Jeff Fisher
Analyst · Barclays. Please proceed with your question
Thanks, Chris. I appreciate everyone joining us this morning for our call. As I look at these results, I'm very proud of our teams at Chatham and Island, who did a fantastic job during the pandemic maximizing revenue and operating profits, while minimizing cash burn and executing key corporate transactions that have enhanced our financial position. In fact, for the eight quarters just ended, we produced positive corporate cash flow before principal amortization and CapEx. As we sit here today, the business traveler is coming back across the country, and our five primarily tech driven hotels in Silicon Valley and Bellevue, which historically comprise 25% to 30% of our EBITDA. Our seeing demand accelerate rapidly. As a reminder, these five hotels generated EBITDA of $35 million in 2019, but only a mere of $7 million in 2021. This recovery is going to be a major driver behind our outperformance over the foreseeable future. Strategically, we're excited to announce that we're expected to close within the next week on the sale of four hotels, comprising 537 rooms for approximately $80 million in two separate transactions. These older hotels on average 27 years old that have produced RevPAR below our portfolio average. In 2019 and 2021, they produced RevPAR of $96 and $59. Below our 2019 and 2021 portfolio RevPAR by 28%, and 32% respectively. Additionally, two of the four hotels were set for renovation in the next 12 months. And we believe we could put that money to better use buying assets. Through the four hotels are going to be converted for multifamily use, and would represent our second and third hotels sold over the past two years at a very low cap rate for the purposes of converting to apartment use. The proceeds will be used to pay down most of the borrowings on our $250 million credit facility, which will have only $30 million outstanding when they close. When we exit the waiver period on our credit facility after the second quarter, we will have the full capacity available and we'll have a substantial number of unencumbered assets available to provide flexibility to acquire hotels and address at the right time, a very manageable $114 million of fixed rate debt securities -- excuse me, debt maturities next year. We sit here today with substantial dry powder or refined portfolio given the sale of the four hotels and a platform that can grow quickly. Over the past two years, we did a great job putting heads and beds pivoting away from the higher rated business traveler during the pandemic since mid-February. We are seeing now a substantial acceleration in business travel. And just like we did on the downside, on the upside pivoting again and pivoting our sales and revenue management efforts to capture the higher rated traveler. Our message to our operating team is to push rates. We are in a heightened inflationary environment and had the opportunity to push higher rates. Our opportunity is much better than it was in the years leading into the pandemic, when supply growth was significant and there was resistance to any kind of rate growth. Previously, we stated our belief that the business traveler was going to return with a vengeance and never bought into the belief that business travel is permanently impaired. I've lived through a lot of cycles here and I heard for many years, how online meetings were going to be the downfall of the business traveler and many other external events that were supposedly going to really cut down business travel. People still like to travel that's clearly evident in everybody's numbers. They like to meet in person, they like to do business in person. And now we've got two new kinds of travelers to the space, the bleacher or digital nomad traveler, and the people who live away from the office and are being asked to come back to their office regularly. And for those new travelers, I think we're -- they're going to be staying for more than one or two nights that's already evident and extended stay hotels, the majority of the hotels we own should be the primary beneficiary of this new added demand. We're becoming more and more confident with respect to this outlook, as we see weekday demand really start to accelerate. Weekday occupancy is the best indicator of business travel, and it rose significantly through the first four months of the year. Weekday occupancy was 48% in January before jumping to, 60% in February. 68% in March, and 72% in April. April weekday and full month occupancy of 73% are both the second highest levels since the start of the pandemic. April 2019, weekday weekend occupancies were both at 2%. So given where we are in the recovery of the business traveler, we are already in a very good position. With the sharp uptick in occupancy ADRs are also advancing quickly a sign of great things to come our 2021 April ADR of $161 -- excuse me that's '22 is only $4 shy of our 2019 ADR of $165. We've been encouraged by the return of some tech related group business in Silicon Valley and Bellevue Washington. Offices have reopened which will be the evidence to travel both in and out of these markets. In Silicon Valley, Q1 '22 witnessed office vacancy decline for the first time in two years falling to 10.6%. And that decline in vacancy is notable given that 9.5 million square feet of new office product was delivered to the market over the same period. Office developers and owners remain bullish, anticipating the great return for the region's highly profitable and growing tech companies. RevPAR at those five hotels is basically been $70 to $75 for the better part of the last year, but April RevPAR is up 45% over the first quarter figures. So this is coming in fast. More great news out of the Valley and Bellevue we can confirm that later this month tech companies such as Meta, Apple, eBay and T-Mobile are going to be hosting in person internships this summer. In 2019, as we've said before, this business accounted for over $7 million in revenue. This year, we allocated more rooms for this business, knowing that the return of the international business traveler and long term consulting business in these markets would be gradual over the course of the year. At this point, we have approximately $15 million in internal revenue on the books for the summer. ADRs are approximately $200 compared to approximately $220 in 2019. So pretty close there. An added benefit is that our operating margin on this business is very high as this limited room servicing as part of the arrangement. We expect the second half of the year to be especially strong in these markets and will be an impetus to drive our portfolio growth higher relative to our peers. We're seeing increased demand in many of our other primary business travel driven markets such as Washington DC, the Northeastern U.S., Dallas, and especially Austin, all posting sizable games here lately. And Austin, where we acquired two hotels last year, RevPAR was about $115 in the first quarter, and in April that's jumped to $140. Our two hotels at the Domain should be top performers. That market is benefiting from tech company expansions and relocations to the area. I want to quickly point out how things are going at our recently opened Home2 Suites in Woodland Hills Warner Centre. After opening in late January it's ramping up nicely and latest trends are very encouraging there. April occupancy was over 63% and ADR was approximately $185. We've seen occupancy exceed 90% and ADR is in excess of $200 on certain nights already. This area has been the midst of a massive growth spurt. More great news in the market. It was announced about a month ago that the Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams closed on the acquisition of a 38 acre site, just a few blocks from our hotel, that's going to be turned into a mixed use development, which will include the team's headquarters host off season training activities, as well as other football events during the year and welcome fans all year round. Our hotel that Home2 Suites brand is perfectly positioned for the kind of business and demand that this development should generate. We're real excited about that. As I mentioned on our last call, we're confident in the ultimate recovery and trajectory of that recovery in our portfolio and want to see continued improvement as we expect we will in the business traveler, especially in our tech driven markets before reinstating the dividend. Silicon Valley and Bellevue and other primary business travel markets are rebounding and increases our confidence in generating consistent and distributable cash flow. We've historically targeted, paying out a 100% of taxable income. And when we look at any potential distribution, of course, we'll carefully analyze our taxable income for the upcoming years while also considering use of taxable deductible NOI carry forwards that came as a result of the pandemic. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Dennis for a little more color.