Sabre Corp 10-K

ITEM 1. BUSINESS Overview Sabre Corporation is a Delaware corporation formed in December 2006. On March 30, 2007, Sabre Corporation acquired Sabre Holdings Corporation (“Sabre Holdings”), which is the sole subsidiary of Sabre Corporation. Sabre GLBL Inc. (“Sabre GLBL”) is the principal operating subsidiary and sole direct subsidiary of Sabre Holdings. Sabre GLBL or its direct or indirect subsidiaries conduct all of our businesses. Our principal executive offices are located at 3150 Sabre Drive, Southlake, Texas 76092. At Sabre, we make travel happen. We are a software and technology company that powers the global travel industry. We partner with airlines, hoteliers, agencies and other travel partners to retail, distribute and fulfill travel. We connect the world’s leading travel suppliers, including airlines, hotels, car rental brands, rail carriers, cruise lines and tour operators, with travel buyers in a comprehensive travel marketplace. We also offer travel suppliers an extensive suite of leading software solutions, ranging from airline and hotel reservations systems to high-value marketing and operations solutions, such as planning airline crew schedules, re-accommodating passengers during irregular flight operations and managing day-to-day hotel operations. We are committed to helping customers operate more efficiently, drive revenue and offer personalized traveler experiences with next-generation technology solutions. COVID-19 Pandemic During 2020, the outbreak of the coronavirus (“COVID-19”) has caused, and continues to cause, a severe global health crisis resulting in societal disruptions leading to economic downturn and uncertainties. The travel industry continues to be adversely affected by the global health crisis due to the outbreak of COVID-19, as well as by government directives that have been enacted to slow the spread of the virus. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major shifts in the travel ecosystem resulting in the changing needs of our airline, hotel and agency customers. This pandemic had a material impact to our consolidated financial results for the year ended December 31, 2020, resulting in a material decrease in transaction-based revenue across both of our business units compared to the prior year. Lower global distribution system ("GDS") volumes resulted in a material decline in incentive consideration costs for the year ended December 31, 2020, compared to the prior year. The reduction in revenues as a result of COVID-19 significantly and adversely affected our liquidity. During 2020, we responded with measures such as suspending common stock dividends and share repurchases, borrowing under our existing revolving credit facility, and completing debt and equity offerings. Additionally, given the market conditions as the result of COVID-19, we responded with cost savings measures during 2020, including the reduction of our workforce through voluntary severance and early retirement programs and a right-sizing of our global organization. We believe the ongoing effects of COVID-19 on our operations and global bookings will continue to have a material negative impact on our financial results and liquidity, and this negative impact may continue well beyond the containment of the outbreak. We believe that we have resources to sufficiently fund our liquidity requirements for at least the next twelve months; however, given the magnitude of travel decline and the unknown duration of the impact of COVID-19, we will continue to monitor our liquidity levels and take additional steps should we determine they are necessary or appropriate. 1 Business Segments and Products As discussed above, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused major shifts in the travel ecosystem resulting in the changing needs of our airline, hotel and agency customers. As a result, during 2020, we accelerated the organizational changes we began in 2018 to address the changing travel landscape through a strategic realignment (the "Strategic Realignment") of our airline and agency-focused businesses and to respond to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business and cost structure. The organizational changes involve the creation of a functional-oriented structure to further enhance our long-term growth opportunities and help deliver new retailing, distribution and fulfillment solutions to the travel marketplace. As a result of our Strategic Realignment, we now operate our business and present our results through two business segments, effective the third quarter of 2020: (i) Travel Solutions, our global travel solutions for travel suppliers and travel buyers, including a broad portfolio of software technology products and solutions for airlines, and (ii) Hospitality Solutions, an extensive suite of leading software solutions for hoteliers. All revenue and expenses previously assigned to the Travel Network and Airline Solutions business segments have been consolidated into a unified revenue and expense structure now reported as the Travel Solutions business segment. The historical results of the Hospitality Solutions reporting segment have not changed. Financial information about our business segments and geographic areas is provided in Note 18. Segment Information, to our consolidated financial statements in Part II, Item 8 in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Travel Solutions Our Travel Solutions business provides global travel solutions for travel suppliers and travel buyers through a business-to-business travel marketplace consisting of our GDS and a broad set of solutions that integrate with our GDS to add value for travel suppliers and travel buyers. Our GDS facilitates travel by efficiently bringing together travel content such as inventory, prices and availability from a broad array of travel suppliers, including airlines, hotels, car rental brands, rail carriers, cruise lines and tour operators, with a large network of travel buyers, including online travel agencies (“OTAs”), offline travel agencies, travel management companies (“TMCs”), and corporate travel departments. Additionally, our Travel Solutions business offers a broad portfolio of software technology products and solutions, through software-as-a-service (“SaaS”) and hosted delivery model, to airlines and other travel suppliers and provides industry-leading and comprehensive software solutions that help our customers better market, sell, serve and operate. Our product offerings include reservation systems for full-cost and low-cost carriers, commercial and operations products, agency solutions and data-driven intelligence solutions. Our reservation systems bring together intelligent decision support solutions that enable end-to-end retailing, distribution and fulfillment, and drive operational effectiveness through holistic planning and management of airline, airport and customer operations. Our commercial and operations products offer services to our customers to enable them to better use our products and help optimize their commercial and operations platforms. Hospitality Solutions Our Hospitality Solutions business provides software and solutions, through SaaS and hosted delivery models, to hoteliers around the world. Our SaaS solutions empower hotels and hotel chains to manage pricing, reservations, and retail offerings across thousands of distribution channels while improving guest experience throughout the traveler journey. We serve over 42,000 properties in 180 countries. Growth Strategy We connect people and places with technology that reimagines the business of travel. The key elements of our growth strategy include: • Developing innovative technology products through investment of significant resources in next-generation technology solutions that include delivering retailing intelligence to enable personalized traveler experiences in our marketplace and by travel suppliers, evolving the distribution of travel content including the integration of new distribution capability (“NDC”) content into our GDS, expanding our hospitality technology offerings including through our property management system ("PMS"), and continuing to address key customer needs in the areas of retailing, distribution, and fulfillment of travel and related products. • Transforming the security, stability, and health of our technology by leveraging maneuverability to enhance agility and modernize infrastructure at a global scale, with the goal of connecting people to experiences that enrich their lives. • Pursuing new customers across all of our product offerings, including customers seeking distribution of content, new agency relationships, as well as corporations representing buyers of content. • Strengthening relationships with existing customers, including promoting the adoption of our products within and across our existing customers, to help enable them to operate more efficiently, drive revenue, and spur innovation with next-generation technology solutions. Technology and Operations Our technology strategy is based on achieving company-wide stability, reliability and performance at the most efficient price point while continuing to innovate and create value for our customers. Significant investment has gone into building a centralized Platform as a Service ("PaaS") architecture with an emphasis on standardization, simplicity, security and scalability. We invest heavily in software development, delivery and operational support capabilities and strive to provide best in class 2 products for our customers. We operate standardized infrastructure in our data center environments across hardware, operating systems, databases, and other key enabling technologies to minimize costs on non-differentiators. We expect to continue to make significant investments in our information technology infrastructure to modernize our architecture, drive efficiency and quality in development, lower recurring technology costs, further enhance the stability and security of our network, comply with data privacy and accessibility regulations, and enable our shift to service enabled and cloud-based solutions. For this reason, we have included Technology costs as a separate category of cost within our consolidated financial statements and notes contained in Item 8 , “ Financial Statements and Supplementary Data ,” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our architecture has evolved from a mainframe centric transaction processing environment to a secure processing platform that is one of the world’s most heavily used and resilient service-oriented architecture (“SOA”) environments. A variety of products and services run on this technology infrastructure: high volume air shopping systems; desktop access applications providing continuous, real-time data access to travel agents; airline operations and decision support systems; an array of customized applications available through our Sabre Red 360 application; and web based services that provide an automated interface between us and our travel suppliers and customers. The flexibility and scale of our standardized SOA based technology infrastructure allow us to quickly deliver a broad variety of SaaS and hosted solutions. Customers Travel Solutions customers consist of travel suppliers, including airlines, hotels and other lodging providers, car rental brands, rail carriers, cruise lines, tour operators, attractions and services; a large network of travel buyers, including OTAs, offline travel agencies, TMCs and corporate travel departments; and airports, corporate aviation fleets, governments and tourism boards. Airlines served by Travel Solutions vary in size and are located in every region of the world, and include hybrid carriers and low-cost carriers ("LCCs") (collectively, “LCC/hybrids”), global network carriers and regional network carriers. Hospitality Solutions has a global customer base of over 42,000 hotel properties of all sizes. Sources of Revenue Transactions —Our Travel Solutions business generates distribution revenue for bookings made through our GDS (e.g., air, car and hotel bookings) and through our partners and generally we are paid directly by the travel supplier. A transaction occurs when a travel agency or corporate travel department books or reserves a travel supplier’s product on our GDS, for which we receive a fee. Transaction fees include, but are not limited to, transaction fees paid by travel suppliers for selling their inventory through our GDS and fees paid by travel agency subscribers related to their use of certain solutions integrated with our GDS. We receive revenue from the travel supplier and the travel agency according to the commercial arrangement with each. SaaS and Hosted —We generate Travel Solutions' IT Solutions revenue and Hospitality Solutions revenue through upfront solution fees and recurring usage-based fees for the use of our software solutions hosted on secure platforms or deployed via SaaS. We maintain our SaaS and hosted software and manage the related infrastructure with the assistance of third-party providers. We collect the implementation fees and recurring usage-based fees pursuant to contracts with terms that typically range between three and ten years and generally include minimum annual volume requirements. Software Licensing —We generate Travel Solutions' IT Solutions revenue from fees for the installation and use of our software products on premise. Some contracts under this model generate additional revenue for the maintenance of the software product. Professional Service Fees —We generate Travel Solutions' IT Solutions revenue and Hospitality Solutions revenue through offerings that utilize the SaaS and hosted revenue model which are sometimes sold as part of multiple performance obligation arrangements for which we also provide professional services, including consulting services. Our professional services are primarily focused on helping customers achieve better utilization of and return on their software investment. Often, we provide these services during the implementation phase of our SaaS solutions. Media —We generate Travel Solutions' IT Solutions revenue from customers that advertise products and purchase preferred placement on our GDS. Additionally, Hospitality Solutions generates revenue from customers that advertise products on our CRS. Advertisers use two types of advertising metrics: (i) display advertising and (ii) action advertising. In display advertising, advertisers generally pay based on the number of customers who view the advertisement, and are charged based on cost-per-thousand impressions. In action advertising, advertisers generally pay based on the number of customers who perform a specific action, such as click on the advertisement, and are charged based on the cost per action. Customers can also purchase preferred placement on hotel shopping displays on travel agency terminals. Customers pay for preferential payment through a subscription fee which is based on the amount of revenue the customer generates through our GDS and geographical market of the customer’s property (designated by airport code). Competition We operate in highly competitive markets. Travel Solutions competes with several other regional and global travel marketplace providers, including other GDSs, local distribution systems and travel marketplace providers primarily owned by airlines or government entities, as well as with direct distribution by travel suppliers. In addition to other GDSs and direct distributors, there are a number of other competitors in the travel distribution marketplace, including new entrants in the travel space, that offer metasearch capabilities that direct shoppers to supplier websites and/or OTAs, third party aggregators and peer-to-peer options for travel services. Travel Solutions also competes with a variety of providers in a rapidly evolving marketplace 3 which includes global and regional IT providers, various specialists in selected product areas, service providers and airlines that develop their own in-house technology. Hospitality Solutions operates in a dynamic marketplace that includes large global players, significant new entrants and hotels that develop their own in-house technology. Intellectual Property We use software, business processes and proprietary information to carry out our business. These assets and related intellectual property rights are significant assets of our business. We rely on a combination of patent, copyright, trade secret and trademark laws, confidentiality procedures, and contractual provisions to protect these assets and we license software and other intellectual property both to and from third parties. We may seek patent protection on technology, software and business processes relating to our business, and our software and related documentation may also be protected under trade secret and copyright laws where applicable. We may also benefit from both statutory and common law protection of our trademarks. Although we rely heavily on our brands, associated trademarks, and domain names, we do not believe that our business is dependent on any single item of intellectual property, or that any single item of intellectual property is material to the operation of our business. However, since we consider trademarks to be a valuable asset of our business, we maintain our trademark portfolio throughout the world by filing trademark applications with the relevant trademark offices, renewing appropriate registrations and regularly monitoring potential infringement of our trademarks in certain key markets. Government Regulation We are subject to or affected by international, federal, state and local laws, regulations and policies, which are constantly subject to change. These laws, regulations and policies include regulations applicable to the GDS in the European Union (“EU”), Canada, the United States and other locations. We are subject to the application of data protection and privacy regulations in many of the countries in which we operate, including the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") in the EU and the California Consumer Protection Act ("CCPA"). See " Risk Factors —Our collection, processing, storage, use and transmission of personal data could give rise to liabilities as a result of governmental regulation, conflicting legal requirements, differing views on data privacy or security breaches. " We are also subject to prohibitions administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (the “OFAC rules”), which prohibit U.S. persons from engaging in financial transactions with or relating to the prohibited individual, entity or country, require the blocking of assets in which the individual, entity or country has an interest, and prohibit transfers of property subject to U.S. jurisdiction (including property in the possession or control of U.S. persons) to such individual, entity or country. Our businesses may also be subject to legislation and regulations affecting issues such as: trade sanctions, exports of technology, antitrust, anticorruption, telecommunications and e-commerce. These regulations may vary among jurisdictions. See “ Risk Factors —Any failure to comply with regulations or any changes in such regulations governing our businesses could adversely affect us.” Seasonality Though the travel industry is typically seasonal in nature, seasonality has not significantly impacted our financial results for the year ended December 31, 2020 due to the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the travel industry. The COVID-19 pandemic severely depressed revenue and resulted in an unprecedented amount of cancellations in 2020. Historically, travel bookings, and the revenue we derive from those bookings were typically seasonally strong in the first and third quarters, but declined significantly each year in the fourth quarter, primarily in December. We recognize air-related revenue at the date of booking, and because, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, customers generally booked their November and December holiday leisure-related travel earlier in the year and business-related travel declined during the holiday season, revenue resulting from bookings was typically lower in the fourth quarter. Human Capital We maintain our SabreNext Strategic Framework that defines areas of focus for our culture and highlights how we enable our people to execute the plans and priorities for our technology, product, financial and customer strategies. 4 Our People —The significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business and operations has resulted in significant variances in our human capital metrics for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to prior years. We have not experienced any work stoppages and consider our relations with our employees to be good. As of December 31, 2020, we had 7,531 employees worldwide, consisting of the following: No of Employees % of Total United States 2,404 32 % Europe 1,907 25 % APAC 2,031 27 % All Other (1) 1,189 16 % Total 7,531 100 % (1) Includes Canada, Mexico, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa. Talent Acquisition, Development and Retention —Through our long operating history and experience with technological innovation, we appreciate the importance of retention, growth and development of our employees. We seek to set compensation at competitive levels that help enable us to hire, incentivize, and retain high-caliber employees. During 2020, we launched our Lead the Way program to support the virtual environment and cultivate talent. This program includes a leadership speaker series, leadership skills series and on-demand resources for all leaders, with a particular focus on first-time or first-level managers. Our formal and informal reward, recognition and acknowledgement programs encourage employees to recognize peers, teams and departments to honor their champions and help promote satisfaction and engagement. To assist in retaining key talent in the current highly volatile macro environment, we offer compensation programs to certain key employees, such as long-term performance-based cash incentive awards, performance-based restricted stock unit awards, time-based restricted stock unit awards, and other awards as appropriate. We monitor and evaluate various turnover and attrition metrics throughout our management teams. Diversity and Inclusion —With 70 offices around the globe, we believe that diversity and inclusion are at the core of our success and that the different backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and ideas of our employees are critical to spur innovation, drive growth and sustain competitive advantage in our industry. During 2020, a portion of our executive compensation was linked to our diversity and inclusion initiatives and we established an Inclusion and Diversity Council to help define a globally consistent approach to inclusion and diversity as a business imperative and an enabler of our SabreNext strategy. Health and Wellness —The health and safety of our team members is of the utmost importance. In addition to core health and welfare benefits, our wellness program offers resources to promote physical, emotional, and mental well-being. During 2020, we extended certain assistance programs to continue to support the well-being of our team members during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, to help ensure the safety and wellness of our employees going forward, we have expanded our parental leave program, enhanced our personal time off benefits, and we are in the process of implementing a work-from-anywhere program that will allow our employees additional flexibility in work arrangements and increased opportunities to work remotely. Corporate Responsibility —We invest globally in our communities by encouraging employee volunteerism on company time. Our employees have donated a significant number of volunteer hours to support our community-oriented and philanthropic culture. Additionally, our Passport to Freedom program has helped fight human trafficking and has provided support to victims and survivors, through increasing awareness and education within the travel industry on human trafficking issues and advocating for legislative change where appropriate. Available Information We are subject to the informational requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), and under these requirements, we file reports, proxy and information statements and other information with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other information to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act are available through the investor relations section of our website at investors.sabre.com. Reports are available free of charge as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file them with, or furnish them to, the SEC. The information contained on our website, Twitter account, and other social media channels is not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. We may use our website, our Twitter account (@Sabre_Corp) and other social media channels as additional means of disclosing information to the public. The information disclosed through those channels may be considered to be material and may not be otherwise disseminated by us, so we encourage investors to review our website, Twitter account and other social media channels. The contents of our website or social media channels referenced herein are not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. 5