period. The short-Continued the recovery and long-term performance goals approvedgrowth of the Pursuit business, with year-over-year adjusted EBITDA increasing from $42.7 million in February 2020 reflected management’s outlook for2021 to $67.9 million in 2022, a 59% increase;
Drove ongoing transformative and growth initiatives within our GES segment that enabled significant adjusted EBITDA improvement in 2022, from a loss of $30.4 million in 2021 to a gain of $61.3 million in 2022;
Successfully launched Spiro as an experiential marketing agency that serves leading global brands and is poised to drive growth in the business atlarge and fragmented experiential marketing industry;
Delivered strong execution through a lower-cost operating model in GES Exhibitions in a demanding execution environment that time,included the rapid return of live event industry activity beginning in the second quarter of 2022;
Successfully recruited talent in a challenging hospitality staffing environment to ensure Pursuit was able to deliver a high level of guest satisfaction as global tourism continued to recover;
Continued to prudently invest in Refresh Build Buy opportunities across our Pursuit business, including the continued executionacquisition of the capital allocation priorities and growth strategy that drove substantial above-market total shareholder returns during the period from 2015 – 2019.
However, beginningGlacier Raft Company in March 2020, business conditions within the travel/hospitality2022;
Worked diligently to maximize cash flows from operations and event marketing industries began to rapidly deteriorate due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and we experienced significant and adverse impacts that were directly attributable to the pandemic, includingmaintain a substantial revenue decline resulting from government ordered shutdowns, travel restrictions and prohibitions on in-person gatherings. Specifically, we experienced the following adverse effects:
Our 2020 full year revenue was $415.4 million, down approximately 68% from $1.3 billion in 2019;
Revenue declines were approximately 66% at Pursuit and 69% at GES;
The full year net loss attributable to Viad was $374.1 million, versus income of $22.0 million in 2019; and
• | Full year adjusted segment EBITDA was negative $50.2 million, versus positive $152.7 million in 2019.1
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Upon the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, our management team immediately pivoted from executing our compelling growth strategy to taking the difficult actions necessary to bolster the Company’sstrong liquidity position, through substantial cost reductions, raising additional capitalincluding the divestiture of our non-core, audio-visual business in December 2022, which generated approximately $29 million of cash proceeds and securing financial flexibility fromsimplified our lenders. These actions were essentialbusiness portfolio; and
Continued to stabilizeattract and develop top-tier talent and strengthen our enterpriseemployee engagement and protect long-termretention efforts across our businesses.
We believe that these activities position us to capture significant growth and generate value for our shareholders into the future.
Overview of Key Compensation Decisions
Our executive compensation program proved effective as our executive team effectively led the Company through ongoing recovery turbulence while taking demonstrative steps to transform and included, but were not limitedgrow the businesses that are aligned with creating long-term shareholder value. In accordance with the foregoing, in 2022, our Human Resources Committee made the following NEO compensation decisions designed to align our compensation programs to long-term shareholder value and retain and incentivize our executive team:
Base salaries for our NEOs remained consistent with 2021 levels, with the exception of an increase for Mr. Linde in connection with the expansion of his role in early 2022 to include the Chief Operating Officer position;
Continued the use of strategic objectives in our 2022 Management Incentive Plan (“MIP”) to incentivize actions that align with long-term value creation;
Expanded our commitment to environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives, and incorporated our ESG commitment into executive compensation as a factor in measuring attainment of our strategic objectives;
Utilized a mix of stock options (70%) and restricted stock units (30%) in our 2022 long-term incentive (“LTI”) awards for our NEOs that balanced then-existing industry uncertainty with our need to retain and incentivize our executive team as well as maintain a performance alignment with shareholders; and
Implemented a multi-year incentive award for Mr. Barry that aligns with Viad’s strategic growth objectives.
As noted above, our decision in February 2022 to utilize stock options as a component of 2022 LTI awards for our NEOs was based primarily on the COVID-19 pandemic uncertainty we continued to experience within our industries at that time, specifically relating to the following:
Aggressive cost reductions, including furloughs, layoffs, mandatory unpaid time off, and salary reductions for all employees across the company;
Voluntary salary reductions by our CEO and other NEOs, ranging from 50% to 20%;
Eliminating all discretionary spending, reducing maintenance capital expenditures to essential levels, and pausing spending on the majority of growth projects;
Suspending future dividend payments and share repurchases;
Leveraging governmental assistance programs for wage and tax relief, where available;
Raising a total of $46 million in cash proceeds from the disposition of certain assets, including $25 million related to the cash surrender value of life insurance policies and $17 million from the sale of a GES warehouse; and
Securing $180 million of additional perpetual convertible preferred equity capital, inclusive of a $45 million delayed draw commitment, and amending our credit facility for longer-term covenant relief.
By the second quarter of 2020, it was also readily apparent to our Board and management team that the severe adversethen-unknown potential impacts of the pandemic on our business were enough to:
Eliminate any potential achievement under our 2020 MIP annual cash incentive or the long-term PUP awards for the 2018 – 2020 period;
Render the EBITDA and ROIC components of the long-term PUP Awards for the 2019 – 2021 and 2020 – 2022 periods essentially impossible to achieve;
Substantially impair the potential achievement under the TSR component of the long-term PUP awards for the 2019 – 2021 and 2020 – 2022 periods; and
ResultOmicron variant that was rapidly spreading in a significant decline in the value of all outstanding restricted stock awards, as our stock price declined 88% from $67.83 on December 30, 2019, to $14.46 on July 31, 2020.early 2022.
In consideration of these factors, the Human Resources Committee implemented various special actions that were designed to create long-term shareholder value by:
Directly incentivizing EBITDA growth at Pursuit and stock price appreciation across Viad, and
Motivating and retaining a strong and stable management team of talented leaders who are positioned to deliver results consistent with shareholders’ interests in 2021 and beyond.
