call, going on a wait list. It is only simply a function of making sure we still deliver member point of view and that sort of the highest quality leisure companies that you can possibly expect in terms of service level. So, if people want to learn about Lifetime, they get the most amazing reception. Yet, we do have to hold the memberships back a little bit to deliver the experience we want. We want to handle that correctly.

So, the only thing we are taking is time to train our leadership in every club when they are ready to put their clubs on a wait list for putting more clubs on a wait list. So, honestly, we have more demand than we’re concerned about. Well, I have personally expected to see some weakness for the last 18 months, and I have been wrong. I have been wrong and wrong and wrong, and we kept thinking, this customer is going to get tired. They’re going to get tired. We are not seeing anything. In fact, the only trend we see, again, I emphasize this before, Brian, you know it, the most important key KPI is the retention, and we are seeing the best retention we’ve ever seen.

Brian Nagel: Very helpful, Bahram. Congrats, and best of luck with the results of the year.

Bahram Akradi: Thank you so much.

Operator: Our next question is from Alex Perry with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Alex Perry: Hi, thanks for taking my question here, and congrats on a strong quarter. I guess just first, Bahram, maybe following up on your last question. Can you give us an update on how many of your clubs are on a waitlist, and are you considering raising prices where demand continues to exceed supply? Like, what’s sort of the pricing outlook that we should be embedding for this year? Thanks.

Bahram Akradi: Two great questions, Alex. Great to hear from you. The one thing I want to make sure we don’t create a pattern for is creating a metric around how many clubs on a waitlist. So, this just becomes… One more thing that people get focused on. It’s just what we want to insinuate to you guys is that we’re getting more clubs, getting to that point where to manage the experience for the customers who are already in, we have to be thoughtful about not just having a free-for-all for people dropping in, right? So, the waitlist is allowing us to, sort of gauge the inflow of the new members in the busy clubs, and all I can tell you right now is we literally are getting as many clubs on a waitlist as we can have our team and our processes properly in place to execute that with a high execution level.

So, I don’t want to create a metric, but I can tell you by end of this month, we’ll be nearly three, four times how many clubs are on the waitlist, just at the end of January. So, it’s – but it’s really a function of us being able to roll it out without creating an attitude that we’re too good or anything like that for the customer who loves Life Time’s brand.

Alex Perry: That’s really helpful. And then my follow-up question was, you made a comment in your prepared remarks about, a bit of a pull forward into 1Q on Center membership. Maybe just help us think about how we should be thinking about the second quarter on any sort of key KPIs, I guess, on Center memberships specifically, and what do you think sort of driving that pull forward? Is it due to people being worried about, getting into the club during pool season because of the waitlist? Thanks.

Bahram Akradi: Yes. I think it’s a function of that and the fact that we normally have a summer pool pass sort of implementation in the busier clubs. We charge a fee to get the people in to sort of discourage the people who join just for those three, four months, which we have happening every year. So, you guys know we have a big sign-up May and June, and then we have a big dropout September and October, which we really don’t like. So, we’re always trying to figure out a way to discourage that behavior without, without making the customer feeling anxious. So, in the past, we have introduced this sort of a starting from April to layer in some fees for the pool, and then it just accelerates into May, June. Those fees goes up higher.

And some people who have the pattern, they know they want to join for the summer. They’re smart enough to join in the March and not avoid paying any of those fees, but they’re paying an extra month. So, at the end of the day, it all works out. I just want to caution the analysts and investors on the fact that our over performance on membership, I just didn’t want people to just take that and multiply it for every quarter going forward and get ahead of our guidance on the revenue and EBITDA. And then, again, you have a choice of doing what you want to do, and we’re just trying to make sure we give you guidance. We’re trying to provide you guys the best information and the best guidance possible.

Alex Perry: Perfect. That’s very helpful. Best of luck going forward.

Bahram Akradi: Thank you so much, Alex.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Simeon Siegel with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Simeon Siegel: Thanks. Hi, guys. Good morning. Hope you’re doing well.

Bahram Akradi: Good morning, Simeon.

Simeon Siegel: Bahram, I was hoping to follow-up on that a little bit, actually, because, I mean, it’s interesting. So, one, is it new, this idea of people are signing up earlier to avoid these fees? And maybe does that help smooth out seasonality a little bit? Does it give you a little bit more predictability if you are now bringing those people in earlier and keeping them for longer? Or is it normal and there just were more people that did it? So, maybe any context around that, any way to quantify how many pulled forward earlier and whether this is going to be just a new dynamic and it smooths out the seasonality?

Bahram Akradi: Yes, I think if you take the number above the number that was consensus, about 795, that’s about 7,000. I would say it’s about half and half. About half of it was extra pull forward and the other half was basically better retention, et cetera. So, we’re – we’re cautious on all of this, Simeon, because really the, we’re balancing on what the streets may want, but more so on what our customer reaction is to our company and our team member. And I just can’t emphasize how plentiful. How pleased I am with the, with the overall feel and the health of the business. The clubs are busy. The members are happy. Team members are in a great place. We’re getting more and more amazing qualified people coming in, wanting to be a part of Lifetime. So, I just really don’t see any negative trends. At the same time, we just want to make sure we deliver a balanced tone in terms of not getting ahead of ourselves. Yes. In terms of anything. That’s it.

Simeon Siegel: Okay. Well, I, yes, that makes sense. I guess my point or my question was, have you found a way to stretch those summer members into another month or so because you’re, again, in this, avoid the fees, but have them there longer?

Bahram Akradi: That’s exactly what, you’re once again, 100% correct. That’s what’s happening. They’re just basically, our, our strategies are basically to have the longest term member. I know. We prefer not to have people drop in, drop out. It’s more of a country club and a mindset. And we weren’t able to do this, Simeon, when, prior to 2020, because we were doing so much promotions, so we almost invited people for this behavior. And now, it’s finally taking hold after a couple years. You know, really, it’s about two years now. Since we were officially allowed to run our business without any, restrictions across the, across the Northern, Northern, Northern America. And now we’re seeing things have kind of balanced out. But the beauty of it is that we are delivering a much, much more higher end leisure athletic country club business than we were doing in 2019. And the results are speaking for themselves.