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Marriott International, Inc. (MAR)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 19, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Marriott International's Fourth Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the floor will be opened for your questions following the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Arne Sorenson, President and Chief Executive Officer. Sir, you may begin. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter 2014 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Carl Berquist, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Laura Paugh, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations; and Betsy Dahm, Senior Director, Investor Relations. As always, before we get into the discussion of our results, let me first remind everyone that many of our comments today are not historical facts and are considered forward-looking statements under Federal Securities laws. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties as described in our SEC filings, which could cause future results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by our comments. Forward-looking statements in the press release that we issued last night, along with our comments today, are effective only today, February 19, 2015, and will not be updated as actual events unfold. You can find a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures referred to in our remarks on our website at www.marriott.com/investor. 2014 was a terrific year for Marriott. Worldwide comparable system-wide RevPAR rose nearly 7%, adjusted EBITDA rose 15%, and EPS increased 27%. The number of rooms in our lodging system grew by 7% gross. Over half of these new room openings were outside North America, and over 40% were conversions from competitor brands or were M&A related. Our room signings were even more impressive. We signed over 650 hotels with 100,000 new rooms in…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Felicia Hendrix of Barclays.

Felicia Hendrix - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning.

Felicia Hendrix - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

Good morning. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning.

Felicia Hendrix - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

Arne – hello. Clearly, Arne, for you, where we are in the cycle certainly favors the Select-Service hotels. Just wondering with luxury and upper upscale RevPAR lagging since last year, what are you doing at those chain scales to boost RevPAR growth or is it just simply a function of the cycle? Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, it's good question. I mean, I think the biggest reason for the difference between the upscale numbers and the upper upscale numbers is really about group. And, obviously, we've seen group demand build nicely over the course of the last 12 months or 18 months and I think, if anything, we see that demand continuing to build and, as a consequence, should get quite a bit better. Having said that, as we've talked in prior calls, I think in a building rate environment, transient tends to grow faster than group. That is the case even if group is quite healthy. And, obviously, one of the shortcomings of a RevPAR-dominated statistic, when you look at our industry, is it does not include non-rooms revenue that's associated with the group business. And if you include that, I think you get probably a truer sense about what's going on. I know a couple of folks have asked questions about whether luxury, for example, lagging some of the other brands is a sign of – an early sign maybe of getting to the maturity of the cycle. We don't believe that to be the case. We've poked at it in every way that we possibly can. And we don't think there's either a logic nor data to support a conclusion that there are any big conclusions that ought to be drawn by the difference between luxury or upper upscale RevPAR and the upscale RevPAR.

Felicia Hendrix - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

Helpful. Thank you. And then, Carl, you were just giving us a lot of details about SG&A. I appreciate that. You grew it slightly in 2014 and you're projecting a 2% to 4% decline in 2015 and you gave us the reasons why. If you look back to your Investor Day in September, you provided a 2017 goal of about $710 million. I'm just wondering, is that goal still part of your three-year outlook because that would imply a mid single-digit CAGR in 2016 and 2017, which is significantly higher than what you've done recently. Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. I think when we did our Investor Day, I wouldn't look at that as a forecast as much as we're putting goalposts out there with certain percentages. We're very focused on G&A costs and managing our costs down. As I mentioned, we have some favorability coming in 2015 with FX as well as lower legal costs that are helping us. But let there be no mistake, we are very focused on G&A to keep those costs flat or growing at a minimum amount.

Felicia Hendrix - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

Okay. So the goalposts that you gave us kind of implied a 3% to 4% CAGR. I mean, if we're just trying to model out further, should we use a low single-digit CAGR going forward? Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I don't think we want to give you a new 2017 model at this point, Felicia. But I think you've got what you've got to make some judgments.

Felicia Hendrix - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays

Okay. Thanks a lot. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You bet.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Shaun Kelley of Bank of America.

Shaun C. Kelley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Shaun Kelley of Bank of America

Hey. Good morning, everyone. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi.

Shaun C. Kelley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Shaun Kelley of Bank of America

I want to dig in on the incentive management fees a little bit more. So, I think, Carl, in your prepared remarks you said low double-digit for kind of 2015 as initial outlook. So (29:09) understand that a little bit better, from two regards. One, should we expect some of the Select-Service portfolios to be moving into the money, I guess, if you will, in 2015? And then second, we heard from a big owner of Marriott Hotels earlier today that they were successful in renegotiating some contracts as it related to incentive management fees. And I'm curious if that's at all a drag for you? And if you could just give a little more color on what that means from Marriott's perspective. Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure. I think there's a couple things that are affecting the incentive fees. FX, as I pointed out in my prepared remarks, a little bit of a headwind. We've got some renovations going on at some big hotels in the U.S., full-service hotels that are great incentive payers that we'll get a little bit pullback there. Last year the World Cup in Brazil generated a lot of incentive fees; that's a little headwind there. But I – and we got some deferred fees in 2014 that won't repeat. I think your question about the portfolios of limited service, you could see as in 2014 we had 50% of our hotels paying incentive fees and that was up from 38% the previous year. So you're beginning to see some of those portfolios move in. They're not generating a lot of dollars yet. They're just starting to come into the paying. But as RevPAR continues to grow, you'll see those limited service ones contribute more. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: How about the host portfolio, Carl? We had a recent renegotiation and... Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, we have every now and then we talk about a hotel or some negotiations, but nothing that moves the needle. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah.

Shaun C. Kelley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Shaun Kelley of Bank of America

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Joel Simkins of Credit Suisse. Joel H. Simkins - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Yeah. Hey. Good morning, everyone. Quick question for you. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning. Joel H. Simkins - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Obviously, you've tacked on Delta here that follows on the heels of Protea. How should we be thinking about sort of your future appetite for tuck-in acquisitions? Are there any geographic holes you guys feel like you're missing at this point? Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, there's a big world out there. And I think in some respects, this is also a repeat of what we said the last few quarters. I think if you had asked us at any time in the last few years whether we would have added this many brands, we wouldn't have probably discouraged you from thinking we'd do it. And we wouldn't have identified AC in Spain or Protea in South Africa or Delta in Canada as being companies that we had necessarily targeted, but we're really pleased with all of them. And I think what we've found is acquisitions that seem to be priced in a way that allows us to get to creating economic value and earnings accretion fairly quickly, and priced well below our company valuation given to us by markets. You see that accretion quite quickly. And in every instance we've found deals that give us a new platform for growth. And that's the real silver lining here. We are not going out simply to acquire additional rooms to drive our rooms count, but we're really going out to try and either develop brands internally, which is cheaper in some…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Robin Farley of UBS.

Robin M. Farley - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · Robin Farley of UBS

Great. Thanks. Two questions. One is you have Asian RevPAR in your guidance kind of accelerating in 2015. Is that just easier comparisons in Hong Kong, or is China actually accelerating underneath that Asia Pac guidance overall? Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Asia Pacific is a big market, and I think we'll see hopefully – knock on wood – easier comparisons in places like Hong Kong and Thailand. Thailand was rough in the first part of 2014 because of political demonstrations, and it's much more stable today than it was then. We wouldn't expect a meaningfully different kind of performance in China in 2015 from what we saw in 2014, although to be fair, the quarters got weaker in China in 2014. And so, we enter 2015 with maybe a somewhat lower trend line, but still kind of a mid-single-digits RevPAR growth would be our guess. And you roll all those things together and maybe it gets a little bit better in 2015 than it was in 2014.

Robin M. Farley - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · Robin Farley of UBS

Okay. Great. Thanks. And then as my follow-up, the guidance for asset sales of $600 million to $650 million -- are you expecting additional asset sales outside of the New York and Miami EDITIONS? Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Oh, yeah, we have a small Courtyard in Europe that we have on the market, so we'll sell that. We'll also collect some notes that come due in 2015, and that helps us as well in that total recycled number of $600 million to $650 million.

Robin M. Farley - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · Robin Farley of UBS

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Steve Kent of Goldman Sachs. Steven E. Kent - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hi. Good morning. Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning. Steven E. Kent - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Two questions. First, just give us a sense for moving to dividends from buybacks on your capital allocation front. Especially as, if you look historically at your stock and its multiple, you're near or above your previous high. So I'm just trying to understand the rationale of buybacks versus dividends, and the way you and your board are thinking about it. And then just as an aside, you mentioned that 9,000 of the 46,000 rooms added in 2014 were from competitor brands' conversions. What are the brands – what brands are typically deciding to convert to Marriott? How do you target more of those conversions over time, and are they across all price points for you? Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Those are all good questions. Let's start with dividends versus share repurchases. And I – this is a conversation we continue to have, not just with our board but also with all of you in the investment community. And I think obviously, buying back stock is a inherently more flexible approach than dividends. It allows us, in an industry that does have ups and downs, to calibrate much more instantly. And also in a stage of our business where we are jumping at opportunities when they present in a way that's compelling, Delta being the most recent example of that with a $135 million roughly acquisition which will close in the next few months here. Share repurchase also allows us to flex up and down on a short-term basis…

Laura E. Paugh - Senior Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst · Steve Kent of Goldman Sachs

I'm looking at a list of the fourth quarter conversions and they're largely – I mean, there's been a lot of Autographs added in the fourth quarter. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, so that's independent to...

Laura E. Paugh - Senior Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst · Steve Kent of Goldman Sachs

...largely independent. We also saw some conversions into the Marriott brand and Renaissance brand that were also independents. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah.

Laura E. Paugh - Senior Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst · Steve Kent of Goldman Sachs

So in the fourth quarter, it's probably independents... Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Independents would probably be the biggest single chunk.

Laura E. Paugh - Senior Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst · Steve Kent of Goldman Sachs

Yeah. Steven E. Kent - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay. Thank you. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You bet.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Harry Curtis of Nomura.

Harry C. Curtis - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst · Nomura

Good morning. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Harry.

Harry C. Curtis - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst · Nomura

Two quick questions. The $600 million that you expect to spend this year -- you've already isolated maintenance and Delta, leaving you with $340 million to spend. One of your competitors mentioned that their growth – that the investment cost to spur 6% to 7% growth was about $100 million for 2015. Of that $340 million, how much do you think is being used to drive your unit growth outside of acquisitions? Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, if you kind of put in things like key money and that kind of stuff, it's obviously in there. We also have in there about, I don't know, $80 million to $100 million to finish the EDITION hotels building. And I think as we grow with Select-Service, we don't need to put a lot of capital in to get new Select-Service hotels or put it in. I think if you added it all up, it's probably $100-and-some million that we'll spend in a year on key money and loans and all that. If you think about in 2014, we did the Atlantis mezz loan for $100 million and that would count as capital in 2014. So it's those kinds of things, Harry versus a said amount that you have to invest to keep the growth going. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It is, as Carl said, it is a small percentage of the total amount that we're investing which is sort of run of the mill support to our owners, franchisees and development deals. I don't think we've mentioned today, but we've got in the 2014 – or 2015 spending, excuse me, not just the EDITION finish that Carl talked about, but we're building a couple of hotels in Brazil because we think they will give us a platform to leverage stronger growth in Brazil going forward. Those are fee ownership deals and obviously we'll turn around and recycle that capital before long. We are renovating, we've got a leased hotel in the Caribbean that we're putting $30 million or $40 million in. We own the Charlotte Marriott which we are reinventing to prove that we can take a 20-year-old Marriott Hotel and reinvent it and drive decent returns and that's probably a $30 million or $40 million project. We've got a number of those which we would not categorize at all as being sort of regular support of the development world. And in fact, as our developers are out around the world, competing with our principal competitors, we are absolutely convinced that we are not more aggressive in offering key money or other financial support to our prospective owners than our competitors are, in fact just the reverse.

Harry C. Curtis - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst · Nomura

Okay. That clarifies that. And then, the second question focusing just in the U.S., is it a reasonable range to be using in the U.S. net room growth in 2015 of roughly 20,000 to 25,000 new rooms this year. And what percentage of that will come from conversions and does it change much in 2016? Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: The U.S. – Laura can we pull these numbers out as we're talking, but the U.S., overwhelmingly the U.S. numbers are going be driven by new build, upscale hotels. Usually in secondary markets, secondary or even tertiary markets, so think about the brands we've had for some time, Courtyard, Residence Inn, TownePlace, SpringHill Suites and Fairfield, but also then the growth that we're going to be getting in the next few years from AC, particularly Moxy, I think the first will probably not open until 2017 is my guess. So I don't think that will drive significant openings. Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Harry, probably about half the openings in 2015 will be in the U.S. The majority of those will be flex service and the rest will be throughout the international area.

Harry C. Curtis - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst · Nomura

And what percent are likely to be conversions of that? Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Remember we have a hard time predicting conversions because they're not in our pipelines. And I don't think we've got our 45,000-ish rooms to open next year broken down between conversions and new build hotels.

Harry C. Curtis - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst · Nomura

Okay. All right. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: There'd be a few in the next few months undoubtedly that are in there, but we wouldn't be very aggressive in trying to predict conversion, for example, happening in late 2015. We probably don't even have those discussions going yet.

Harry C. Curtis - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst · Nomura

Very good. That's helpful. Thank you. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You bet.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of David Loeb from Baird. David Loeb - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Good morning. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, David. David Loeb - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Arne, a big picture follow-up to Joel's brand question, what's the optimal number of brands? You've successfully integrated brands like Renaissance in the past as a way to gain market share in crowded markets, and AC looks like a similar play in segmenting markets, but for Delta or future potential brand acquisitions, is there a diminishing return in terms of your ability to capture more of the travel of the Marriott Rewards customers? Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I don't think so. I mean, we've added – we obviously have a good portfolio of brands, as many as anybody if not more, and we still drive 50% of our business through the Marriott Rewards customer base. I think our pipeline of customers that we connect to these hotels are successful in most markets and with most hotels of driving an immediate lift, usually quite substantial. And so, in no respects do we believe that we have too many brands and we've gone past that point. I think there are a couple of things to keep in mind. One is in this lifestyle space, we've obviously watched it for years. We've talked with you about what we started with, with Renaissance first and then EDITION, but now more recently with Autograph and AC and Moxy. And we think we now have five very strong brands in the lifestyle space giving us a good stack across the segments in that area. And each one of those brands, I think is…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Joe Greff of J.P. Morgan.

Joseph R. Greff - J.P. Morgan

Analyst · Joe Greff of J.P. Morgan

Good morning, everybody. Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hi, Joe. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Joe.

Joseph R. Greff - J.P. Morgan

Analyst · Joe Greff of J.P. Morgan

You guys obviously have done a very good job on growing the footprint, growing the pipeline and signing new contracts, and as we look at your progress and efforts and other lodging companies that we follow, there seems to be sort of a divergence between the haves which of course, you're one and then the have-nots. And so the question we have is that -- the somewhat divergence, is that creating any heightened or incremental competition for you management or franchise contract in the U.S. or outside the U.S.? Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, thank you for putting us with the haves, by the way. We appreciate that. I don't think so, no. I mean, obviously we are in an intensely competitive industry, and each of us want to better the other, there's no doubt about that. I think one of the things that has been interesting is the companies have gotten to a – collectively the big companies are a bit more stable and a bit longer-term in their focus than they've probably ever been and that drives I think more rational decisions in the way they compete for management contracts or franchise contracts. And if anything, if you said we're getting into an industry in which a relative fewer of us have that much more attractiveness to owners and franchisees that would probably tend to drive towards a bit less intense competition as opposed to more. But having said that, I think the right way to think about this business is it's an intensely competitive business and it's competitive for the guests that are checking into our hotels as well as the owners and franchises that we're partnered with.

Joseph R. Greff - J.P. Morgan

Analyst · Joe Greff of J.P. Morgan

Great. Thank you. And, Carl, my follow up for you, can you help us understand what's embedded in your 2015 guidance in terms of gross proceeds from asset sales? And obviously the $230 million from the Marriott in Miami Beach, or the EDITION in Miami Beach. But can you help us understand what else is contemplated within your guidance? Thank you. Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, in the $600 million to $650 million that we're spending -- we think we'll generate about $600 million to $650 million recycling. Obviously the two EDITIONS, Clock Tower, and Miami as well the Residence. We closed a lot of the Residences in 2014, but we got about probably $50 million still coming over into 2015 from the Residences. We'll also – like I said, we've got small Courtyard on the market, we've got some notes that we're going to collect all together probably in the range of about $30 million on the notes. We've got some preferred stock that comes due in 2015. So it's a myriad of smaller things, Joe, that just kind of add up to that $600 million to $650 million. The biggest piece being the (53:49)

Joseph R. Greff - J.P. Morgan

Analyst · Joe Greff of J.P. Morgan

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Thomas Allen of Morgan Stanley. Thomas G. Allen - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hey, good morning. The color around the amount of demand coming from locals both in the U.S. and Europe is really helpful. But just as you think about your now 49 million Member's Rewards Program, can you just talk about what percentage of your customers are U.S. versus international customers and how to think about that kind of driving your overall RevPAR and revenue performance across your portfolio? Thank you. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's a big globe out there. But I think one thing that can be said is in virtually every market the biggest customer is a local customer. So, in the United States, for example, 95% of our business is U.S. business. 5% is inbound business. Now, obviously city-by-city it varies. We think probably New York in the U.S. is the most international city in terms of visitation. But the room nights are probably between 10% and 15% total, something like that. Obviously, you go to different cities and you see some variance. Even in China, in our hotels, the majority of our business, a heavy majority of our business is Chinese travel. It would be more mixed in a city like Shanghai than it would be in a Guangzhou or a Wuhan, but still across the country as a whole it's going be mostly Chinese business. And you look at what's happening in that space, obviously all of us are focused on currency these days. Currency will hurt arrivals in a place like New York almost for certainty. In fact, we think room night – international arrivals to New York were down probably 3% in the fourth quarter…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Ian Rennardson of Jefferies.

Ian Rennardson - Jefferies International Ltd.

Analyst · Ian Rennardson of Jefferies

Yeah, thank you. Good afternoon. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, there.

Ian Rennardson - Jefferies International Ltd.

Analyst · Ian Rennardson of Jefferies

Just a quick question for Carl. What is behind the $13 million of interest income in Q4, please? Thank you. Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: $13 million of interest? I didn't hear your... Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: That's your accretion true-up.

Ian Rennardson - Jefferies International Ltd.

Analyst · Ian Rennardson of Jefferies

Yeah. Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Oh, why we had the benefit? It was a one-time interest accretion true-up. We had been recording too much interest on a accreting bond, and we adjusted that in the fourth quarter as about $7 million benefit.

Ian Rennardson - Jefferies International Ltd.

Analyst · Ian Rennardson of Jefferies

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Bill Crow of Raymond James. Bill A. Crow - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Hey, good morning, guys. Nice quarter. Arne... Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Bill. Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hi, Bill. Bill A. Crow - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Hey, Arne, how close do you think we are to hitting the high watermark on the pipeline? In other words, when we get to that point where we're opening more rooms than we're adding. And all your new acquisitions notwithstanding, it seems like we've got to be getting somewhere close to that number. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Getting close to the peak of the pipeline? Bill A. Crow - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Yeah, where we'd start opening more rooms than adding new rooms to the pipeline. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's a good question. I don't think that that's near actually. I mean, for better or worse, the longer RevPAR goes up and profitability of hotels improve, more projects pencil. And you can say for better or worse because if you could have a omnipotent kind of wisdom, I suspect at some point you would say, well, let's start to calibrate that back, simply because we know that there'll be a correction coming at some point in time. But our industry doesn't really work that way. So I would expect that the pipeline – and, again, this is sort of a U.S. focused comment, I'll confess to that. But I would expect that the pipeline in the U.S. will continue to grow. With each year, we see mid single or mid to high…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Vince Ciepiel of Cleveland Research.

Vince Ciepiel - Cleveland Research Co. LLC

Analyst · Vince Ciepiel of Cleveland Research

Hi. Good morning. My question is on... Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hi.

Vince Ciepiel - Cleveland Research Co. LLC

Analyst · Vince Ciepiel of Cleveland Research

...fee guidance. You guys talked about 14% to 15% type growth in 1Q kind of implies 9% 2Q through 4Q. Could you help quantify any of the year-over-year comp issues related to termination or deferred fees that might skew the growth rates in those two periods? And, especially in light of you guys mentioned an FX headwind, I would think a lot of that or a good portion of that would show up in 1Q. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I think in the first quarter we've got sort of a chunkier – a positive chunkier relicensing fee number, which come through the franchise fee line. As existing hotels sell, there are fees that are collected with the sort of relicensing to the new buyer. And there's at least one meaningfully good-sized portfolio, maybe two ,that will close in the first quarter, which will help us in Q1. So that may be offsetting what I think you're right about, which is that the FX impact on fees would be otherwise we would guess most significant in Q1. Obviously if currency stays where they are by the time you get to Q4, the comparisons will get easier and easier. Certainly the full year fee growth number is impacted by the FX by I would think something like $20 million to $25 million even. We think $17 million is the fee number if you look compared to full year 2014 actual currency. But if you look at sort of where we expected currency to be when we released our third quarter earnings, if anything, the impact on fees is even a little bit more than that.

Laura E. Paugh - Senior Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst · Vince Ciepiel of Cleveland Research

And we had it – in the third quarter of 2014, we had a $15 million deferred fee that was recognized. So you've got a tough comparison in that quarter. And that was – you can read more about that in the press release for Q3. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Those would be the two biggest.

Laura E. Paugh - Senior Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst · Vince Ciepiel of Cleveland Research

Yeah. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah.

Vince Ciepiel - Cleveland Research Co. LLC

Analyst · Vince Ciepiel of Cleveland Research

Great. That's helpful. Thanks. And then second question also on fee guidance, maybe approaching it from a different perspective. You mentioned that incentive fees, which is largely international, still you expect to grow low double-digits. Your other two buckets, I think base is 70% domestic and franchise 90%. What type of growth rates are you guys kind of thinking about to get to that 9% to 11% range for 2015? Thanks. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. We don't really have that handy. But clearly, given the U.S. numbers, we'll expect franchise fees to grow faster than managed fees. We have – the hotels that were recently opened in 2014 and the hotels that will open in 2015 in the United States will skew heavily towards franchised Select-Service and Extended Stay hotels. And managed portfolio by comparison will not be adding the same kind of unit growth. So even though we'd expect RevPAR numbers between managed hotels and franchised hotels to be roughly comparable, the unit growth impact to those things will be quite different. And then, of course, you get to the Rest of the World and there we'll see that the FX impact is most pronounced coming out of Europe, for example. And I don't have this in concrete terms for you today, but certainly the FX impact is likely to eat up the RevPAR growth and maybe even a fair measure of the new unit growth that would otherwise drive growth in both management and franchise fees. That will be much less the case in other regions around the world, but there will still be some FX impact. Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: There will be some. Canada.

Vince Ciepiel - Cleveland Research Co. LLC

Analyst · Vince Ciepiel of Cleveland Research

Great. Thanks very much. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You bet.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Smedes Rose of Citigroup.

Smedes Rose - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Smedes Rose of Citigroup

Hi. Thanks. I just wanted to ask you, for your Moxy brand, what are the per-key cost to develop that? And is that all new builds or is that a conversion opportunity as well? Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: The Moxy in Europe is all new builds. And our biggest partner there is Inter IKEA, which is a affiliate, but not owned by or in any way sort of directly affiliated with the IKEA retail network. But the folks who are owning those hotels and developing them bring a lot of engineering skill and, as a consequence, are doing new build, often modular construction, and the ex-land cost is in the €40,000 to €50,000 per room range. Something like that. In the United States, we are going to be I think much more focused initially on center urban environments. As a consequence, the absolute cost numbers will be higher. The use of modular construction will be either nonexistent or certainly much rarer. And... Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: There'll be a lot of adaptive reuse (1:09:47) Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's a little hard to predict. So I don't – I know we've signed a couple of deals in Manhattan. I'm sure the cost per room is sort of well into the $100s. But I can't tell you off the top of my head what it is exactly.

Smedes Rose - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Smedes Rose of Citigroup

Okay. And then just a housekeeping thing. What was the share count at the end of the quarter? Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: We'll look that up for you. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We'll come back to that one. Let's take the next question. We'll throw that one back in if you stay online.

Smedes Rose - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Smedes Rose of Citigroup

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our final question comes from the line of Chad Beynon of Macquarie. Chad Beynon - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning. Chad Beynon - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Arne, in your prepared remarks, you mentioned that 60% of your new Rewards members have come from what you call the new generation members. Any early sense of where the brand appeal is for this new group of travelers, and if there's an opportunity for any of your brands' RevPAR index to move up on the back of kind of where this new group is staying? Thanks. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I mean, we're obviously focused on – we had a meeting last week where we brought our senior operators in from around the world, which is something we do every January to talk – or every February to talk about priorities and things. We had a millennial group in to work with us on the second day of the meeting. I talked to every one of those folks as they left afterwards, and every one of them said I hate that you call me a millennial. And I think – I start with that only because I think it's – we're all talking about millennials or next generation or whatever. They are not a monolithic group. And what we see is that they are 20-something-year-old and 30-something-year-old professionals, consultants, road warriors that are already heavily invested in our brands. They are in many respects not that dissimilar from earlier generations of heavy travelers. They may be more technologically connected and obviously that's important to them. But they're maybe quite similar to earlier generations and quite different from some of their peers who we tend to focus on more when we say they are technologically addicted maybe, they are focused on lifestyle, they're focused on food and beverage. And we think they are flavors of all of that there, which of course is one of the reasons we have rolled out this new portfolio of lifestyle brands. And I think, with it, we will and are already finding that we're capturing their interest through both the hotels that we're opening and some of the great things we're doing in the marketing space. And we are committed through them, but also through all of our other vehicles to continue to drive index as well. Chad Beynon - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Okay. Thanks.

Laura E. Paugh - Senior Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst · Macquarie

So in answer to the question about shares, so we ended the year with 280 million shares and about 6 million shares of dilution, which would take you for diluted shares at year-end to approximately 286 million. Chad Beynon - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Okay. And then one final one – sorry, one final one that I had just kind of going back to the IMF fees. You outlined at your Investor Day that 20% of North American IMFs come from New York. And I was wondering if your plus 6% group outlook for 1Q and plus 5% outlook for 2015 holds true in an important market like New York, kind of what your group outlook is given the additional supply that we've seen? And then that's it. Thanks. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I don't have a group number for you for New York, but Q1 New York could well be negative. You've got Super Bowl, you've got snowstorms, and you've got supply. When we look at our New York numbers, and this is not group only, but whole hotel sort of numbers, we would expect New York to be a few hundred basis points south of the rest of the U.S., and probably the first quarter to be meaningfully the weakest quarter of the four. Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. If you compare on the group side – I don't have the number, but if you just think last year had the Super Bowl, which would be heavy group and not this year, you have a very tough comp relative to group business in the first quarter. Arne M. Sorenson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Thank you all very much. We appreciate your time and attention this morning and I look forward to welcoming you into our hotels around the world. Get on the road and travel. Hope to see you soon. Carl T. Berquist - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Bye, bye.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's Marriott International conference call. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.