Sunstone Hotel Investors Q4 2023 Earnings Report $0.51 0.00 (0.00%) Closing price 04/9/2025 04:00 PM EasternExtended Trading$0.51 +0.01 (+1.25%) As of 04/9/2025 06:42 PM Eastern Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more. Earnings HistoryForecast Stardust Power EPS ResultsActual EPS$0.60Consensus EPS $0.16Beat/MissBeat by +$0.44One Year Ago EPS$0.26Stardust Power Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$219.20 millionExpected Revenue$192.56 millionBeat/MissBeat by +$26.64 millionYoY Revenue Growth-10.20%Stardust Power Announcement DetailsQuarterQ4 2023Date2/23/2024TimeBefore Market OpensConference Call DateFriday, February 23, 2024Conference Call Time1:00PM ETUpcoming EarningsKraft Heinz's Q1 2025 earnings is scheduled for Tuesday, April 29, 2025, with a conference call scheduled at 8:00 AM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Q1 2025 Earnings ReportConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptPress Release (8-K)Annual Report (10-K)Earnings HistoryKHC ProfilePowered by Kraft Heinz Q4 2023 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrFebruary 23, 2024 ShareLink copied to clipboard.There are 9 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for standing by. Welcome to the Sunstone Hotel Investors 4th Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will be given at that time. Operator00:00:23I would like to remind everyone that this conference is being recorded today, February 23, 2024, at 1 pm Eastern Time. I will now turn the presentation to Mr. Aaron Reyes, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir. Speaker 100:00:45Thank you, operator. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that this call contains forward looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, including those described in our filings with the SEC, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. We caution you to consider these factors in evaluating our forward looking statements. We also note that the commentary on this call will contain non GAAP information, including adjusted EBITDAre, adjusted FFO and property level adjusted EBITDAre. We are providing this information as a supplement to information prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Speaker 100:01:31Additional details on our quarterly results have been provided in our earnings release and supplemental, which are available in the Investor Relations section of our website. With us on the call today are Brian Gilia, Chief Executive Officer Robert Springer, President and Chief Investment Officer and Chris Ostapovich, Chief Operating Officer. Brian will start us off with some highlights from last year, followed by commentary on our Q4 operations and recent trends. Afterward, Robert will discuss our capital investment activity. And finally, I will provide a summary of our Q4 earnings results, review our current liquidity position and provide the details of our outlook for 2024. Speaker 100:02:17After our remarks, the team will be available to answer your questions. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Brian. Please go ahead. Speaker 200:02:27Thank you, Aaron, and good morning, everyone. We were encouraged by our execution in the Q4 as better than expected top line performance and strong cost controls allowed us to deliver earnings above the high end of our guidance range. The Q4 caps off a productive year at Sunstone in which we made further progress on our 3 strategic objectives, which include capital recycling, investing in our portfolio and returning capital to our shareholders. On the recycling front, we completed the sale of Boston Park Plaza in the Q4 in a solid execution. While the hotel performed very well for us, it had reached its maximum return potential and needed significant additional investment, much of which would be defensive and would result in meaningful earnings disruption. Speaker 200:03:20So consistent with our investment lifecycle approach, we sold the hotel at an attractive valuation in an all cash deal and are actively pursuing opportunities to redeploy the proceeds into assets that have a more compelling future return profile. As we have previously discussed, given the composition of our portfolio, we are targeting a group centric hotel that has an attractive going in yield with limited near term capital needs, but with longer term value add opportunities. While this sounds like an ambitious wish list, we are confident that we can execute in the near term. We look forward to further updating you on our progress soon. During 2023, we also executed on our second strategic objective, which is investing in our portfolio and we are already seeing the benefits of some of those projects. Speaker 200:04:20In October, we launched the Westin Washington D. C, the fully renovated flagship property has been very well received with 2024 group pace up almost 20% as compared to 2023. While the hotel has always been a productive group house, the conversion to the Westin brand is already driving incremental transient demand at higher rates. Looking forward, work is now also underway on another value add conversion of our soon to be Marriott Long Beach Downtown, which should contribute to earnings growth starting in the Q2 of the year. In late 2023, we completed the demolition of the backyard of the confidant Miami Beach and the room renovation is now underway. Speaker 200:05:13Shortly, Robert will share some additional details on these exciting projects that will drive growth in 2024 and beyond. The last element of our strategy is the return of capital to our shareholders. In 2023, we returned nearly $120,000,000 to shareholders through an increased quarterly base dividend and through share repurchases at a meaningful discount to NAV. While our share repurchase activity will remain opportunistic, our common dividend will continue to provide a more consistent return of capital. That said, in 2023, we repurchased $56,000,000 of our common stock at $9.43 per share. Speaker 200:06:02Additionally, over the last 2 years, we have repurchased $165,000,000 of common stock at $10.15 per share. Our strong balance sheet and liquidity position gives us the ability to further enhance our capital return into 2024. Now shifting to our quarterly results. As I noted at the top of the call, we were pleased with how the portfolio performed in the Q4 relative to our expectations. Similar to what we saw earlier in the year, group business performed well, corporate travel continued to move higher and leisure demand further moderated, although still generating comparable profitability well ahead of pre pandemic levels. Speaker 200:06:51Our convention hotels led the portfolio with nearly 8% RevPAR growth in the quarter, driven by our newly converted Westin Washington D. C, which grew RevPAR more than 50% in the quarter and should continue to generate outsized growth into 2024 as it benefits from our recent investment. Elsewhere across the portfolio, we also saw strength in our urban markets, including San Francisco and Portland, which have been our slowest to recover, but showed meaningful improvement as the year progressed. The Marriott Boston Long Wharf also continues to provide solid growth with RevPAR up 8.4% during the quarter. As has been widely discussed, leisure travel continues to moderate and has been impacted by the imbalance of the increased number of Americans going abroad, while inbound international visitation remains below historical averages. Speaker 200:07:50This trend is evident in Wine Country as market wide softness has continued to hamper results. We are focused on driving group business and generating ancillary revenues at these resorts, which partially mitigated the depressed leisure volumes in 2023. While we cannot control when leisure demand will accelerate, we can continue to work with the resorts to build a base of group business and control costs, all while maintaining a world class guest experience. On the cost side, we remain focused on working with our managers to find ways to offset inflationary pressures. While labor availability has improved, wage growth continues to hover near the high end of historical averages in most markets. Speaker 200:08:42We were able to mitigate labor cost increases through enhanced productivity, better staff management and driving efficiencies where possible. Food and beverage profitability improved in the quarter driven by further menu optimization and a better mix of business. Our margin performance during the quarter was impacted by the renovation activity at the Confidant Miami Beach and the Renaissance Long Beach. Excluding these two hotels, our margin was down only 100 basis points even with minimal top line growth and the impact of higher property insurance costs, which speaks to the efforts of our operators to be disciplined in their cost management. As we look ahead into 2024, we are encouraged about the outlook for the year, which benefits from our recent investments and begins to pave the way for the next layer of growth in the portfolio. Speaker 200:09:37Group pace for the comparable portfolio is up approximately 6% with DC sustaining the portfolio in the near term, while the second half of the year benefits from broad based strength including outsized growth in Long Beach, San Diego and Boston. In a testament to the market's desirability, Wailea has bounced back very well from the tragic fires last summer as our well located resort has attracted additional group and leisure business and looks to generate year over year growth in ADR and earnings. We appreciate the hard work and dedication of the resorts associates that continue to do an outstanding job welcoming guests, providing unparalleled service and making the Wailea Beach Resort the premier destination that it is. We continue to evaluate opportunities for the proceeds from the sale of Boston Park Plaza. While a portion of the proceeds were utilized for additional share repurchase activity last quarter, we maintain significant investment capacity that we are looking to accretively redeploy into a superior growth opportunity than what would have been achieved through continued ownership of Boston Park Plaza. Speaker 200:10:54As I noted earlier, our investment parameters include a compelling going in yield, limited near term capital needs and opportunities where we can add value either through asset management initiatives or through capital investment later in the course of our ownership. Considering the significant embedded growth we already have in our portfolio from our in process transformation of Andaz Miami Beach and the ramping resorts in Wine Country, a well priced cash flowing investment now will bring more balance to our earnings, sustain our strong credit metrics and still provide us with the opportunity to create value. We expect to balance this with incremental share repurchases when our stock price warrants it. We look forward to sharing additional updates on our progress redeploying these funds in the near term. To sum things up, we executed on all three of our strategic objectives in 2023, but we know that we have more work to do in the current year. Speaker 200:12:03We are focused on delivering profitability growth from our operations and realizing the benefits of our investment projects. We will further advance our capital recycling strategy through the redeployment of our excess cash and further utilizing balance sheet capacity to thoughtfully grow the portfolio. These actions should further support our capital return objectives in the coming year. The entire Sunstone team remains committed to delivering strong returns and creating value for our shareholders. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Robert to give some additional thoughts on our renovation progress and upcoming capital investments. Speaker 300:12:48Thanks, Brian. During 2023, we invested over 110,000,000 dollars into our portfolio as we completed and relaunched the Westin Washington DC Downtown, began the renovation and conversion of the Renaissance Long Beach to a Marriott and commenced the transformation of the confidant to the Andaz Miami Beach. In 20 expect to invest between $135,000,000 $155,000,000 into our portfolio. The majority of the investment will be in Miami as work is now underway on both the exterior and interior areas of the hotel. In order to most efficiently complete the renovation, we will be suspending operations at the hotel starting in late March through the fall. Speaker 300:13:30We expect to debut the fully renovated hotel in the 4th quarter and remain confident in our business plan and our underwriting approach. We look forward to updating our progress on our next call as we get that much closer to the completion of this transformational project. In Long Beach, we expect to finish and launch our converted Marriott Long Beach Downtown in the spring, which should contribute to earnings growth for the balance of the year. Elsewhere across the portfolio, work is underway to renovate the meeting space at our JW Marriott, New Orleans and to convert an underutilized area of the hotel into new meeting space, which should allow us to better compete in the market. In addition, we are also adding a market concept in the lobby of the Renaissance Orlando, which has combined benefit of delivering a better guest experience while also contributing to higher food and beverage profitability. Speaker 300:14:25In D. C, we are delivering the last piece of our comprehensive renovation of the property with the addition of 4,000 square feet of new meeting space that has abundant natural light and an exterior patio and makes better use of an underutilized former restaurant space. Later in the year, we will be completing a soft goods renovation in Wailea to keep the room product fresh and able to compete with its nearby luxury peers. While we will have several projects underway during the year on balance, we expect that the renovation activity we have planned for 2024 will be marginally less disruptive to earnings than what we had experienced in the prior year. As we have shared with you before, capital recycling is a primary component of our strategy and we are encouraged by the incremental activity we are seeing in the transaction market. Speaker 300:15:18We have considerable investment capacity and are actively looking for ways to redeploy these proceeds into new growth opportunities. We look forward to sharing additional information on our progress in the near term. With that, I'll turn it over to Aaron. Please go ahead. Speaker 100:15:34Thanks, Robert. We are pleased with our financial results for the Q4 as RevPAR growth, EBITDA and FFO were all above the high end of our guidance ranges. Adjusted EBITDAre the Q4 was $55,000,000 or 8% above the midpoint of our outlook, driven by better top line performance, stronger expense management across the portfolio and lower corporate level costs. Adjusted FFO for the 4th quarter was $0.19 per diluted share, nearly 20% above the midpoint of our outlook and $0.02 above the high end of the range as lower than expected financing costs combined with the benefit of stronger operating performance. While forward visibility remains challenging, we are seeing more stability in booking behaviors and travel patterns. Speaker 100:16:27As a result, we are providing a full year outlook for 2024. Based on what we see today, we expect that our total portfolio RevPAR growth will range from 2.5% to 5.5% as compared to 2023. This range includes all hotels in the portfolio. If we exclude the confident Miami Beach, which will be under construction for most of the year, our full year RevPAR growth is projected to range from 5% to 8%. We estimate that full year adjusted EBITDAre will range from $230,000,000 to $255,000,000 and our adjusted FFO per diluted share will range from $0.78 to $0.90 Given how travel patterns evolved over the course of 20 20 and the expected timing of citywide events and other major demand drivers in 2024, we expect that overall industry growth for this year will be more heavily concentrated in the second half of the year. Speaker 100:17:27The same will be true of our portfolio, which will also have the added impact of the renovation activity in Miami and Long Beach and which will likely lead to modest RevPAR growth, excluding the impact of our renovation activity and lower year over year portfolio earnings in the Q1 before resuming a positive trajectory for the balance of the year. In the 2024 outlook section of our press release, we have included the key assumptions that support our full year guidance numbers. But I'll share a couple of the key points here as well. Our outlook for 2024 does not assume the reinvestment of the proceeds received from the sale of Boston Park Plaza. As we have noted, we are actively evaluating opportunity to deploy those proceeds and would expect to update our guidance ranges as appropriate as those funds are put back to work this year. Speaker 100:18:19As Robert noted earlier, we will be suspending operations at the Confident Miami Beach in late March to allow for the renovation work to be performed more quickly. A portion of the cost incurred at the hotel during this time will be capitalized in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles or adjusted for in our reconciliations of adjusted EBITDAre and adjusted FFO consistent with industry practice. We expect the resort to open in Q4 as Andaz Miami Beach. And for the full year, we estimate that the resort will generate an EBITDA loss of $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 with the majority of the loss spread across the second quarter through the early part of Q4 while the hotel is offline. As we noted in our press release this morning, our capital investment activity in 2023 was $110,000,000 and was $30,000,000 lower than the midpoint of our estimate at the start of the prior year as a portion of that spend will now be incurred in the current year. Speaker 100:19:20Inclusive of this carryover balance, we estimate that we will invest between $135,000,000 to $155,000,000 into our portfolio this year. Based on the renovation timeline, we expect to incur a total of $11,000,000 to $13,000,000 of earnings disruption in 2024, which is approximately $1,000,000 less relative to the prior year. Our balance sheet remains strong and as of the end of the year, we had nearly $500,000,000 of total cash and cash equivalents, including our restricted cash. We retain full capacity on our credit facility, which together with cash on hand equates to nearly $1,000,000,000 of total liquidity. As of the end of the year, our net debt and preferred equity to EBITDA stood at 2.9 times and our net debt to EBITDA was only 1.7 times. Speaker 100:20:10Adjusting for the redeployment of a portion of the Boston Park Plaza sale proceeds, we would expect our pro form a leverage metrics to increase by approximately one turn, but to remain in the low end of our longer term target range. We have one piece of debt coming due at the end of the year and we expect that the modest principal balance of the maturing loan combined with our low overall leverage, strong liquidity position and an improving financing market will give us sufficient optionality to address the refinancing before year end. Now shifting to our return of capital. Our Board of Directors has declared a $0.07 per share quarterly common dividend and has also declared the routine distributions for Series H and I preferred securities. While we retain ample capacity for additional capital return, the full year outlook that was discussed earlier does not assume the impact of any additional share repurchase activity. Speaker 100:21:06And with that, we can now open the call to questions. So that we are able to speak with as many participants as possible, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question. Operator, please go ahead. Operator00:21:21The floor is now open for your questions. Our first question comes from the line of Chris Darling with Green Street. Please go ahead. Speaker 400:21:50Thanks. Good morning. Speaker 200:21:52Good morning, Chris. Good morning, Chris. Speaker 400:21:55Brian, you mentioned in your prepared remarks a handful of properties that you'd expect to grow in excess of the 5% to 8% RevPAR growth range that you provided, at least when you exclude the confidant. Can you talk through which properties might fall below that range? And then similarly, what is the midpoint of your guidance range implied for leisure transient RevPAR growth this year? Thank you. Speaker 200:22:20Okay. Let me good morning, Chris. I'll start with the first part. So when we look at 20 24, the above market or above portfolio growth, obviously, Westin DC, Long Wharf, Long Beach coming out of the renovation, San Diego and Portland are larger growth assets. When you look at the ones that are will be below that or below the midpoint, The New Orleans market, while decent pace this year, it's back end loaded. Speaker 200:23:01So citywides and the demand is coming in the 2nd and third quarter, I'm sorry, the 3rd and the 4th quarter, which doesn't have the transient compression that the first and second do. So New Orleans will be slightly below. San Francisco is a market where we had great growth in 2023. Looking into 2024, there are components of growth that are really good. The business transient demand continues to be strong. Speaker 200:23:36The hotels group business or the group business that it really focuses on is the smaller, call it, 50 to 100 room night business, that's about 40% of the business. That's been pretty robust. The hotel is continuing to book and booking short term that's kind of 90 days out. So that remains strong. The one concern in San Francisco are the citywides are weak this year and so that could result in some ADR pressure coming from the other submarkets that maybe are not as strong as the financial and market era where we are with good business demand. Speaker 200:24:25Some of the wildcards in that market too are what happens with AI. We have seen some increased office getting filled up around us with some of that business and we expect that to grow. And then the international inbound is supposed to grow this year. So if that does, it will obviously help that market. I think looking else, Orlando had a big first half or Q1 of last year. Speaker 200:25:01It has from a leisure standpoint, the park, new Universal Park is opening next year. And so we expect some transient softness in that market also for the second half of the year. Operator00:25:22Our next question comes from the line of Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Speaker 500:25:31Hey, thanks. Just wanted to ask a follow-up there. On the 5 to 8 ex Miami, can you talk about what that growth rate was ex Miami in the 4th quarter? And maybe how you would how we should be thinking about that in the first half of the year, 1Q, 2Q? Speaker 200:25:54As far as I'm sorry, Duane, as far as the Acadian Speaker 500:25:57So the yes, the 5% to 8% outlook that you're providing ex Miami, what did ex Miami RevPAR look like in the Q4? And maybe you already indicated it's probably going to be more second half weighted, but I wonder if you could put a finer point on the first half of the year. Speaker 100:26:14Sure. So Duane, just to hit your the first question on what did RevPAR growth look like ex Miami. Those are the statistics that we have on Page 2 of the earnings release we show both the portfolio and then without Miami. So for the quarter, as you saw in our guidance range, we were down 2.2 for the full portfolio. And then if you exclude Miami, it was down 40 basis points and both of those metrics were on the better side of our guidance range. Speaker 200:26:41And then so to add on to that, when you look at the cadence for the year, Q1 is will obviously be the, as Aaron said, the weakest quarter. When you look back to 2023, you had most of our group hotels had really some of the best quarters that they've ever had Wailea, San Diego. So there was very strong part of that was the impact of the year over year with Omicron. And so Q1 was very strong. This year will be Q1 will be our toughest comp. Speaker 200:27:17When you look at the back half of the year, probably 60% or so of our gain is coming in the back half. Q2 ramps up a little bit more, but our larger group hotels, the majority of their demand and the pace is coming in that back half of the year, Q3, Q4. That's stronger for the New Orleans market, the San Diego market, that's where we'll see the most growth. The only one that's more uniform across the year will be DC. And in our RevPAR guidance, DC is a big piece of it. Speaker 200:28:04It's 200 basis points of our RevPAR growth is coming from that hotel ramping up. Long Beach will start to see some of that happen in the starting Q2, but mainly in the second half of the year. Speaker 500:28:19Okay. Thank you. Operator00:28:23Our next question comes from the line of Smedes Rose with Citi. Please go ahead. Speaker 600:28:29Hi, thanks. Brian, I wanted to as you noted, Maui definitely held up better in the Q4. And I just wanted to understand, is that just the normal business mix there? Or did it benefit from any fire related fallout in terms of housing? And how are you thinking about that property in 2024? Speaker 600:28:50And just along with that, if you could just talk a little bit about what you're seeing at the 2 Napa Hotels, which seem to still sort of be struggling to find there a sort of reasonable run rate or at least a predictable one? Speaker 200:29:04Yes. Okay. Good morning, Smedes. So in Maui, the majority of the business in the Q4 reverted back to the typical business that we would see in that market. There was some early in the Q4, October, a little bit of some of the relief business still in there. Speaker 200:29:30But the hotels did a really good job of pivoting early and getting that relief business in the Q3 and then reverting back to its more typical business mix as we got later into the year or in the 4th quarter. There's still and others have mentioned on calls, there's still some lingering impact. And we expect Maui to be a recovery market into 2024 and beyond. We have good group base in there. The leisure demand has been strong. Speaker 200:30:09The Wailea market is recovered much more than the Kaanapali market, which still has the majority of the relief room nights in their market right now. But we have seen just as a reference point, the festive period in December was stronger than what we saw in 2022. And so that higher end leisure customer definitely came back to the market. Q1 is a little bit weaker on a year over year basis. On the group side, that's mainly because there's a large group piece of business that rotates out of Maui every 3rd year and then comes back. Speaker 200:30:58So they'll be back next year. So from that standpoint, we're very happy with how the hotel has responded, how our market has responded. And it will our expectation is we'll get growth out of it this year and probably get back to a more normalized level into 2025. When we look at the Wine Country assets, look, the leisure demand continues to be disappointing market wide. But right now, we're focusing on what we can focus on to control in those hotels and the 2 resorts. Speaker 200:31:38And that means focusing both on group. If you look at the in the supplemental, you'll see that Montage had a better quarter than Four Seasons. Four Seasons had 2 buyouts that didn't repeat this year. So there's always going to be that lumpiness in their numbers. Montage is a bigger hotel and does more group business. Speaker 200:32:02So it had a it was able to offset the transient weakness better with group than the seasons was able to and Montage as we've talked about before is farther along in our in some of the cost restructurings that we've done. And so they're a little bit farther along 4 Seasons that's being implemented now and Montage also going into 'twenty four, the residential units are now available and starting to be sold. So we expect both to continue to gradually increase on the top line, but we're not going to see that next leg really until we start to see some transient demand accelerate. Now we've seen in 2022, we saw right when they opened, we saw some of that. We're starting to see some pickup in transient demand now, but it will be it will come quickly when it does come and when what we've done in the meantime is set the cost model and the segmentations of the hotels up right to be able to really push that cash flow. Speaker 200:33:22The good news is throughout the rest of the portfolio and what we've taken a lot of time to do is make sure that we have the right portfolio mix and built a foundation of growth going forward to be able to handle markets that might not be performing the way we want them to. We have DC growing this year. We've layered that with Long Beach. While we're talking about displacement at Andaz right now, as we get later into the year, we'll start talking about next year and the ramp up there. And remember, in the condition that that hotel was in as the confidant, it was doing $12,000,000 of EBITDA. Speaker 200:34:07So we've built and layered growth in investing in our portfolio. We'll start to see that gives us then Portland is continuing to rebound. We're getting great growth at Long Wharf, which is building more of a group base. The hotel has done phenomenally, but there's still a lot room or a lot more room to go there. And we haven't even talked about then what we can do with the proceeds from Boston Park Plaza and providing better growth and more growth from that, whether it be through share repurchase or additional acquisitions. Speaker 200:34:44And so while we took some lumps to build this foundation, we're set up pretty well for '24 and going into 'twenty five and beyond. Thank you. Appreciate it. Operator00:35:01Our next question comes from the line of Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Speaker 700:35:10Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking all the questions so far. I know you just spent a lot of time, Brian, talking about the wine country assets. But I wanted to ask a slightly different question, which is, is there going to be at some point, is there more like a step function on profitability, let's call it hotel EBITDA when you get to a certain level of AUC or you have Trevpar or something like that, you're obviously holding the rates just fine. You don't have enough AUC. Speaker 700:35:40Is there more of a step function? I'm really trying to think about margin cadence as you eventually get more build OCC. Speaker 200:35:49Yes. Good afternoon, Chris. It's the right question and it's the right question for Wine Country and San Francisco. It's going to be a step function. It's we saw in San Francisco, we saw a good growth last year. Speaker 200:36:06And there may be a time period where things go sideways a little bit and then we get some more acceleration. These resorts are exactly the same is that we've built the foundation right for them. We have the right we're working on the cost models the right way. Rate, we're holding rate, but at the same time, we're also making sure that we're being rational with rate and thinking of total RevPAR and that contribution because the rate will come down at both of these resorts to be able to bring in the right amount of group. And when the group is $700 a night or so at montage, dollars 800 a night at montage of ancillary spend and over 1,000 of Four Seasons, it's important that we make sure that the resorts look at that holistically. Speaker 200:37:03And so all of that has been done. And yes, you're absolutely right that there will be acceleration once additional transient occupancy and transient demand comes back into that market. And it will be you're not going to see margins that you would see in a full service or convention upper upscale hotel, but you will see margin expand significantly from where they are. And at that point, as we've talked about before, is the point in time where we would look to potentially monetize 1 or both of these assets and recycle it into something some other growth opportunity. But we still think that there's quite a bit room to go. Speaker 200:37:58It's not going to be linear though. Speaker 700:38:03Okay. Thanks, Brian. Operator00:38:07Our next question comes from the line of Floris Van Dijkam with Compass Point. Please go ahead. Speaker 800:38:16Thanks. Good morning, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Hey, Brian, question, as you keep shrinking your portfolio, if I do my math correct, your top 3 assets account for 58% of your EBITDA. Speaker 800:38:34Obviously, very pleasantly surprised that Wailea Beach has bounced back as quickly as it has. It's great. Kudos to you guys. And San Diego, Bayfront continues to move along as well. My question was on the 3rd of your top 3 or the Orlando SeaWorld Renaissance, you guys have rebranded some of your other Renaissance hotels. Speaker 800:39:00Can you tell us maybe a little bit more on your longer term view on the flag at this particular asset and what you could potentially do to create some value going forward? Speaker 200:39:14Sure. Afternoon, Forrest. The well while Orlando is number 3 right now, I think that D. C. Might be passing it very soon. Speaker 200:39:29And but to your point of 1, concentration is something that we focus on quite a bit. And so as we look to acquire an additional asset or more, that concentration and making sure that we're spreading that out and replacing what we had in Boston, that's something we look at and we think a lot about. So while we would like that majority of EBITDA coming from a few more hotels, we also like the ones that we have that are producing it and they are world class assets. Orlando, I think we've talked about this before on other calls is that we have rebranded a few of our Renaissance Hotels and Renaissance Hotels do very well on the group side. And we've been happy with the performance in Orlando. Speaker 200:40:31It has done very well and done very well as a Renaissance and we've been very happy with that. And so our view is that, while we always look for opportunities to up brand or add value through that, the Orlando is a pretty mature lodging market with a lot of brands everywhere. And so what we are going to do and our focus is really to maximize this asset. We think we can maximize it as a Renaissance. And we have a lot of surface parking lots. Speaker 200:41:12We have a leisure component that's good, but could maybe be better. And so we will look to maximize our real estate, which could include future development, redevelopment. We've added a meeting space there a few years ago, which has been able to drive additional room nights. But the good news is, is we have a lot to work with there. And that the brand has always been additive, especially at this location. Speaker 800:41:54And maybe just to clarify, on the surface parking lot, and I think if I'm not mistaken, I mean, you can almost double the floor plate potentially, if you have structured partnering, if I'm not mistaken. Would you consider adding additional hotel rooms? Or what kind of kind of improvements do you reckon you would look to bring to the property? Speaker 200:42:22I mean, we structured parking comes with an expense, which would have to be evaluated. But with some of the space we have there, we could add rooms, we could add additional meeting space. I don't know if we need that because the hotel has really ample meeting space for its size. We could add more leisure components, pool, waterpark, that sort of thing. So we have a lot of optionality there and we're currently evaluating what will be most additive to the hotel. Speaker 200:43:04Thanks. Operator00:43:07This concludes today's question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to Brian Gilea for closing remarks. Speaker 200:43:18Thank you everyone for your interest and time today. We look forward to meeting with many of you at upcoming conferences and we look forward to for those that we have toured of the Andaz and those that are touring it coming up. We think it will be a great opportunity for you to witness our next round of growth that we have embedded in this portfolio. Thank you.Read moreRemove AdsPowered by Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallKraft Heinz Q4 202300:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xRemove Ads Earnings DocumentsPress Release(8-K)Annual report(10-K) Stardust Power Earnings HeadlinesStardust Power appoints Urquiaga as Senior AdvisorApril 10 at 12:55 AM | markets.businessinsider.comStardust Power Inc. Appoints Carlos Urquiaga as Senior AdvisorApril 8 at 7:30 AM | globenewswire.comGold Alert: The Truth About Fort Knox Is ComingOwning physical gold isn’t the best way to profit. I’ve found a better way to invest in gold—one that’s already performing nearly twice as well as gold this year and looks ready to go much higher. If you wait for the news to hit, you’ll already be too late.April 10, 2025 | Golden Portfolio (Ad)Q1 EPS Estimates for Stardust Power Boosted by Roth CapitalApril 6, 2025 | americanbankingnews.comAnalysts Set Expectations for Stardust Power Q1 EarningsApril 5, 2025 | americanbankingnews.comStardust Power's (SDST) Buy Rating Reiterated at Roth MkmApril 5, 2025 | americanbankingnews.comSee More Stardust Power Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Stardust Power? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Stardust Power and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Stardust PowerStardust Power (NASDAQ:SDST) is a vertically-integrated lithium refinery that engages in producing battery-grade lithium. The company was founded in 2022 and is based in Greenwich, Connecticut.View Stardust Power ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Earnings By Country U.S. Earnings Reports Canadian Earnings Reports U.K. Earnings Reports Latest Articles Lamb Weston Stock Rises, Earnings Provide Calm Amidst ChaosIntuitive Machines Gains After Earnings Beat, NASA Missions AheadCintas Delivers Earnings Beat, Signals More Growth AheadNike Stock Dips on Earnings: Analysts Weigh in on What’s NextAfter Massive Post Earnings Fall, Does Hope Remain for MongoDB?Semtech Rallies on Earnings Beat—Is There More Upside?These 3 Q1 Earnings Winners Will Go Higher Upcoming Earnings Bank of New York Mellon (4/11/2025)BlackRock (4/11/2025)JPMorgan Chase & Co. (4/11/2025)Progressive (4/11/2025)Wells Fargo & Company (4/11/2025)The Goldman Sachs Group (4/14/2025)Interactive Brokers Group (4/15/2025)Bank of America (4/15/2025)Citigroup (4/15/2025)Johnson & Johnson (4/15/2025) Get 30 Days of MarketBeat All Access for Free Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools. Start Your 30-Day Trial MarketBeat All Access Features Best-in-Class Portfolio Monitoring Get personalized stock ideas. Compare portfolio to indices. Check stock news, ratings, SEC filings, and more. Stock Ideas and Recommendations See daily stock ideas from top analysts. Receive short-term trading ideas from MarketBeat. Identify trending stocks on social media. Advanced Stock Screeners and Research Tools Use our seven stock screeners to find suitable stocks. Stay informed with MarketBeat's real-time news. Export data to Excel for personal analysis. Sign in to your free account to enjoy these benefits In-depth profiles and analysis for 20,000 public companies. Real-time analyst ratings, insider transactions, earnings data, and more. Our daily ratings and market update email newsletter. Sign in to your free account to enjoy all that MarketBeat has to offer. Sign In Create Account Your Email Address: Email Address Required Your Password: Password Required Log In or Sign in with Facebook Sign in with Google Forgot your password? Your Email Address: Please enter your email address. Please enter a valid email address Choose a Password: Please enter your password. Your password must be at least 8 characters long and contain at least 1 number, 1 letter, and 1 special character. Create My Account (Free) or Sign in with Facebook Sign in with Google By creating a free account, you agree to our terms of service. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
There are 9 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for standing by. Welcome to the Sunstone Hotel Investors 4th Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will be given at that time. Operator00:00:23I would like to remind everyone that this conference is being recorded today, February 23, 2024, at 1 pm Eastern Time. I will now turn the presentation to Mr. Aaron Reyes, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir. Speaker 100:00:45Thank you, operator. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that this call contains forward looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, including those described in our filings with the SEC, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. We caution you to consider these factors in evaluating our forward looking statements. We also note that the commentary on this call will contain non GAAP information, including adjusted EBITDAre, adjusted FFO and property level adjusted EBITDAre. We are providing this information as a supplement to information prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Speaker 100:01:31Additional details on our quarterly results have been provided in our earnings release and supplemental, which are available in the Investor Relations section of our website. With us on the call today are Brian Gilia, Chief Executive Officer Robert Springer, President and Chief Investment Officer and Chris Ostapovich, Chief Operating Officer. Brian will start us off with some highlights from last year, followed by commentary on our Q4 operations and recent trends. Afterward, Robert will discuss our capital investment activity. And finally, I will provide a summary of our Q4 earnings results, review our current liquidity position and provide the details of our outlook for 2024. Speaker 100:02:17After our remarks, the team will be available to answer your questions. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Brian. Please go ahead. Speaker 200:02:27Thank you, Aaron, and good morning, everyone. We were encouraged by our execution in the Q4 as better than expected top line performance and strong cost controls allowed us to deliver earnings above the high end of our guidance range. The Q4 caps off a productive year at Sunstone in which we made further progress on our 3 strategic objectives, which include capital recycling, investing in our portfolio and returning capital to our shareholders. On the recycling front, we completed the sale of Boston Park Plaza in the Q4 in a solid execution. While the hotel performed very well for us, it had reached its maximum return potential and needed significant additional investment, much of which would be defensive and would result in meaningful earnings disruption. Speaker 200:03:20So consistent with our investment lifecycle approach, we sold the hotel at an attractive valuation in an all cash deal and are actively pursuing opportunities to redeploy the proceeds into assets that have a more compelling future return profile. As we have previously discussed, given the composition of our portfolio, we are targeting a group centric hotel that has an attractive going in yield with limited near term capital needs, but with longer term value add opportunities. While this sounds like an ambitious wish list, we are confident that we can execute in the near term. We look forward to further updating you on our progress soon. During 2023, we also executed on our second strategic objective, which is investing in our portfolio and we are already seeing the benefits of some of those projects. Speaker 200:04:20In October, we launched the Westin Washington D. C, the fully renovated flagship property has been very well received with 2024 group pace up almost 20% as compared to 2023. While the hotel has always been a productive group house, the conversion to the Westin brand is already driving incremental transient demand at higher rates. Looking forward, work is now also underway on another value add conversion of our soon to be Marriott Long Beach Downtown, which should contribute to earnings growth starting in the Q2 of the year. In late 2023, we completed the demolition of the backyard of the confidant Miami Beach and the room renovation is now underway. Speaker 200:05:13Shortly, Robert will share some additional details on these exciting projects that will drive growth in 2024 and beyond. The last element of our strategy is the return of capital to our shareholders. In 2023, we returned nearly $120,000,000 to shareholders through an increased quarterly base dividend and through share repurchases at a meaningful discount to NAV. While our share repurchase activity will remain opportunistic, our common dividend will continue to provide a more consistent return of capital. That said, in 2023, we repurchased $56,000,000 of our common stock at $9.43 per share. Speaker 200:06:02Additionally, over the last 2 years, we have repurchased $165,000,000 of common stock at $10.15 per share. Our strong balance sheet and liquidity position gives us the ability to further enhance our capital return into 2024. Now shifting to our quarterly results. As I noted at the top of the call, we were pleased with how the portfolio performed in the Q4 relative to our expectations. Similar to what we saw earlier in the year, group business performed well, corporate travel continued to move higher and leisure demand further moderated, although still generating comparable profitability well ahead of pre pandemic levels. Speaker 200:06:51Our convention hotels led the portfolio with nearly 8% RevPAR growth in the quarter, driven by our newly converted Westin Washington D. C, which grew RevPAR more than 50% in the quarter and should continue to generate outsized growth into 2024 as it benefits from our recent investment. Elsewhere across the portfolio, we also saw strength in our urban markets, including San Francisco and Portland, which have been our slowest to recover, but showed meaningful improvement as the year progressed. The Marriott Boston Long Wharf also continues to provide solid growth with RevPAR up 8.4% during the quarter. As has been widely discussed, leisure travel continues to moderate and has been impacted by the imbalance of the increased number of Americans going abroad, while inbound international visitation remains below historical averages. Speaker 200:07:50This trend is evident in Wine Country as market wide softness has continued to hamper results. We are focused on driving group business and generating ancillary revenues at these resorts, which partially mitigated the depressed leisure volumes in 2023. While we cannot control when leisure demand will accelerate, we can continue to work with the resorts to build a base of group business and control costs, all while maintaining a world class guest experience. On the cost side, we remain focused on working with our managers to find ways to offset inflationary pressures. While labor availability has improved, wage growth continues to hover near the high end of historical averages in most markets. Speaker 200:08:42We were able to mitigate labor cost increases through enhanced productivity, better staff management and driving efficiencies where possible. Food and beverage profitability improved in the quarter driven by further menu optimization and a better mix of business. Our margin performance during the quarter was impacted by the renovation activity at the Confidant Miami Beach and the Renaissance Long Beach. Excluding these two hotels, our margin was down only 100 basis points even with minimal top line growth and the impact of higher property insurance costs, which speaks to the efforts of our operators to be disciplined in their cost management. As we look ahead into 2024, we are encouraged about the outlook for the year, which benefits from our recent investments and begins to pave the way for the next layer of growth in the portfolio. Speaker 200:09:37Group pace for the comparable portfolio is up approximately 6% with DC sustaining the portfolio in the near term, while the second half of the year benefits from broad based strength including outsized growth in Long Beach, San Diego and Boston. In a testament to the market's desirability, Wailea has bounced back very well from the tragic fires last summer as our well located resort has attracted additional group and leisure business and looks to generate year over year growth in ADR and earnings. We appreciate the hard work and dedication of the resorts associates that continue to do an outstanding job welcoming guests, providing unparalleled service and making the Wailea Beach Resort the premier destination that it is. We continue to evaluate opportunities for the proceeds from the sale of Boston Park Plaza. While a portion of the proceeds were utilized for additional share repurchase activity last quarter, we maintain significant investment capacity that we are looking to accretively redeploy into a superior growth opportunity than what would have been achieved through continued ownership of Boston Park Plaza. Speaker 200:10:54As I noted earlier, our investment parameters include a compelling going in yield, limited near term capital needs and opportunities where we can add value either through asset management initiatives or through capital investment later in the course of our ownership. Considering the significant embedded growth we already have in our portfolio from our in process transformation of Andaz Miami Beach and the ramping resorts in Wine Country, a well priced cash flowing investment now will bring more balance to our earnings, sustain our strong credit metrics and still provide us with the opportunity to create value. We expect to balance this with incremental share repurchases when our stock price warrants it. We look forward to sharing additional updates on our progress redeploying these funds in the near term. To sum things up, we executed on all three of our strategic objectives in 2023, but we know that we have more work to do in the current year. Speaker 200:12:03We are focused on delivering profitability growth from our operations and realizing the benefits of our investment projects. We will further advance our capital recycling strategy through the redeployment of our excess cash and further utilizing balance sheet capacity to thoughtfully grow the portfolio. These actions should further support our capital return objectives in the coming year. The entire Sunstone team remains committed to delivering strong returns and creating value for our shareholders. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Robert to give some additional thoughts on our renovation progress and upcoming capital investments. Speaker 300:12:48Thanks, Brian. During 2023, we invested over 110,000,000 dollars into our portfolio as we completed and relaunched the Westin Washington DC Downtown, began the renovation and conversion of the Renaissance Long Beach to a Marriott and commenced the transformation of the confidant to the Andaz Miami Beach. In 20 expect to invest between $135,000,000 $155,000,000 into our portfolio. The majority of the investment will be in Miami as work is now underway on both the exterior and interior areas of the hotel. In order to most efficiently complete the renovation, we will be suspending operations at the hotel starting in late March through the fall. Speaker 300:13:30We expect to debut the fully renovated hotel in the 4th quarter and remain confident in our business plan and our underwriting approach. We look forward to updating our progress on our next call as we get that much closer to the completion of this transformational project. In Long Beach, we expect to finish and launch our converted Marriott Long Beach Downtown in the spring, which should contribute to earnings growth for the balance of the year. Elsewhere across the portfolio, work is underway to renovate the meeting space at our JW Marriott, New Orleans and to convert an underutilized area of the hotel into new meeting space, which should allow us to better compete in the market. In addition, we are also adding a market concept in the lobby of the Renaissance Orlando, which has combined benefit of delivering a better guest experience while also contributing to higher food and beverage profitability. Speaker 300:14:25In D. C, we are delivering the last piece of our comprehensive renovation of the property with the addition of 4,000 square feet of new meeting space that has abundant natural light and an exterior patio and makes better use of an underutilized former restaurant space. Later in the year, we will be completing a soft goods renovation in Wailea to keep the room product fresh and able to compete with its nearby luxury peers. While we will have several projects underway during the year on balance, we expect that the renovation activity we have planned for 2024 will be marginally less disruptive to earnings than what we had experienced in the prior year. As we have shared with you before, capital recycling is a primary component of our strategy and we are encouraged by the incremental activity we are seeing in the transaction market. Speaker 300:15:18We have considerable investment capacity and are actively looking for ways to redeploy these proceeds into new growth opportunities. We look forward to sharing additional information on our progress in the near term. With that, I'll turn it over to Aaron. Please go ahead. Speaker 100:15:34Thanks, Robert. We are pleased with our financial results for the Q4 as RevPAR growth, EBITDA and FFO were all above the high end of our guidance ranges. Adjusted EBITDAre the Q4 was $55,000,000 or 8% above the midpoint of our outlook, driven by better top line performance, stronger expense management across the portfolio and lower corporate level costs. Adjusted FFO for the 4th quarter was $0.19 per diluted share, nearly 20% above the midpoint of our outlook and $0.02 above the high end of the range as lower than expected financing costs combined with the benefit of stronger operating performance. While forward visibility remains challenging, we are seeing more stability in booking behaviors and travel patterns. Speaker 100:16:27As a result, we are providing a full year outlook for 2024. Based on what we see today, we expect that our total portfolio RevPAR growth will range from 2.5% to 5.5% as compared to 2023. This range includes all hotels in the portfolio. If we exclude the confident Miami Beach, which will be under construction for most of the year, our full year RevPAR growth is projected to range from 5% to 8%. We estimate that full year adjusted EBITDAre will range from $230,000,000 to $255,000,000 and our adjusted FFO per diluted share will range from $0.78 to $0.90 Given how travel patterns evolved over the course of 20 20 and the expected timing of citywide events and other major demand drivers in 2024, we expect that overall industry growth for this year will be more heavily concentrated in the second half of the year. Speaker 100:17:27The same will be true of our portfolio, which will also have the added impact of the renovation activity in Miami and Long Beach and which will likely lead to modest RevPAR growth, excluding the impact of our renovation activity and lower year over year portfolio earnings in the Q1 before resuming a positive trajectory for the balance of the year. In the 2024 outlook section of our press release, we have included the key assumptions that support our full year guidance numbers. But I'll share a couple of the key points here as well. Our outlook for 2024 does not assume the reinvestment of the proceeds received from the sale of Boston Park Plaza. As we have noted, we are actively evaluating opportunity to deploy those proceeds and would expect to update our guidance ranges as appropriate as those funds are put back to work this year. Speaker 100:18:19As Robert noted earlier, we will be suspending operations at the Confident Miami Beach in late March to allow for the renovation work to be performed more quickly. A portion of the cost incurred at the hotel during this time will be capitalized in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles or adjusted for in our reconciliations of adjusted EBITDAre and adjusted FFO consistent with industry practice. We expect the resort to open in Q4 as Andaz Miami Beach. And for the full year, we estimate that the resort will generate an EBITDA loss of $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 with the majority of the loss spread across the second quarter through the early part of Q4 while the hotel is offline. As we noted in our press release this morning, our capital investment activity in 2023 was $110,000,000 and was $30,000,000 lower than the midpoint of our estimate at the start of the prior year as a portion of that spend will now be incurred in the current year. Speaker 100:19:20Inclusive of this carryover balance, we estimate that we will invest between $135,000,000 to $155,000,000 into our portfolio this year. Based on the renovation timeline, we expect to incur a total of $11,000,000 to $13,000,000 of earnings disruption in 2024, which is approximately $1,000,000 less relative to the prior year. Our balance sheet remains strong and as of the end of the year, we had nearly $500,000,000 of total cash and cash equivalents, including our restricted cash. We retain full capacity on our credit facility, which together with cash on hand equates to nearly $1,000,000,000 of total liquidity. As of the end of the year, our net debt and preferred equity to EBITDA stood at 2.9 times and our net debt to EBITDA was only 1.7 times. Speaker 100:20:10Adjusting for the redeployment of a portion of the Boston Park Plaza sale proceeds, we would expect our pro form a leverage metrics to increase by approximately one turn, but to remain in the low end of our longer term target range. We have one piece of debt coming due at the end of the year and we expect that the modest principal balance of the maturing loan combined with our low overall leverage, strong liquidity position and an improving financing market will give us sufficient optionality to address the refinancing before year end. Now shifting to our return of capital. Our Board of Directors has declared a $0.07 per share quarterly common dividend and has also declared the routine distributions for Series H and I preferred securities. While we retain ample capacity for additional capital return, the full year outlook that was discussed earlier does not assume the impact of any additional share repurchase activity. Speaker 100:21:06And with that, we can now open the call to questions. So that we are able to speak with as many participants as possible, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question. Operator, please go ahead. Operator00:21:21The floor is now open for your questions. Our first question comes from the line of Chris Darling with Green Street. Please go ahead. Speaker 400:21:50Thanks. Good morning. Speaker 200:21:52Good morning, Chris. Good morning, Chris. Speaker 400:21:55Brian, you mentioned in your prepared remarks a handful of properties that you'd expect to grow in excess of the 5% to 8% RevPAR growth range that you provided, at least when you exclude the confidant. Can you talk through which properties might fall below that range? And then similarly, what is the midpoint of your guidance range implied for leisure transient RevPAR growth this year? Thank you. Speaker 200:22:20Okay. Let me good morning, Chris. I'll start with the first part. So when we look at 20 24, the above market or above portfolio growth, obviously, Westin DC, Long Wharf, Long Beach coming out of the renovation, San Diego and Portland are larger growth assets. When you look at the ones that are will be below that or below the midpoint, The New Orleans market, while decent pace this year, it's back end loaded. Speaker 200:23:01So citywides and the demand is coming in the 2nd and third quarter, I'm sorry, the 3rd and the 4th quarter, which doesn't have the transient compression that the first and second do. So New Orleans will be slightly below. San Francisco is a market where we had great growth in 2023. Looking into 2024, there are components of growth that are really good. The business transient demand continues to be strong. Speaker 200:23:36The hotels group business or the group business that it really focuses on is the smaller, call it, 50 to 100 room night business, that's about 40% of the business. That's been pretty robust. The hotel is continuing to book and booking short term that's kind of 90 days out. So that remains strong. The one concern in San Francisco are the citywides are weak this year and so that could result in some ADR pressure coming from the other submarkets that maybe are not as strong as the financial and market era where we are with good business demand. Speaker 200:24:25Some of the wildcards in that market too are what happens with AI. We have seen some increased office getting filled up around us with some of that business and we expect that to grow. And then the international inbound is supposed to grow this year. So if that does, it will obviously help that market. I think looking else, Orlando had a big first half or Q1 of last year. Speaker 200:25:01It has from a leisure standpoint, the park, new Universal Park is opening next year. And so we expect some transient softness in that market also for the second half of the year. Operator00:25:22Our next question comes from the line of Duane Pfennigwerth with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Speaker 500:25:31Hey, thanks. Just wanted to ask a follow-up there. On the 5 to 8 ex Miami, can you talk about what that growth rate was ex Miami in the 4th quarter? And maybe how you would how we should be thinking about that in the first half of the year, 1Q, 2Q? Speaker 200:25:54As far as I'm sorry, Duane, as far as the Acadian Speaker 500:25:57So the yes, the 5% to 8% outlook that you're providing ex Miami, what did ex Miami RevPAR look like in the Q4? And maybe you already indicated it's probably going to be more second half weighted, but I wonder if you could put a finer point on the first half of the year. Speaker 100:26:14Sure. So Duane, just to hit your the first question on what did RevPAR growth look like ex Miami. Those are the statistics that we have on Page 2 of the earnings release we show both the portfolio and then without Miami. So for the quarter, as you saw in our guidance range, we were down 2.2 for the full portfolio. And then if you exclude Miami, it was down 40 basis points and both of those metrics were on the better side of our guidance range. Speaker 200:26:41And then so to add on to that, when you look at the cadence for the year, Q1 is will obviously be the, as Aaron said, the weakest quarter. When you look back to 2023, you had most of our group hotels had really some of the best quarters that they've ever had Wailea, San Diego. So there was very strong part of that was the impact of the year over year with Omicron. And so Q1 was very strong. This year will be Q1 will be our toughest comp. Speaker 200:27:17When you look at the back half of the year, probably 60% or so of our gain is coming in the back half. Q2 ramps up a little bit more, but our larger group hotels, the majority of their demand and the pace is coming in that back half of the year, Q3, Q4. That's stronger for the New Orleans market, the San Diego market, that's where we'll see the most growth. The only one that's more uniform across the year will be DC. And in our RevPAR guidance, DC is a big piece of it. Speaker 200:28:04It's 200 basis points of our RevPAR growth is coming from that hotel ramping up. Long Beach will start to see some of that happen in the starting Q2, but mainly in the second half of the year. Speaker 500:28:19Okay. Thank you. Operator00:28:23Our next question comes from the line of Smedes Rose with Citi. Please go ahead. Speaker 600:28:29Hi, thanks. Brian, I wanted to as you noted, Maui definitely held up better in the Q4. And I just wanted to understand, is that just the normal business mix there? Or did it benefit from any fire related fallout in terms of housing? And how are you thinking about that property in 2024? Speaker 600:28:50And just along with that, if you could just talk a little bit about what you're seeing at the 2 Napa Hotels, which seem to still sort of be struggling to find there a sort of reasonable run rate or at least a predictable one? Speaker 200:29:04Yes. Okay. Good morning, Smedes. So in Maui, the majority of the business in the Q4 reverted back to the typical business that we would see in that market. There was some early in the Q4, October, a little bit of some of the relief business still in there. Speaker 200:29:30But the hotels did a really good job of pivoting early and getting that relief business in the Q3 and then reverting back to its more typical business mix as we got later into the year or in the 4th quarter. There's still and others have mentioned on calls, there's still some lingering impact. And we expect Maui to be a recovery market into 2024 and beyond. We have good group base in there. The leisure demand has been strong. Speaker 200:30:09The Wailea market is recovered much more than the Kaanapali market, which still has the majority of the relief room nights in their market right now. But we have seen just as a reference point, the festive period in December was stronger than what we saw in 2022. And so that higher end leisure customer definitely came back to the market. Q1 is a little bit weaker on a year over year basis. On the group side, that's mainly because there's a large group piece of business that rotates out of Maui every 3rd year and then comes back. Speaker 200:30:58So they'll be back next year. So from that standpoint, we're very happy with how the hotel has responded, how our market has responded. And it will our expectation is we'll get growth out of it this year and probably get back to a more normalized level into 2025. When we look at the Wine Country assets, look, the leisure demand continues to be disappointing market wide. But right now, we're focusing on what we can focus on to control in those hotels and the 2 resorts. Speaker 200:31:38And that means focusing both on group. If you look at the in the supplemental, you'll see that Montage had a better quarter than Four Seasons. Four Seasons had 2 buyouts that didn't repeat this year. So there's always going to be that lumpiness in their numbers. Montage is a bigger hotel and does more group business. Speaker 200:32:02So it had a it was able to offset the transient weakness better with group than the seasons was able to and Montage as we've talked about before is farther along in our in some of the cost restructurings that we've done. And so they're a little bit farther along 4 Seasons that's being implemented now and Montage also going into 'twenty four, the residential units are now available and starting to be sold. So we expect both to continue to gradually increase on the top line, but we're not going to see that next leg really until we start to see some transient demand accelerate. Now we've seen in 2022, we saw right when they opened, we saw some of that. We're starting to see some pickup in transient demand now, but it will be it will come quickly when it does come and when what we've done in the meantime is set the cost model and the segmentations of the hotels up right to be able to really push that cash flow. Speaker 200:33:22The good news is throughout the rest of the portfolio and what we've taken a lot of time to do is make sure that we have the right portfolio mix and built a foundation of growth going forward to be able to handle markets that might not be performing the way we want them to. We have DC growing this year. We've layered that with Long Beach. While we're talking about displacement at Andaz right now, as we get later into the year, we'll start talking about next year and the ramp up there. And remember, in the condition that that hotel was in as the confidant, it was doing $12,000,000 of EBITDA. Speaker 200:34:07So we've built and layered growth in investing in our portfolio. We'll start to see that gives us then Portland is continuing to rebound. We're getting great growth at Long Wharf, which is building more of a group base. The hotel has done phenomenally, but there's still a lot room or a lot more room to go there. And we haven't even talked about then what we can do with the proceeds from Boston Park Plaza and providing better growth and more growth from that, whether it be through share repurchase or additional acquisitions. Speaker 200:34:44And so while we took some lumps to build this foundation, we're set up pretty well for '24 and going into 'twenty five and beyond. Thank you. Appreciate it. Operator00:35:01Our next question comes from the line of Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Speaker 700:35:10Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking all the questions so far. I know you just spent a lot of time, Brian, talking about the wine country assets. But I wanted to ask a slightly different question, which is, is there going to be at some point, is there more like a step function on profitability, let's call it hotel EBITDA when you get to a certain level of AUC or you have Trevpar or something like that, you're obviously holding the rates just fine. You don't have enough AUC. Speaker 700:35:40Is there more of a step function? I'm really trying to think about margin cadence as you eventually get more build OCC. Speaker 200:35:49Yes. Good afternoon, Chris. It's the right question and it's the right question for Wine Country and San Francisco. It's going to be a step function. It's we saw in San Francisco, we saw a good growth last year. Speaker 200:36:06And there may be a time period where things go sideways a little bit and then we get some more acceleration. These resorts are exactly the same is that we've built the foundation right for them. We have the right we're working on the cost models the right way. Rate, we're holding rate, but at the same time, we're also making sure that we're being rational with rate and thinking of total RevPAR and that contribution because the rate will come down at both of these resorts to be able to bring in the right amount of group. And when the group is $700 a night or so at montage, dollars 800 a night at montage of ancillary spend and over 1,000 of Four Seasons, it's important that we make sure that the resorts look at that holistically. Speaker 200:37:03And so all of that has been done. And yes, you're absolutely right that there will be acceleration once additional transient occupancy and transient demand comes back into that market. And it will be you're not going to see margins that you would see in a full service or convention upper upscale hotel, but you will see margin expand significantly from where they are. And at that point, as we've talked about before, is the point in time where we would look to potentially monetize 1 or both of these assets and recycle it into something some other growth opportunity. But we still think that there's quite a bit room to go. Speaker 200:37:58It's not going to be linear though. Speaker 700:38:03Okay. Thanks, Brian. Operator00:38:07Our next question comes from the line of Floris Van Dijkam with Compass Point. Please go ahead. Speaker 800:38:16Thanks. Good morning, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Hey, Brian, question, as you keep shrinking your portfolio, if I do my math correct, your top 3 assets account for 58% of your EBITDA. Speaker 800:38:34Obviously, very pleasantly surprised that Wailea Beach has bounced back as quickly as it has. It's great. Kudos to you guys. And San Diego, Bayfront continues to move along as well. My question was on the 3rd of your top 3 or the Orlando SeaWorld Renaissance, you guys have rebranded some of your other Renaissance hotels. Speaker 800:39:00Can you tell us maybe a little bit more on your longer term view on the flag at this particular asset and what you could potentially do to create some value going forward? Speaker 200:39:14Sure. Afternoon, Forrest. The well while Orlando is number 3 right now, I think that D. C. Might be passing it very soon. Speaker 200:39:29And but to your point of 1, concentration is something that we focus on quite a bit. And so as we look to acquire an additional asset or more, that concentration and making sure that we're spreading that out and replacing what we had in Boston, that's something we look at and we think a lot about. So while we would like that majority of EBITDA coming from a few more hotels, we also like the ones that we have that are producing it and they are world class assets. Orlando, I think we've talked about this before on other calls is that we have rebranded a few of our Renaissance Hotels and Renaissance Hotels do very well on the group side. And we've been happy with the performance in Orlando. Speaker 200:40:31It has done very well and done very well as a Renaissance and we've been very happy with that. And so our view is that, while we always look for opportunities to up brand or add value through that, the Orlando is a pretty mature lodging market with a lot of brands everywhere. And so what we are going to do and our focus is really to maximize this asset. We think we can maximize it as a Renaissance. And we have a lot of surface parking lots. Speaker 200:41:12We have a leisure component that's good, but could maybe be better. And so we will look to maximize our real estate, which could include future development, redevelopment. We've added a meeting space there a few years ago, which has been able to drive additional room nights. But the good news is, is we have a lot to work with there. And that the brand has always been additive, especially at this location. Speaker 800:41:54And maybe just to clarify, on the surface parking lot, and I think if I'm not mistaken, I mean, you can almost double the floor plate potentially, if you have structured partnering, if I'm not mistaken. Would you consider adding additional hotel rooms? Or what kind of kind of improvements do you reckon you would look to bring to the property? Speaker 200:42:22I mean, we structured parking comes with an expense, which would have to be evaluated. But with some of the space we have there, we could add rooms, we could add additional meeting space. I don't know if we need that because the hotel has really ample meeting space for its size. We could add more leisure components, pool, waterpark, that sort of thing. So we have a lot of optionality there and we're currently evaluating what will be most additive to the hotel. Speaker 200:43:04Thanks. Operator00:43:07This concludes today's question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to Brian Gilea for closing remarks. Speaker 200:43:18Thank you everyone for your interest and time today. We look forward to meeting with many of you at upcoming conferences and we look forward to for those that we have toured of the Andaz and those that are touring it coming up. We think it will be a great opportunity for you to witness our next round of growth that we have embedded in this portfolio. Thank you.Read moreRemove AdsPowered by