Top Brand IPO: Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH, RCL, CCL)

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By Jon C. Ogg Published

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Investors love when iconic brands come public in an initial public offering.  Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. has now filed for an IPO in the United States.  Financial terms are not disclosed other than that the outfit will sell up to $250 million in common shares.  The company has also planned to list on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “NCLH.”

The investment banking group in the filing is rather small.  The filing shows underwriters as UBS Investment Bank, Barclays Capital, and Goldman Sachs.

We are assuming that even those located in Central Africa have likely heard of the name before.  The company is a leading global cruise line operator.  As far as where it operates, that is in North America, the Mediterranean, the Baltic, Central America, Bermuda and the Caribbean.  It usually goes for the “Freestyle Cruising” that allows passengers to go do as they choose rather than the forced cattle-call of the thousands of passengers jammed together in many of the larger format cruise ships.  Its fleet is 11 modern ships.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE: RCL) and Carnival Corporation (NYSE: CCL) are currently the only two large cruise line operators that are public in the U.S.-listings with the major exchanges.  Carnival is worth almost $28 billion and Royal Caribbean is worth almost $7.5 billion in market capitalizations.

For the twelve months ended March 31, 2011, the company’s total revenue was $2.0911 billion.  It listed net revenue of $1.5425 billion, net income of $28.1 million and adjusted EBITDA of $427.1 million with an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.4%.  If you compare the first quarter of 2011 versus 2010, it is a very different picture:

  • For the three months ended March 31, 2011: total revenue of $495.5 million, Net Revenue of $368.0 million, net loss of $10.6 million, Adjusted EBITDA of $81.9 million and an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 16.5%.
  • For the three months ended March 31, 2010: total revenue of $416.5 million, Net Revenue of $304.9 million, net loss of $16.1 million, Adjusted EBITDA of $59.5 million and an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 14.3%.

The full SEC filing is here.

JON C. OGG

Photo of Jon C. Ogg
About the Author Jon C. Ogg →

Jon Ogg has been a financial news analyst since 1997. Mr. Ogg set up one of the first audio squawk box services for traders called TTN, which he sold in 2003. He has previously worked as a licensed broker to some of the top U.S. and E.U. financial institutions, managed capital, and has raised private capital at the seed and venture stage. He has lived in Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as New York and Chicago, and he now lives in Houston, Texas. Jon received a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance at University of Houston in 1992. www.247wallst.com.

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