Mark Brugger
Analyst · Baird. Your line is open
Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us. There are four key takeaways from our first quarter results. One, total revenues were modestly ahead of internal expectations, as the asset management team, in concert with operators, adjusted their market conditions and successfully traded a little average room rate for higher profit group business that led to 2% total RevPAR expansion with robust F&B growth of over 8%. Two, this strategy resulted in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted FFO coming in just ahead of our expectations for the quarter. Three, the company, as previously announced, repurchased 3.1 million shares in the quarter at an average price of $9.52 per share. That price represents a substantial discount to our current trading price and a 33% discount to the midpoint of our NAV estimates. And the fourth and final takeaway from today’s release – the company continues to execute on a number of exciting repositionings within the portfolio, including completing the Emblem Viceroy in San Francisco and ramping up Havana Cabana in Key West. There are several other high ROI repositionings in the pipeline as well, like the repositioning of the Lodge at Sonoma and the Vail Ski Resort. Let’s look at little closer at first quarter results. Pro forma portfolio RevPAR contracted 80 basis points. But total RevPAR increased 2%. Results are even better if we take out our two renovation hotels in the quarter. Without the JW Marriott Denver and the Marriott Salt Lake City, portfolio RevPAR was up 1%, and total RevPAR increased a very strong 4.2%. Profits margins. Profit margins were about 20 basis points better than our internal forecast, with adjusted EBITDA margins contracting 143 basis points. Again, if you take out the two under-renovation hotels, adjusted EBITDA margins in the quarter only contracted 53 basis points. Now let’s look at how we did in the various markets. Resorts were a bright spot. RevPAR increased 2%. But the real story is the success of our asset management team-led programs that drove other revenue streams at the resorts. These programs allowed our resorts to deliver total RevPAR growth of 4.4%. Within our resort portfolio, we saw particularly impressive results in Key West, Sausalito and Lake Tahoe. Among urban markets, the San Francisco market was strongest among the major MSAs. While results were good for our hotels in the Bay Area, the Emblem Viceroy’s results were held back because it opened in stages over the first six weeks of the year. The now fully opened Emblem is off to a great start and has a 5.0 rating on Trip Advisor. It has moved up an amazing 100 spots on Trip Advisor post-reinvention and is already ahead of two of the three other Viceroys in the market on Trip Advisor. We are extremely bullish on this hotel’s future. In Chicago. We are proud of the relative performance of our two hotels. They generated 60 basis points of RevPAR growth, beating the market by roughly 500 basis points. This is an off-cycle citywide year in Chicago, and it was great to see our proactive asset management strategies for our in-house group pay off. The Chicago Marriott’s total RevPAR was up 25% due to strong self-contained group. The Gwen’s RevPAR was flat but gained seven points of share. The Gwen remains a repositioning success story for DiamondRock, with its increased profits, top-10 ranking on Trip Advisor and, this week, winning Marriott’s distinctive Luxury Hotel of the Year. In D.C., despite the federal government shutdown holding back growth, our two hotels collectively grew RevPAR 2.4%, largely from the renovation comparison at the Bethesda Suites Hotel. Our hotels in Boston grew RevPAR 1.3%. The Boston Hilton was a star in the first quarter, with nearly 4% RevPAR growth. The Hilton brand continues to deliver for us in Boston and drove an impressive 75% contribution. Our New York City hotels outperformed the market by 700 basis points in the quarter with essentially flat RevPAR change. While the Easter shift was particularly impactful to March results in New York, we are encouraged by the 5% RevPAR growth for our New York City hotels in April and still expect modestly positive RevPAR change for the full year. In Atlanta, our Marriott grew total RevPAR by over 9%, as the Super Bowl benefitted that market. In Phoenix, our hotels substantially outperformed the market, with over 12% total RevPAR growth, as our asset management initiatives implemented shortly after last year’s acquisition really took hold. Denver. Denver was a good market overall, but it was our toughest major market, as the renovation at the JW Marriott Denver, as expected, displaced substantial business. And the Courtyard Denver had a tough comp to last year. Collectively, these hotels experienced double-digit RevPAR contraction. Also as expected, Salt Lake City has a difficult citywide calendar in the first half of 2019. However, the back half of the year looks very solid. Our hotel underperformed the market because of its renovation in the first quarter. The combination of market conditions in Salt Lake and our renovation led to double-digit RevPAR contraction in the first quarter for our hotel. Again, the setup for the back half of the year is much stronger in Salt Lake. On a very positive note, our three acquisitions in 2018 performed extremely well and bolstered first quarter results. Collectively, the Kimpton Palomar Phoenix, the Landing Lake Tahoe and Cavallo Point, Sausalito delivered RevPAR growth of over 7%. Switching gears. We have received a number of questions about impacts from various Marriott initiatives on our hotels. We remain big believers in the power of Marriott brands and their ability to drive results. However, there’s been a lot to digest with Marriott. As you will recall from last year’s quarterly updates, the Marriott Starwood merger integration was uneven among markets in its rollout for our hotels, most negatively at the Boston Westin. Things have stabilized. But in the first quarter of 2019, we were still 1,400 basis points behind in market share as compared to the first quarter of 2017, which was before the integration. I guess the positive is that this lower base should enable us to outperform going forward, given the high quality and excellent location of our hotel. Encouragingly, the Boston Westin’s group pace is up 20% for 2020 and should beat the market next year. We are also seeing the number of real positives from Marriott on the cost side. For example, we expect meaningful reductions in allocated costs under the new program services fee. This is projected to save us $700,000 in 2019 alone. We’ve also seen substantial savings in costs for the rewards program and continue to benefit from lower credit card commissions and other programs as the Starwood Hotels came onto the Marriott system. Additionally, in some markets, we’re actually benefitting on the revenue side from the Starwood merger. The Chicago Marriott is a good example, as it is clearly gaining share. As new initiatives are rolled out, like the changes to the redemption program or the new brand standard for free breakfast at resorts for elites, we are continuing active discussions with our partners at Marriott and know that they are committed to working with us to find positive and fair outcomes. Turning to capital. We spent approximately $21 million on our hotels in the first quarter, and we have spent a total of $125 million this year. We are already seeing the benefits of completed projects, like the Emblem and Havana Cabana. During 2019, we will also complete a major ROI repositioning and re-concepting of our other Key West Resort and our Lodge at Sonoma, where we will add a Michael Mina restaurant, upgrade the spa and possibly up-brand the hotel. We’re also underway with Phase II of our Vail luxury upgrade plan. We are excited about all of these projects. Please note that for 2019, the renovation disruption is still expected to impact portfolio RevPAR growth by 60 basis points and adjusted hotel EBITDA by $3 million to $4 million. Of course, our largest capital project remains the rebuilding and reimagining of the Frenchman’s Reef Resort. Most of you are familiar with the story. Frenchman’s is a spectacularly well-located resort in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It was significantly impacted and closed by sequential hurricanes in 2017. The company has comprehensive insurance and has commenced rebuilding the resort, with the projected reopening in 2020. Once complete, Frenchman’s Reef will be the most important resort in the Virgin Islands. It is projected to generate stabilized EBITDA of more than $25 million. The claim process has not been easy, as our excess insurance carrier has been difficult. We are doing everything possible to ensure that we receive the full amount we are appropriately entitled to under our insurance policy. We are currently in litigation with a court date in early 2020. The trial will be held in the U.S. Virgin Islands Superior Court. With regard to business interruption insurance. We are entitled to all loss profits. Last year, we booked business interruption income of $16.1 million and believe we are entitled to at least that amount in 2019. The insurance company has agreed to $8.8 million through April 2019. But given the litigation, it is unlikely that they will pay us the balance of the more than $16.1 that we believe we are owed for this year until the overall claim is settled or adjudicated, potentially extending into early 2020. I’ll now turn the call over to Jay to delve into the quarter a little deeper and discuss the balance sheet.