Dennis Craven
Analyst · B. Riley Securities. Please proceed with your question
Thanks, Jeff. Good morning, everyone. All but one hotel had occupancy over 50% in the quarter, which compares to two in the second quarter and 20 hotels in the first quarter. 24 of our hotels had occupancy over 70% during the third quarter. Half of our hotels had occupancy over 75% and 14 hotels had higher ADRs as compared to 2019. Relative to 2019, our Residence Inn, Fort Lauderdale, Intercoastal Waterway hotel saw the highest jump in RevPAR, with an increase of 45%, while our lowest hotels were our 2 Sunnyvale Residence Inns, whose RevPAR is down approximately 70% compared to 2019. As Jeff spoke, our Silicon Valley hotels are going to provide substantial growth in 2022 and 2023. Of all our brands bolstered by significant demand at our Coastal Northeastern hotels, our Hampton Inns had the highest occupancy in the quarter at approximately 85%. Our Portland Maine hotel had occupancy of 92%. Our Exeter New Hampshire hotel saw occupancy of almost 90%. Occupancy at our 17 Residence Inns was a solid 75% in the quarter and basically 70% at our 7 Homewood Suites hotels. In addition to our Coastal Northeastern hotels, our suburban New York assets continue to produce great results and really have been consistent outperformers since the start of the pandemic, unlike what has been experienced for most owners in Manhattan. Occupancy at our 3 hotels was 91% in the quarter and ADR was also higher than 2019 at those 3 hotels. Among our major markets, San Diego, Denver and LA are showing decent growth over the second quarter and their near-term outlooks are encouraging. Smaller conventions are coming back to the San Diego and Dallas convention centers and the calendars at both are looking promising for next year. Silicon Valley, our largest market remains laggard with RevPAR of $80 in the quarter, only up 10% from the second quarter. It’s really not surprising given the restrictions on international travel. In fact, the most tech companies have pushed off office re-openings until the new year. Having said that, our Mountain View and San Mateo Residence Inns managed to produce occupancy of 85% in the quarter, but ADRs remain a challenge in the valley with all 4 hotels having ADRs hovering around $120, which is down basically 50% from 2019. Our 5 hotels with absolute Rev – our 5 highest hotels with absolute RevPAR in the third quarter were our Hampton Inn in Portland, our Hilton Garden Inn in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, our Hilton Garden Inn, Marina del Rey and then our Residence Inn, Fort Lauderdale, and our Residence Inn, San Diego Gaslamp which is making its first appearance on our top list since the start of the pandemic. All 5 hotels had ADRs above $180, with Gaslamp and Marina del Rey being just slightly below 2019. Our top 5 absolute occupancy hotels in the quarter were the Residence Inn in New Rochelle and the Residence Inn in White Plains, then followed by our Hampton Inn, Portland, our Residence Inn, Charleston and Somerville, and our Hampton Inn, Exeter, all 5 hotels with occupancy above 89%. Although our length of stay has clicked down a little bit in the quarter, we continue to see an average length of stay much longer than its historical levels for our portfolio. At our Residence Inn hotels, our average length of stay was 3.1 nights, down a bit from 3.4 nights in the second quarter and 4.5 nights in the first quarter, but still well above the 2.4 nights that we experienced pre-pandemic 2021 first quarter. For our Homewood Suites hotels, our average length of stay was 3.5 nights, which is actually up fractionally from 3.4 nights in the second quarter. And when you compare it to the pre-pandemic, our average was about 2.7 nights, so, again, meaningfully higher. As Jeff mentioned, we are seeing the return of the non-leisure traveler, whether that’s the business or government related traveler. They are returning steadily if you look at our midweek occupancy trends. For a portfolio like ours, it’s very encouraging as we appeal to travelers of all types and at multiple price points based on their needed length of stay. Our weekday occupancy was 69% during the third quarter and represents about 82% of 2,019 third quarter occupancy and that’s up from 65% in the second quarter and 48% in the first quarter. Additionally, our midweek ADRs came in at about $145, which is up 20% over second quarter ADR of $122 and almost 40% higher than the first quarter ADR of $105. If you look at our weekend – in our weekend patterns, weekend occupancy was approximately 79% in the third quarter, up fractionally from 77% in the second quarter and our third quarter ADR was up 17% over second quarter ADR. For the quarter, total revenue was almost double last year of $30 million and we generated additional GOP of approximately $17 million flow-through of almost 60%, which is particularly strong despite bringing on incremental staffing in response to rising occupancy and the reintroduction of complimentary breakfast services at many of our hotels. Also, we generated adjusted EBITDA of $19.6 million, basically 4x the same quarter last year and we generated FFO per share of $0.21, which is up $0.30 over the same quarter last year and will probably be one of the highest per share figures of all lodging REITs for the third quarter. Chatham and Island continued to invest in human capital and data analysis tools on the operating expense side and working alongside Island, we have a best-in-class operating model that drives premium operating margins. We have generated positive GOP and hotel EBITDA each month during 2021. During the third quarter, all 41 hotels generated positive hotel EBITDA not GOP, not hotel operating profit, positive hotel EBITDA, a testament to the quality of our real estate and our operations teams. Our top 5 producers of GOP in the second quarter were the Hampton, Portland; our Residence Inn, Gaslamp; our Hilton Garden Inn, Portsmouth followed by the Residence Inn, New Rochelle, which is making its first appearance – or I am sorry, the Hyatt Place Denver/Cherry Creek, which is making its first appearance in our top 5 since the start of the pandemic. Again, in that top 5, 4 different brands represented so further supporting the quality of our portfolio. On a per occupied room basis at our 39 comparable hotels, payroll and benefit costs were approximately $30, which is down about 15% from our 2019 third quarter cost per occupied room of $35. Taking out our newly acquired hotels, our employee count as of the end of the quarter was 1,119, which is up only about 50 employees since the end of the second quarter and up 150 employees since the first quarter, but it’s still down basically 35% compared to pre-pandemic levels of almost 1,700 employees. Even with the lower headcount over time and casual labor is still down about $300,000 compared to the 2019 third quarter. We have managed to maintain a very efficient labor force despite the rise in occupancy and although the current employment environment remains challenged, we should be in good shape as we entered the seasonally slower months. After several years of making our case to the brands, we have finally gotten some traction with regards to housekeeping and labor standards. Hilton has now formalized plans for revised housekeeping standards and Marriott is coming along as well. Since our hotels have average length of stay, which is a little bit longer than most of our peers, we will continue to see meaningful decreases in housekeeping costs compared to other owners who have a much shorter average length of stay. We do believe on an apples-to-apples basis that our operating margins should be a bit higher on a stabilized basis than they were in 2019. In the second quarter, we reinstituted complimentary breakfast at most of our locations where it’s offered to guest. The brands are proposing new standards that reduced the number of offerings and should lead to some same-store savings. For now, our breakfast cost per occupied room is well down compared to 2019. It’s about $3.08 in the 2019 third quarter and it’s come down to about $2.30 in the 2021 third quarter. Additionally, the elimination of the evening hospitality hour basically saves us $300,000 a quarter. On the CapEx front, we spent approximately $1 million in the quarter, with our budget for the full year still about $6.5 million and that again is capital excluding the one are certainly in development. With respect to that, our Home2 Suites there, we have spent about $64 million on that hotel versus a budget of $70 million. And as Jeff said, we are looking forward to opening that hotel here in the 2021 fourth quarter. We look forward to talking with many of you during the upcoming REIT world conference. If we do not currently have a meeting set with you and you would like to setup a virtual meeting, please do not hesitate to reach out to me and we will make it happen. Jeremy?