Sabre repositions for revenue opportunities, cost savings

Sabre said it is repositioning the business as part of plans to go after new revenue opportunities and bring down costs.

Job losses are part of the strategy, according to a statement from president and CEO Kurt Ekert, who said the team would be impacted. Ekert added the CEO role in late April after becoming president in late 2021.

“This is an exciting time to be taking the helm at Sabre," he said. "We operate in a dynamically changing industry, where customers demand modern retailing technologies that deliver innovation at pace and scale. We believe this is the opportune time to drive change at Sabre as well.”

A 15% reduction in employees is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter which Ekert said would position the company better.

The restructure will cost the company $50 million in 2023 and $20 million in 2023, Sabre said in an analyst call.

The cost saving measures are part of the company's target of $500 million in free cash flow in 2025 and $900 million in adjusted EBITDA.

Reducing costs and boosting free cash flow are just two of Sabre's current priorities with sustainable growth and driving innovation also on the list.

Under the travel solutions business, developments will include global distribution system expansion, a global multi-source B2B lodging platform and further work around airline retailing including NDC.

Sabre also sees opportunity in its payments business following the acquisition of Conferma last summer as well as its partnership with Mastercard to speed up the use of virtual cards for B2B payments.

Growth is also expected to come from the hospitality solutions unit of the company including its Intelligent Retailing offering.

The company also said it is expecting a $200 million cost reduction annually including $100 million in the second half of 2023 put down to the "resource realignment."

For the first three months of 2023, Sabre reported revenue of $743 million compared with $585 million the previous year.

The growth was driven by increases in air, hotel and other travel bookings, the company said, with distribution bookings up 49% compared with Q1 2022.

Sabre’s net loss due to shareholders was $103 million compared with a net income of $42 million for Q1 of 2022 while adjusted EBITDA was $58 million versus $5 million year over year.

Revenue for the travel solutions business increased 27% to $677 million, including distribution revenue, which was up 53% to $526 million, and IT solutions revenue, which declined 21% to $152 million. Hospitality solutions increased almost a third to $74 million, attributed to an increase in central reservation system transactions.

Sabre also said that its technology transformation, which includes an investment of $150 million and its 10-year partnership with Google, is on track.