On this page of StockholderLetter.com we present the latest annual shareholder letter from CARNIVAL CORP — ticker symbol CCL. Reading current and past CCL letters to shareholders can bring important insights into the investment thesis.

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CCL Shareholder/Stockholder Letter Transcript:

2023 ANNUAL REPORT

CARNIVAL CORPORATION & PLC
2023 ANNUAL REPORT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COMPANY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF INCOME (LOSS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME (LOSS) . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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5
CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF SHAREHOLDERS    EQUITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
MANAGEMENT   S ANNUAL REPORT ON INTERNAL CONTROL OVER FINANCIAL
REPORTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM . . . . . . . .
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6
7
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MANAGEMENT   S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND
RESULTS OF OPERATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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COMMON STOCK AND ORDINARY SHARES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
STOCK PERFORMANCE GRAPHS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CORPORATE AND OTHER INFORMATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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COMPANY
Carnival Corporation & plc is the largest global cruise company, and among the largest leisure travel
companies, with a portfolio of world-class cruise lines     AIDA Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line, Costa Cruises,
Cunard, Holland America Line, P&O Cruises (Australia), P&O Cruises (UK), Princess Cruises, and
Seabourn.
Purpose & Mission
To deliver unforgettable happiness to our guests by providing extraordinary cruise vacations, while honoring
the integrity of every ocean we sail, place we visit and life we touch.
Vision
As the global leader in the cruise industry, we will lead the way in innovative and sustainable cruising to
deliver memorable vacations and build borderless connections.
2023 Executive Overview
We consistently set records and achieved other significant milestones during this past year, including:
    Full year revenues hit an all-time high of $21.6 billion.
    For the first time since the resumption of guest cruise operations, net income was positive during the
third quarter, generating $1.07 billion.
    We entered 2024 with our best booked position on record, for both price and occupancy.
    Total customer deposits for each quarter throughout 2023 consistently surpassed the previous
quarterly records.
    We reduced our debt balance by $4.6 billion from its peak in the first quarter of 2023 and ended the
year with $5.4 billion of liquidity.
The strengthening demand environment across all our brands contributed to our revenue growth as we
drove improvements in ticket prices while closing the double-digit occupancy gap from the start of the year
and reaching historical occupancy levels for the second half of 2023.
We believe our advertising investments and other demand generation efforts during the past 18 months have
successfully elevated awareness and consideration for our brands, leading to record booking levels and
revenue results. In addition, these efforts enabled us to attract more new-to cruise and more new-to brand
guests compared to 2019. We are building momentum in closing the value gap to land-based alternatives,
capturing over 3.5 million new-to cruise guests in 2023 and remain well-positioned to take share from
land-based alternatives.
We continue to take actions to further stimulate demand and maintain our momentum through 2024 and
beyond. We are focused on ongoing improvements across the commercial space as we further rollout
advancements to our yield management tools and lead generation techniques, continue to invest in sales and
sales support, and build on already strong relationships with our trade partners. This is complemented by
our strategy to pull forward the sale of onboard items through bundled product offerings and pre-cruise sales.
We are also not losing sight of our expense base, as we have worked to mitigate the impacts of a high
inflation environment by leveraging our scale through cost optimization initiatives. We have made investments
that we expect to increase our cost efficiencies in the future, including successfully installing SpaceX   s
Starlink, next generation internet across our fleet, which is expected to drive more than a 20% reduction in
cost per megabit in 2024. In addition, we expect it will increase our bandwidth pipeline, resulting in both
improved guest experience and higher onboard revenues. We also launched Maritime Asset Strategy
Transformation (   MAST   ), a centralized system developed to optimize equipment and machinery
management across our brands and our fleet.
During 2023, we continued to work aggressively to reduce our environmental footprint and fuel consumption.
Our deep commitment resulted in industry-leading fuel efficiency and a more than 10% reduction in
absolute GHG emissions compared to our peak year of 2011, despite capacity growth of 30% over the same
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period. We also exceeded our shore power capability goal and our fleet now has twice as many ships ready
to plug into shore power as there are ports currently able to provide it.
As a result of our fleet optimization efforts, our fleet is now one year younger than prior to pausing our
guest cruise operations four years ago. During 2023 alone we benefited from the introduction of three
fantastic new ships including Carnival Celebration and Arvia, leveraging the scale of our popular and
exceptionally efficient series of excel-class ships, and Seabourn Pursuit, our second luxury expedition ship.
In addition, Carnival Cruise Line welcomed Carnival Venezia, which was transferred from Costa, becoming
the first ship as part of Carnival   s Fun Italian Style    platform. We will continue to optimize our brand
portfolio by transferring Costa Firenze to Carnival Cruise Line in 2024.
We also made meaningful progress in other strategic asset projects. We began construction on Celebration
Key in Grand Bahama, which will be the largest and closest exclusive destination in our portfolio. While not
expected to open until summer 2025, we have begun generating consumer awareness and excitement
around this fantastic upcoming destination. We also started the process for a significant upsize in guest
traffic at Half Moon Cay, our exclusive and beautiful pristine island destination in The Bahamas, with the
creation of a pier-side berth that can accommodate our largest vessels. In addition, we commenced work with
our Grand Bahama Shipyard partners on the construction of two floating docks, one of which will have
the largest lifting capacity in the world. Together, these strategic investments are expected to significantly
benefit us by helping to reduce travel time, further reducing our fuel consumption and preserving ship revenue
days.
Our significantly improved 2023 cash from operations enabled us to notably reduce the substantial debt
balance incurred during the pause of guest cruise operations. In 2023, we made sizeable debt prepayments
and ended the year with over $5 billion of liquidity. Looking forward, we expect to continue to strategically
refinance and prepay debt, leveraging our improving operating cash flow and the return of substantially
all of the remaining credit card reserves during the first quarter of 2024.
In addition, with nearly two-thirds of 2024 on the books already, we are well positioned to achieve another
year of record revenues. This, combined with excess liquidity, is expected to enable us to continue actively
managing down debt and reducing interest expense, leaving us on our path back to achieving investment
grade credit ratings and higher return on invested capital.
This has been a truly remarkable year, and we have come a long way in an incredibly short amount of time.
We delivered unforgettable happiness to over 12 million guests this year and look forward to continuing
to provide our guests with extraordinary cruise vacations in 2024, while honoring the integrity of every ocean
we sail, place we visit and life we touch.
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CARNIVAL CORPORATION & PLC
CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF INCOME (LOSS)
(in millions, except per share data)
Years Ended November 30,
2023
2022
2021
Revenues
Passenger ticket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Onboard and other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

14,067
7,526

7,022
5,147

1,000
908
21,593
12,168
1,908




2,761
2,375
2,373
2,047
1,335
3,426
1,630
1,528
2,181
2,157
863
440
2,958
269
272
1,309
680
187
591
1,346
Cruise and tour operating expenses . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Selling and administrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Depreciation and amortization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
14,317
2,950
2,370
11,757
2,515
2,275
4,655
1,885
2,233
Goodwill impairments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


226
19,637
16,547
8,997
1,956
(4,379)
(7,089)
Operating Expenses
Commissions, transportation and other
Onboard and other . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Payroll and related . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fuel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ship and other impairments . . . . . . . .
Other operating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .




































Operating Income (Loss) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Nonoperating Income (Expense)
Interest income . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
233
74
12
Interest expense, net of capitalized interest . . . . . . . .
(2,066)
(1,609)
(1,601)
Debt extinguishment and modification costs . . . . . . .
Other income (expense), net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(111)
(75)
(1)
(165)
(670)
(173)
(2,018)
(1,701)
(2,433)
(62)
(13)
(6,080)
(14)
(9,522)
21
Income (Loss) Before Income Taxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Income Tax Benefit (Expense), Net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Net Income (Loss) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(74) $
(6,093) $
(9,501)
Earnings Per Share
Basic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(0.06) $
(5.16) $
(8.46)
Diluted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(0.06) $
(5.16) $
(8.46)
The accompanying notes are an integral part of these consolidated financial statements.
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 2/23/2024 Letter Continued (Full PDF)