Dan Hansen
Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open
Thanks, Adam. And thank you all for joining us today for our fourth quarter and full year 2015 earnings conference call. We are very pleased with the strong top and bottom line results that our portfolio delivered in 2015 and take great pride in the progress we’ve made in our capital recycling initiatives. For the full year 2015, we reported adjusted FFO of $108.6 million, which is a 28.8% increase over 2014. Our AFFO per share increased 28% from 2014 to $1.25 per share. On a per forma basis, we posted RevPAR growth of 7.3% for the year, which was at the high end of our outlook and as a reminder was on top of 10.9% growth in 2014. Our RevPAR growth was driven by a 5.7% increase in average daily rate and an occupancy increase of 1.4% to 77.4%. For the fourth quarter of 2015, we reported AFFO of $23.7 million, 35% above the fourth quarter of 2014. Our AFFO of $0.27 per share represents 34.2% growth, compared to the same period in 2014. On a pro forma basis, we reported RevPAR growth of 5.5% for the quarter, which was driven by 2.6% increase in average daily rates and increased occupancy of 2.9% to 74%. Our same-store RevPAR growth for the quarter was 6.6%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2014. RevPAR was driven by a combination of increases in average daily rate, which was up 2.9% and 3.6% increase in occupancy. The year 2015 capped off four consecutive years of us exceeding the Smith Travel Research upscale RevPAR growth rate and we’ve done so by an average of nearly 200 basis points. The strength in RevPAR growth across our portfolio was again very broad based. I would like to take a moment to touch on two of our largest outperformers. Our strongest market in 2015 was the Phoenix MSA where we owned four hotels that contribute approximately 4.6% to our total portfolio EBITDA. Combined, these four hotels posted 17.2% RevPAR growth in 2015, compared to the market at 12.8% and were led by our two highest placed hotels in Phoenix and Old Town, Scottsdale. Super Bowl 49 was an obvious driver of performance, but our teams focus on additional high rated transient demand throughout the year was also a strong factor in our hotels outperforming the market by 440 basis points. Another bright spot for Summit was the San Francisco market, which continues to be strong having delivered 15% RevPAR growth in 2015 on the heels of 13.1% RevPAR growth in 2014. This compares very favorably to the broader San Francisco MSAs growth of 7.5% reported by Summit Travel Research. All three hotels outperformed the market in 2015. Our hotel in the Fisherman's Wharf submarket posted RevPAR growth of 11.5% in the quarter and are two hotels located near the corporate office park and the San Francisco International Airport performed exceptionally well with 19.1% RevPAR growth in 2015. The outperformance in that submarket was led by our Double Tree by Hilton at the Airport, which continues to benefit from the brand conversion and renovation completed in 2015. Moving onto acquisitions, in 2015 we purchased seven hotels with 1042 guest rooms for an aggregate purchase price of $237.8 million or approximately $228,000 per room. These institutional quality hotels as a group, excluding the newly built Minneapolis, Hampton Inn & Suites generated RevPAR of nearly $140, margins of 41.4% and that competes successfully with the boutique, stock branded and traditional full service hotels. Their success demonstrates that the quality and experience in many of today’s premium select service hotels rival that of many hotels on the upper upscale segment. Our capital recycling initiative continued in the fourth quarter of 2015 by completing the sale of the first tranche of hotels to affiliates of American Realty Capital Hospitality Trust on October 15, which consisted of 10 hotels for a combined price of approximately $150.1 million. Prior to the close of the sale of the 10 hotels in tranche two ARC Hospitality, the purchase agreement was terminated and we retained the $9.1 million earnest money deposit. However on February 11, 2016, we were able to resurrect a purchase and sale agreement on tranche two when we completed the sale of the third tranche of hotels to affiliates of ARC Hospitality which consisted of the six hotels for a combined purchase price of $108.3 million. The remaining 10 hotels are scheduled to be sold by the end of 2016. Simultaneous with the sale of the hotels, we entered into a $27.5 million loan with ARC hospitality with $20 million being applied to the purchase of the third tranche of the assets and the remaining $7.5 million being applied to the new earnest money deposit on the remaining 10. Since the transaction to sell 26 hotels was announced in June 2015, we have fully redeployed the disposition proceeds received so far into $307.8 million of acquisitions that have a RevPAR premium of more than 60%, compared to the hotels we’ve sold and have under contract to sell. Completing the first two phases of the transformation to higher RevPAR assets in markets with strong growth profiles is a milestone that demonstrates our teams thoughtful view on capital allocation and a subsequent value creation. And with that I will turn the call over to our CFO, Greg Dowell.