Sabre: After Review, We Reduce Our Fair Value Estimate to $3 Analyst Note Dan Wasiolek, Senior Equity Analyst, 11 Aug 2025 We have ended Sabre's under review status after assessing second-quarter results and updating our forecast. Why it matters: Sabre severely cut its guidance for second-half air booking growth to 4%-10% from 20%. The firm gave equal weight to weaker industry demand, its higher US government, corporate, and regional mix, and the timing of an IT project, all of which should be transitory headwinds. g We have reduced our 2025 pro forma sales growth estimate to 2% from 6%, driven by expected air booking growth of 2% versus our prior 10% forecast. Beyond this year, we still see 2.5% average air booking growth during 2026-34, including 6% in 2026 as current headwinds subside. The bottom line: We have decreased our fair value estimate for narrow-moat Sabre to $3 per share from $4.87. While the shares appear undervalued, price action could remain volatile, given the precarious environment for business and corporate travel. We maintain our Very High Uncertainty Rating. g About 80% of our fair value estimate reduction is driven by the lower air booking forecast this year, with most of the remainder due to our decreased 2025 non-air booking (mostly accommodations) growth forecast reduction to 0.8% from 7%. Amid ominous demand, investor concerns about the company's liquidity profile remain elevated. But with demand stabilization in 2026, we think Sabre can produce $400 million in free cash flow to the firm and $700 million in cash next year, which would allow it to service its debt obligations
Business Strategy & Outlook Dan Wasiolek, Senior Equity Analyst, 11 Aug 2025 Despite near-term economic growth concerns caused by tariff uncertainty, which is negatively affecting its corporate and government business, we expect Sabre to reduce net debt/adjusted EBITDA to 6 times by the end of 2025 from 8.5 times in 2024, using proceeds from the prudent sale of its hospitality solutions business. We maintain our stance that Sabre will hold its position in global distribution systems, or GDS, over the next 10 years. This view is driven by a gradual recovery in corporate travel and Sabre's leading network of airline content and travel agency customers, as well as its solid position in technology solutions for these carriers and agents. Sabre's 30%-plus GDS air transaction share is the second largest of the three companies (behind narrow-moat Amadeus and ahead of privately held Travelport) that together control about 100% of market volume. Sabre's GDS enjoys a network advantage, which is the source of its narrow moat rating. As more supplier content (predominantly airline content) is added, more travel agents use the platform, and as more travel agents use the platform, suppliers offer more content. This network advantage is solidified by technology that integrates GDS content with back-office operations of agents and IT solutions of suppliers, which would require significant costs and time to replicate, and leads to more accurate information that is also easier to book. The firm's network prowess should be supported by its technology partnership with wide-moat Alphabet and its transition to the cloud, both of which we see driving innovation and cost efficiencies. The company's next-generation platform, SabreMosaic, is an open-source cloud-based artificial intelligence solution that makes it easier for airlines to customize its offering and upsell content. The company's GDS faces some risk of larger carriers making direct connections with larger agencies, although we expect these relationships to be the exception rather than the rule and expect Sabre to still be the aggregating platform in either case. Bulls Say Dan Wasiolek, Senior Equity Analyst, 11 Aug 2025 u The company's GDS network hosts content from all airlines and is used by many travel agents, resulting in a large industry share. Replicating this would involve meaningful time and costs. u The network advantage is supported by Sabre's platform revitalization with next-generation cloud and AI technology, which drives innovation, reliability, and cost efficiencies. u The business model is predominantly driven by transaction volume and not pricing, leading to less cyclical volatility. Bears Say Dan Wasiolek, Senior Equity Analyst, 11 Aug 2025 u Slowing economic growth presents a headwind to near-term demand for business and leisure travel booked on Sabre's network.
Business Description
Sabre holds the number-two air booking volume share in the global distribution system industry. The travel solutions segment represented 91% of total 2024 revenue, split between distribution (79% of segment sales) and airline IT solutions (21%) revenue. The company announced a planned sale of its growing hotel IT solutions division (9% of revenue) to TPG for $960 million in net proceeds, which is scheduled to close in late 2025. Transaction fees, which are mostly tied to volume and not price, account for the bulk of sales and profits.
Long-term incentive costs could increase for Sabre's network business, as online travel agents represent an increasing mix of GDS bookings, and they are lower-margin for the company. u Sabre is exposed to corporate travel, where volume could be hampered by some enduring use of video conferencing displacing internal and other meetings. Economic Moat Dan Wasiolek, Senior Equity Analyst, 11 Aug 2025 We think Sabre will uphold its network, switching cost, and efficient scale prowess, driven by challenges in replicating its aggregation, cost, and customer data position, and the value offered to its suppliers, agents, and travelers. We see these advantages remaining in place despite risks from artificial intelligence, direct connect competition, structurallylower corporate travel, and the ability to reinvest in an environment of elevated rates. As a result, we rate Sabre as having a narrow moat, reflecting our confidence in its ability to earn economic profits over the next 10 years, with estimated
returns on invested capital including goodwill averaging 16% over 2025-34 versus our 8.2% estimate of its weighted average cost of capital. Sabre’s distribution segment (72% of 2024 revenue) holds a network advantage, as it aggregates the content of hundreds of carriers and efficiently integrates that with travel agent back-office operations, which requires significant time and cost to build and operate. In addition to the several hundred global airlines, there are tens of thousands of traditional travel agents in the United States alone and many online travel agents and travel management companies, which are integrated onto Sabre’s travel network. Convincing these businesses to implement a new system would take significant time and result in high costs for all parties. In addition to hurdles replicating Sabre’s aggregation, the cost and value of its network are hard to mimic. Sabre’s platform costs airline operators just a low-single-digit percentage of their total ticket, which is comparable to the cost of a direct booking occurring on a carrier website after assuming marketing costs. Thus, it would be hard for a new competitor to beat. This low cost comes despite the platform’s global reach of travelers that can represent up to half of an airline operator’s total bookings. Low-cost carriers initially derived all their bookings from direct channels, but as the routes of these airlines expanded globally over the past several years, they have increasingly turned to Sabre’s distribution channel to reach a global corporate traveler. Given its value proposition, we don’t believe airlines will steer from using Sabre’s network, a view supported by American Airlines' loss of revenue share when it temporarily deemphasized the GDS channel in 2024. We also don’t expect carriers to incrementally push their own direct channels over the next several years, as the industry’s New Distribution Capability protocol increasingly allows Sabre’s platform to offer suppliers the ability to showcase customized content in a user-friendly fashion. Travel agents and travelers also benefit from Sabre’s network. First, Sabre offers the world’s airline content on one platform for agencies to use versus having to do multiple searches across individual carrier websites or call centers. Further, agents also benefit from having Sabre’s platform integrated into their back-office systems, which makes for a more efficient process and allows for technology updates as innovation improves. Finally, we estimate agents already get a 50%-75% cut of an airline booking fee paid to them for using Sabre’s or Amadeus’ platform, which also strikes us as a high mark for others to surpass. In total, the value of Sabre’s distribution network is illustrated in the company’s share of air booking volume increasing in each of the last eight quarters through 2024. Many of the drivers underlying network advantages for Sabre’s core distribution business also foster an efficient scale moat, in our view. To begin, efficient scale is witnessed by Sabre, Amadeus, and Travelport controlling essentially 100% of the market. The efficient scale advantage is also evident by Sabre’s travel network scale, allowing it to offer global distribution to airlines at costs that are typically only a low-single-digit percentage of the total airline ticket (similar to expenses incurred for airlines
through their own direct website bookings), which we believe would be timely and costly to replicate and improve upon, buoyed by the fact that large online operating companies like wide-moat Booking and narrow-moat Expedia continue to source airline content from Sabre and its peers versus building it out themselves. While Sabre’s distribution network holds network and efficient scale advantages, its airline IT solutions business provides a third switching cost advantage, which makes it costly and time-consuming for carriers to move to another provider. This is illustrated by IT solution contract lengths of three to seven years, implementation times of one to two years with high costs, and renewal rates for Sabre that are comfortably above 90% (Amadeus has noted similar renewal rates). Given the consistently high renewal rates and length of contracts, it would be several years before the competitive advantages of this business materially waned. And in our view, Sabre’s network, switching cost, and efficient scale advantages are fortified by the company’s recent investment in revitalizing its travel network by migrating functionality to the cloud and streamlining its technology offering, which should allow for improved product innovation at lower costs long term. We think Sabre will continue to invest in its competitive advantages. We don’t think Sabre’s competitive positioning will be materially altered by the risk of AI large language models displacing its platform, due to its vast customer database and partnership with Google’s AI and cloud infrastructure. OpenAI and Gemini will increasingly have the capability to quicklyreturn relevant travel content information to a user. However, we think the content these generative AI products draw upon will be owned by either the direct supplier or aggregated platforms like Sabre, which has accumulated billions of annual customer travel data points over the last few decades; we see this as essential to unlocking the promise of more customized offerings and generating bookings in an AI world. That said, we acknowledge the risk that over time, AI personal assistant recommendations become refined to endorse just one choice, potentially directing more of those bookings directly to a carrier’s website versus through options on an OTA. Still, OTAs have historically offered users a better experience (superior pictures, descriptions, check out) than suppliers, which could ensure the strong loyalty and direct traffic the large platforms have enjoyed endures. Sabre has also been building out its own AI product capabilities the last few years. In fact, in 2020, Sabre signed a 10-year partnership with Google to develop customized product offerings that leverage its travel expertise with Google’s cloud and AI/LLM capabilities. To do this, Sabre first had to migrate its 17 on-premises data centers to the cloud during 2018-23, which has allowed for lower costs and faster product innovation with the aid of Google’s machine learning. For example, Sabre has integrated Google’s AI/LLM with its customer data set to help agencies offer its travel users more customized hotel and airline content through its global distribution system platform. Also, Sabre is using AI to leverage data on its agents to help them become more productive. Additionally, Sabre is embedding AI in technology solutions used directly by its airline and hotel customers, which accounts for about 30% of
the company’s total revenue. For instance, Google and Sabre announced a next-generation airline IT platform, SabreMosaic, in May 2024. We think this open-source cloud-based artificial intelligence network will improve the ability of airlines to offer customized and ancillary content, helping drive revenue for both the carrier and Sabre, thereby supporting the company’s platform edge in a world that increasingly uses machine learning. In our view, Sabre’s AI/cloud partnership with Google is just one of many signals that the search giant is not planning to compete directly with the travel network. Although Google has the financial means to replicate global distribution system networks, we think the challenges of reproducing Sabre's platform are shown in the lack of movement the search giant has taken in competing against these platforms. Acquired in 2011, Google’s ITA software is an algorithm used by some online channels like Google Flights and Kayak. That said, these channels still use GDS platforms to connect to airline inventory and pricing. We don’t think Google will look to leverage its ITA asset into a competing GDS for several reasons. To begin, we believe Google faces challenges in getting traditional travel agents and travel management companies to switch from Amadeus and Sabre, as it would require time and cost, and because it would also need to offer similar airline content. Also, Google would likely have trouble convincing online travel companies to use its platform to source airline content versus Sabre, given that the search giant poses a larger competitive threat than Sabre to these operators. Additionally, Google’s DNA has historically not been tied to being a merchant but rather allowing information to flow as efficiently as possible, an approach we don’t see changing, especially as anticompetitive regulation continues to act as a governor toward any such action. Further, we have not found evidence that Google is investing in the industry’s New Distribution Capability protocol, which is gradually being adopted by suppliers and agents, placing the search leader even further behind Sabre if it chooses to develop a GDS. Finally, Google laid off personnel in its flights division in 2023, which offers another sign that the search engine giant doesn’t appear to have plans to compete directly with GDS operators. We also don’t envision financial strain or structurally lower corporate travel to impede Sabre’s ability to generate economic profits over the next 10 years. In fact, we think Sabre has bolstered its liquidity enough to continue investing in its global distribution system platform and IT solutions for airlines to support its narrow moat rating. To this point, heading into 2022, Sabre had $3.8 billion in debt scheduled to mature in 2024-25, but it now has no major debt maturing until 2027 after successful tender offers and refinancing. We believe Sabre's cash levels ($426 million as of June 30, 2025), free cash flow to the firm of more than $1.4 billion (helped by the sale of its hospitality solutions business for net proceeds of $960 million in 2025), and gradual recovery in platform demand position the companyto service its maturing debt. We have accounted for the potential risk of lower long-term business travel demand as videoconferencing displaces some business travel. Here, we expect air volume on Sabre's GDS platform will recover to around the low 70s of 2019's level by the end of this decade. Then, our average total air
booking industry forecast for 2031-34 of 2% growth is derived from leisure air booking volumes growing by midsingle digits and corporate travel remaining flat. This compares with the 2.8% average growth rate for corporate air travel during 2011-19, according to Euromonitor. Under this assumption, our estimate of Sabre’s ROIC including goodwill is 14%-16% over 2031-34, above our 8.2% estimate of its WACC. Fair Value and Profit Drivers Dan Wasiolek, Senior Equity Analyst, 11 Aug 2025 After reviewing second-quarter results, we have lowered our fair value estimate to $3 per share from $4.87 due to weaker expected sales growth in 2025. Our fair value estimate implies a 2026 enterprise value/EBITDA multiple of 9 times. Sabre's sales fell 1%, missing guidance of low-single-digit growth, driven by a 1% drop in air volume versus our 2% growth estimate, as tariff uncertainty hindered industry demand. The firm decreased its 2025 sales outlook to low-single-digit from high-single-digit growth. It severely cut second-half air booking growth to 4%-10% from 20%. Sabre said weaker industry demand, its higher US government, corporate, and regional mix, and the timing of an IT product implementation equally drove the reduction. These headwinds should be transitory. Weaker demand in the industry and Sabre's business mix are expected to be a 9-percentage-point headwind to air booking growth in the second half. These challenges should be transitory and stabilize with improved tariff visibility, making our 2026 6% air booking growth forecast achievable. Recent business wins are expected to drive about 16 percentage points of air booking growth in the second half. In our view, the customer wins speak to Sabre’s enhanced technology platform. The company has completed its multiyear transformation to the cloud, which has lowered costs to the tune of $150 million, and innovated products, such as its new opensource retail platforms like SabreMosiac, that we think can drive incremental ancillary revenue for the company. Still, this would not be enough to meet our prerelease 10% growth forecast or the firm's prior double-digit growth target in 2025. We have reduced our 2025 estimate to about 2% growth. In Sabre's travel solutions business, we forecast 2% and 9% average annual 2025-34 revenue growth for the distribution and IT solutions segments, respectively. For the distribution business, our forward 10- year network sales forecast is derived from revenue per booking that reaches $5.65 in 2034 from $4.82 in the prepandemic year of 2019, aided by an enduring mix of more cross-border travel. Our 2025-34 IT solutions (IT for airlines) sales forecast is derived from airline revenue per passenger boarded of $1.25 in 2034 compared with $1.34 in 2019. We see the completion of incremental investments, cost-reduction initiatives, and still-recovering global distribution system travel demand lifting profits. Our 2025 operating margin is 13.3%, up from 1.6% in 2023. As a result of our top-line and cost forecasts, we expect operating margin to average a low-double-digit percentage during the next 10 years from 9.1% in the prepandemic year of 2019 (heavy
investment period). Risk and Uncertainty Dan Wasiolek, Senior Equity Analyst, 11 Aug 2025 Our Morningstar Uncertainty Rating for Sabre is Very High. The travel industry is cyclical. A prolonged economic contraction could cause an increasing number of small-business traditional travel agencies to shut down, which could marginally affect long-term transaction volume done on Sabre’s travel network. In the near term, tariff policy uncertainty could reduce travel demand on Sabre's platform. Long term, an increasing portion of business travel following covid-19 could be replaced by video meetings, which would affect the global distribution system industry. Such disruptions could lead to the potential need for incremental liquidity, which could occur at value-destructive levels. Airlines continue to look for ways to migrate bookings directly to their websites, although costs are often similar to those found on indirect distribution platforms like Sabre’s global distribution system, which also increasingly allow for more control of the customer relationship. Technological advances could make it increasingly easy for end users to access not only GDS content but supply from smaller competitive offerings. Still, these threats currently lack the ownership of data, processing, and aggregation capabilities that GDS operators offer. Sabre faces environmental, social, and governance risks around innovation tax code changes, data breaches, potential fees should its platform be viewed as anticompetitive, and obtaining and retaining engineering talent. Capital Allocation Dan Wasiolek, Senior Equity Analyst, 11 Aug 2025 We assign Sabre a Morningstar Capital Allocation Rating of Standard, as its weak balance sheet is offset by our fair view on its investment strategy and shareholder distribution. Sabre's financial health profile is weak. The company ended 2024 with $4.3 billion in net debt, representing about 80% of its enterprise value (based on our $3 fair value estimate). We forecast Sabre’s 2025 debt/adjusted EBITDA at 6.0 times. However, it is encouraging that Sabre doesn’t have any material debt maturing until 2027 ($1.1 billion). We see Sabre’s investment strategy as fair. We see the company’s cloud investment as prudent and benefiting its ability to develop innovative products that will further entrench it with customers. We are also in agreement with the company’s focus on harmonizing its platform to the industry’s New Distribution Capability protocol, as that should help maintain its network and efficient scale advantages over at least the next 10 years, in ourview. We have confidence that management will be able to execute on its investment strategy. We believe CEO Kurt Ekert and other executives have the experience to lead Sabre through an increasingly complex technological landscape. Ekert was brought on as
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