Daniel Hansen
Analyst · Bank of America
Thanks Adam and thank you all for joining us today for our fourth quarter and full year 2017 earnings conference call. As you know, 2017 was an extremely active year for us, as we completed nearly $600 million of high quality acquisitions, sold 12 hotels for $120 million, raised $320 million of common and preferred equity, and closed nearly $275 million of debt financing transactions. Overall, we're very pleased by the stronger than expected performance of our portfolio this past quarter that drove both top and bottom line results above the high end of our guidance range. We continue to believe that our portfolio of high quality hotels in great locations with efficient operating models will garner an outsized share of the industry's demand growth and are encouraged by the operating trends that drove our financial results in the fourth quarter. We remain optimistic that tax reform, strong demand, and continued economic improvement will benefit our portfolio of hotels with great locations and efficient operating models. On a pro forma basis, we reported fourth quarter RevPAR growth of 5.5%, which was driven by a 4.9% increase in occupancy to 76.3%, 0.6% increase in average daily rate. Our pro forma portfolio outperformed both the total U.S. lodging industry and the upscale chain scale, and most importantly continued to gain market share among its competitive sets in the fourth quarter with a RevPAR index of 115.6, which represents a 3.3% market share gain. While our occupancy gains in the quarter were partially driven by hotels located near recent natural disaster affected areas, excluding these markets RevPAR would have still increased a healthy 3.6%. For the fourth quarter of 2017, we reported FFO of $31.5 million, an increase of 17.9% as compared to the same period of 2016. And our AFFO of $0.30 per diluted share exceeded the high of our guidance range of $0.26 to $0.29 per share. For the full year, pro forma RevPAR increased 1.3%, which exceeded our guidance range of 0.25% to 0.75%. The RevPAR gain was driven by a 1.4% increase in occupancy and partially offset by a 0.2% decline in average daily rate. Our revenue management strategies continued to be effective as we once again increased our RevPAR index versus our competitive set by 1.6% for the overall portfolio. For the full year, we reported adjusted FFO of $134.1 million, which represents an 8.4% increase as compared to 2016 and our adjusted FFO of $1.34 per share exceeded the high end of our guidance range of a $1.29 to a $1.32 per share. A few of our better performing markets in 2017 included Portland, where RevPAR increased 6.6% as our two hotels continue to benefit from recent renovations and a still favorable supply and demand dynamic. Our two Indianapolis hotels delivered outsized RevPAR growth of 8.9%, following recent renovations and the successful implementation of new group strategies. This compares favorably to the comp set RevPAR growth of 4.2%, and the Indianapolis market RevPAR growth of 3.3%. Our two Houston hotels posted combined RevPAR growth of 7.5% for the year and large part due to the Super Bowl in the first quarter and demand related to Hurricane Harvey in the third and fourth quarter. Our recently acquired Homewood Suites, Tucson and Courtyard by Marriott at Yale University delivered RevPAR gains of 13.1% and 10.1% respectively. Highlighting our ability to find acquisition opportunities in higher growth markets. In general, our acquisition portfolio outperformed as RevPAR grew 4% compared to a 0.2 % increase in our same-store portfolio. In 2017, we acquired 14 hotels, totaling nearly 2500 guest rooms for aggregate purchase price of $586 million, which are all well-positioned for future growth that we expect to lead the portfolio through 2018. We continue to differentiate ourselves with capital recycling during 2017, as we completed the sale of 12 hotels for an aggregate sale proceeds of $120.2 million. To-date, all net sale proceeds from dispositions have been redeployed into high quality premium branded hotels that we believe are well-positioned to create long-term shareholder value. Turning to capital expenditures. During 2017, we invested $37.2 million into our portfolio on items ranging from common space improvements to complete guest room renovations including furniture soft goods, fitness areas, and bars. Notably, the Marriott Boulder is currently undergoing a $6.7 million comprehensive guest room renovation that includes the conversion of underutilized meeting space into eight additional guest rooms. The project is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2018. We also began our comprehensive guest room renovation at our Holiday Inn Express & Suites in Fisherman's Wharf. The project is expected to be completed in mid-2018 and will position the hotel well in anticipation of the reopening of the Moscone Convention Center. Over the last six years we have invested well over $200 million into our portfolio and 83 hotels that we own today have an average effective age of approximately three years, further proof of our commitment to maintaining a high-quality portfolio where guest want to stay. With that, I'll turn the call over to our CFO, Greg Dowell.