Frank Del Rio, CEO of NCL Holdings to appear on CNBC today at 6pm Eastern

[cksv]

Looks like Frank is coming out of his cave and finally starting to engage with the media. He will be appearing on Jim Cramer's Mad Money today on CNBC at 6pm Eastern. Will be interesting to hear what he has to say about the future. He has already spoken to various other news outlets this morning telling them that Norwegian now has $3.5 billion in cash on hand which is enough to bankroll the company for "at least 18 months" without any new revenue. The stock is up over 8%.

Edited May 7, 2020 by cksv

[Two Wheels Only]

The question is...will he or will he not be wearing a tie?

I vote for him not wearing a tie. 

[Jobeth66]

Cool!  With all that cash on hand, there's no reason to delay refunds for 90+ days.

[Corliss]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-norwegian-cruise-line-enough-171031951.html

 

"Del Rio said he hopes the company will restart operations at some time in the third quarter, and that it is seeing high demand for cruises in Asia."

 

"The possibility there will be no cruises in 12 months is "near zero," Del Rio said.  Del Rio said he hopes the company will restart operations at some time in the third quarter, and that it is seeing high demand for cruises in Asia."

 

"To help prepare for a resumption of business, Norwegian is consulting with former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb to develop health protocols, which may include improving and increasing the frequency of disinfecting and cleaning, Del Rio said."

 

“Cruise ships can be among the healthiest places in the world to be during a pandemic,” Del Rio said on Thursday. “It is a controlled environment.”

[wakey16]

4 minutes ago, Corliss said:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-norwegian-cruise-line-enough-171031951.html

 

"Del Rio said he hopes the company will restart operations at some time in the third quarter, and that it is seeing high demand for cruises in Asia."

 

"The possibility there will be no cruises in 12 months is "near zero," Del Rio said.  Del Rio said he hopes the company will restart operations at some time in the third quarter, and that it is seeing high demand for cruises in Asia."

 

"To help prepare for a resumption of business, Norwegian is consulting with former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb to develop health protocols, which may include improving and increasing the frequency of disinfecting and cleaning, Del Rio said."

 

“Cruise ships can be among the healthiest places in the world to be during a pandemic,” Del Rio said on Thursday. “It is a controlled environment.”

Thanks for the update, was hoping someone would post something keeping us all informed. Again many thanks.

 

[luv2kroooz]

4 hours ago, cksv said:

Jim Cramer's Mad Money

...ha. FDR and Cramer are good buds. Cramer typically tosses him softball questions and accepts whatever FDR says. It will be interesting to see if today is any different.

[cksv]

1 minute ago, blcruising said:

...ha. FDR and Cramer are good buds. Cramer typically tosses him softball questions and accepts whatever FDR says. It will be interesting to see if today is any different.

 

Probably not, FDR is a good salesman, but Cramer has been bashing the cruise industry as a whole for the past couple months so it will be interesting to see if he changes his tone after this interview.

[spanishguy1970]

1 hour ago, Corliss said:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-norwegian-cruise-line-enough-171031951.html

 

"Del Rio said he hopes the company will restart operations at some time in the third quarter, and that it is seeing high demand for cruises in Asia."

 

"The possibility there will be no cruises in 12 months is "near zero," Del Rio said.  Del Rio said he hopes the company will restart operations at some time in the third quarter, and that it is seeing high demand for cruises in Asia."

 

"To help prepare for a resumption of business, Norwegian is consulting with former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb to develop health protocols, which may include improving and increasing the frequency of disinfecting and cleaning, Del Rio said."

 

“Cruise ships can be among the healthiest places in the world to be during a pandemic,” Del Rio said on Thursday. “It is a controlled environment.”

yeah controlled environment, if someone is infected it can spread like fire. LOL

[BirdTravels]

FDR: "Customers are still booking. Today, NCL is only slightly lower in load factors in 2021 than they were in 2020.

NCL raised 2.4B in addition to the 1.1B already on hand, gives NCL 18 months of liquidity in the event that there is zero revenue. 

 

NCL will sail in 2020.

 

Working hand in hand with the CDC to develop enhanced protocols. Confident that they can sail safely. And not all cruise lines are equal"

 

"Early action to ban  people from countries with outbreaks. Enabled incredible low COVD-19 cases on NCL ships". 

 

50%/50% took FCC over refund. Over 30% of the FCC has already been used for rebookings. "

 

 

Cranmer: "I would go back on another cruise with FDR after doing extensive research into NCL's statistics on COVID-19 cases. NCL did far better than any other cruise line"

Edited May 7, 2020 by BirdTravels

[luv2kroooz]

Biggest lie...we don't believe in discounting to fill our ships. Hahahaha. That's hilarious.

 

Biggest truth....we take great pride in the cleanliness of our ships. No argument on that one.

[GettotheSun]

6 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

"Early action to ban  people from countries with outbreaks. 

 

 

 

So other than Bjork who gets to go on cruises until...

 

I didn't watch the show but I'm not sure I understand him going on Mad Money.   That's the show a CEO of a struggling company who just raised $2B to keep afloat choses to communicate to the shareholders, team members, and customers.  Ok.

 

[pnm655]

Just listened to interview. Stock offering was at $11 a share. I wonder how many buyers are looking for a quick flip by pushing the share price up due to over subscription. Debt offering was at 12% and the terms were poor for ncl.

[Corliss]

Well after watching Carnival cancel most cruises except for short (3-5 day) Bahamas and both Holland and Princess cancel almost everything I was very anxious to hear what NCL was going to do.  And very pleased to see they still intend to resume cruising in the 3rd. quarter.

 

I was also glad that NCL had the opportunity to bring it to the attention of the public how well they did with covid compared to the other cruise lines.  As I have mentioned before I think being on an NCL ship is safer than just being out in public on an every day basis.  Much better screening and sanitation. 

[Corliss]

1 hour ago, GettotheSun said:

 

I didn't watch the show but I'm not sure I understand him going on Mad Money.   

 

 

It is online here (10 mins. long)  https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/05/07/norwegian-cruise-ceo-talks-raising-2-billion-to-dodge-bankruptcy.html

[don't-use-real-name]

3 hours ago, Two Wheels Only said:

The question is...will he or will he not be wearing a tie?

I vote for him not wearing a tie. 

 

The communication was by telephone - wearing a tie ? - there was no video feed !

[datolim]

After the 8Q statement to the SEC it is damage control.

It is too late now.

Guest now want their money back. Nobody would book any more cruises with NCL.

[cksv]

1 hour ago, datolim said:

After the 8Q statement to the SEC it is damage control.

It is too late now.

Guest now want their money back. Nobody would book any more cruises with NCL.

Actually if you watched the interview you’d know that 50% have chosen to take a future cruise credit and that bookings/pricing is only down mid single digits from a year ago. The disclosure was just a formality presented as a worse case scenario to investors. Don’t read too much into it now that they’ve raised billions of dollars overnight.

[luv2kroooz]

1 hour ago, cksv said:

Actually if you watched the interview you’d know that 50% have chosen to take a future cruise credit and that bookings/pricing is only down mid single digits from a year ago.

 

I don't believe FDR for a minute. I have to use common sense and think for myself here and the notion that the entire travel industry is in the tank except for NCL just doesn't pass the test. Airlines have reduced future capacity by 90% in many cases, international travel is non existent and many of NCLs offerings involve international travel, hotel vacancy is reported at 80-90%. NCL stock down 80%, but bookings only down 15% on strong pricing. Someone tell wall street. The stock should skyrocket to $40 within a week or two. Something isn't reconciling here.

 

Had I been conducting the interview, I would have asked questions like, why did NCL withdraw earnings guidance less than two weeks ago? Why have you announced 25% workforce reductions? Salary cuts? 401k match eliminations? Why have you announced a reduction of spending by over $500 million? Talk is cheap, look at the actions. The actions are drastic if bookings are off 15%.

 

And, of course, Jim Cramer just nods his head like a puppet while stating NCL reported less infections than any other cruise line.

 

Edited May 8, 2020 by blcruising

[Chesneygirl]

 

[Trimone]

That’s the softest interview to a CEO ever,  the interviewer sails with NCL.

Absolute spin...

[Diver2014]

8 hours ago, datolim said:

After the 8Q statement to the SEC it is damage control.

It is too late now.

Guest now want their money back. Nobody would book any more cruises with NCL.

 

Wrong.  We fully expect to go on our cruise in November with NCL.

[Corliss]

Cramer doesn't spin.  He can be very positive about a company and he can also be brutally negative.  If he is negative about a company he just doesn't have them on his show.  So it is interesting to see how much his view point has changed regarding NCL, at least, from March 25 (this was when cruise lines voluntarily stopped cruising.)  In yesterday's interview Cramer actually said he is going to take a cruise.

 

March 25

"Then there are the real losers, the ones that might never recover. The cruise line stocks are all roaring because the bill apparently has something for them. My take? The government can give the cruise lines all the bailouts they want, we have learned that cruise ships can be incubators and our biggest fear right now is getting Covid-19 from someone. You have 4,000 people on these monster cruise ships. Who knows who has what?

 

I think they are cyclical and secular losers. My wife and I were about to take a cruise before this happened, because some levels of the ships seemed like the life of the old Cunard lines that cross the Atlantic.

 

Now I just have a view of a ship searching for a port that might take them.

 

That's the opposite of Zoom. They are all sales."

[david_sobe]

Demand for cruises in Asia?  Hmmmm is this not what he said when the Joy launched in China?

Hey FDR, pay another $50 million to change the Joy back to Chinese standards and send the Joy back 😆

 

It almost could have been a recording from 5 years ago.

With 15% unemployment NCL WILL have to discount cruises to fill their ships.

Seems a little out of touch with reality.  

Edited May 8, 2020 by david_sobe

[spanishguy1970]

20 minutes ago, david_sobe said:

Demand for cruises in Asia?  Hmmmm is this not what he said when the Joy launched in China?

Hey FDR, pay another $50 million to change the Joy back to Chinese standards and send the Joy back 😆

 

It almost could have been a recording from 5 years ago.

With 15% unemployment NCL WILL have to discount cruises to fill their ships.

Seems a little out of touch with reality.  

Oh gosh, another person who got the same thing from that interview as i did, FDR is completely out  of touch with reality.

[Trimone]

Maybe he means that tie up with that Chinese travel agency, that was flooding unsold cabins before this crisis.

Think back to the end of last year.