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Service Properties Trust (SVC)

Q4 2025 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 26, 2026

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Service Properties Trust Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kevin Barry, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Kevin Barry

Analyst

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. With me on the call are Chris Bilotto, President and Chief Executive Officer; Jesse Abair, Vice President; and Brian Donley, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer. In just a moment, they will provide details about our business and our performance for the fourth quarter of 2025, followed by a question-and-answer session with sell-side analysts. I would like to note that the recording and retransmission of today's conference call is prohibited without the prior written consent of the company. Also note that today's conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other securities laws. These forward-looking statements are based on SVC's beliefs and expectations as of today, February 26, 2026, and actual results may differ materially from those that we project. The company undertakes no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to the forward-looking statements made in today's conference call. Additional information concerning factors that could cause those differences is contained in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be accessed from our website at svcreit.com or the SEC's website. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements. In addition, this call may contain non-GAAP financial measures, including normalized funds from operations or normalized FFO and adjusted EBITDAre. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP figures to net income is available in SVC's earnings release presentation that we issued last night, which can be found on our website. Lastly, we will be providing guidance on this call, including estimated 2026 normalized FFO, hotel EBITDA and adjusted EBITDAre. We are not providing reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures as part of our guidance because certain information required for such reconciliation is not available without unreasonable efforts or at all. I will now turn the call over to Chris.

Christopher Bilotto

Analyst

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call today. Yesterday, we reported fourth quarter results that highlight our continued progress optimizing SVC's portfolio, strengthening our financial profile and repositioning the company for long-term growth and value creation. I will begin today's call with a brief update on our key strategic and financial initiatives and share operating highlights from our hotel portfolio. Jesse will provide an update on our net lease platform and recent acquisitions. Brian will then discuss our financial results and balance sheet, along with the introduction of annual guidance for 2026. Starting with our strategic priorities. We had a productive quarter, completing previously announced hotel sales and taking action to reduce leverage and strengthen SVC's balance sheet. During the quarter, we sold 66 hotels totaling nearly 8,300 keys for $534 million. This activity increased our total dispositions for the year to 112 hotels, totaling approximately 14,600 keys for nearly $860 million. We used the proceeds and cash on hand to proactively redeem all $800 million of our 2026 debt maturities and $300 million of our February 2027 notes. Building on this momentum, in 2026, we remain focused on selling additional hotels and executing further strategies to improve SVC's cash flows, debt maturity profile and overall cost of capital. Consistent with these objectives, in January, we sold the Simply Suites for $7.1 million with 133 keys and launched the remarketing of 9 focused service hotels that we initially brought to market in 2025. These hotels benefit from stable occupancy and positive cash flow, providing an opportunity to cater to a wider buyer pool, which is supported by the current interest level we are seeing with the marketing process. Also in January, we initiated the marketing of 7 full-service Sonesta managed hotels with 2,010 keys…

Jesse Abair

Analyst

Thank you, and good morning. As Chris mentioned, over the past year, we successfully executed our acquisition strategy aimed at growing annual base rent and improving the metrics of our net lease platform. Accounting for 3 closings subsequent to year-end, investments over the past year totaled $101 million, which were funded with a combination of cash on hand and proceeds from net lease dispositions. The acquisitions included a balanced mix of quick service and casual dining restaurants, automotive services, fitness and value retailers. In total, the acquisitions had a weighted average lease term of 14.3 years, average rent coverage of 2.7x and an average going-in cash cap rate of 7.5% and an average GAAP cap rate of 8.3%. Moving forward, our disciplined investment criteria will remain unchanged with a focus on service-based brands that demonstrate resilience even in uncertain macro environments and remain largely insulated from e-commerce disruption. However, the pace of acquisitions will be mostly limited to capital recycling within our portfolio. For the full year 2026, we project total net lease deal volume of approximately $25 million. With the tenant roster augmented by our recent acquisitions, we will be actively looking for ways to leverage our new and established brand relationships for additional growth opportunities in the form of sale leasebacks and off-market deals. With respect to our net lease results for the fourth quarter, at year-end, SVC's portfolio consisted of 760 properties across 42 states with annual base rents of $390 million. The portfolio was approximately 97% leased with a weighted average lease term of 7.4 years. We have over 180 tenants operating under 140 brands across 21 distinct industries. Annualized base rent increased 2.4%, largely a function of our recent acquisition activity. Our asset management team had a particularly strong quarter, executing leases totaling 536,000 square feet, averaging over 9 years of term and a cash rent roll-up of 15%. Portfolio lease expirations remain well laddered with just over 5% of annualized rents expiring through the end of 2027. Approximately 2/3 of our annual base rents are generated by our TA travel centers, backed by BP's investment-grade credit profile. 34 of our travel center assets leased to TA served as collateral for our recent ABS financing. We are pleased with the strong investment-grade ratings and robust investor demand that these notes received, which we believe reflects confidence in the stability of cash flows from these assets for years to come. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Brian to discuss our financial results.

Brian Donley

Analyst

Thanks, Jesse. Good morning. Starting with our consolidated financial results for the fourth quarter of 2025. Normalized FFO was $27.5 million or $0.17 per share, flat compared to the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDAre decreased $5 million year-over-year to $125.6 million. Overall, financial results this quarter as compared to the prior year quarter were primarily impacted by an $11.8 million or $0.07 per share decline in hotel EBITDA, partially offset by a $6 million or $0.04 per share onetime tax benefit related to our hotel in San Juan and $5 million or $0.03 per share related to our 34% share of Sonesta International's results. For our 94 comparable hotels this quarter, RevPAR increased by 70 basis points and gross operating profit margin percentage declined by 370 basis points to 20.5%. Below the GOP line costs at our comparable hotels improved 1.5% from the prior year, driven by lower property taxes at certain hotels. Our hotel portfolio generated adjusted hotel EBITDA of $21.3 million, a decline of 35% from the prior year as a result of elevated labor costs, higher hotel overhead costs and the impact of nonrepeat business interruption insurance recognized in the prior year. 77 hotels in our retained portfolio generated RevPAR of $106, an increase of 170 basis points year-over-year and adjusted hotel EBITDA of $25 million during the quarter, a decrease of $8 million year-over-year. Turning to the balance sheet. We currently have $5.2 billion of debt outstanding with a weighted average interest rate of 5.95%. Using the proceeds from asset sales in January, we partially repaid $300 million of SVC's aggregate $400 million senior notes scheduled to mature in February 2027. On Monday, we announced our second securitization of net lease assets. This new 5-year financing totaled $745 million in principal at a weighted average coupon…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Jack Armstrong with Wells Fargo.

Jackson Armstrong

Analyst

Can you share with us how RevPAR has trended in the first quarter to date? And what's driving the width of your RevPAR growth guidance? It's about 250 basis points wider than we've seen from your peers who have given guidance so far.

Brian Donley

Analyst

As far as what we're seeing so far in the early part of Q1, we're tracking in line, if not exceeding our projections for the full year guidance. We have January's actuals in the books, and we see RevPAR through the mid-February. So all is trending well so far. As far as the range, given some of the volatility in our portfolio with disruption and displacement, we put the range in, which we think is appropriate for the activity in our hotels and some of the uplift in some of the citywide events and whether or not some of that activity pans out, could have an impact on either side of our guidance range at our midpoint.

Jackson Armstrong

Analyst

Okay. Helpful there. And then on your net lease acquisition guidance, it's a meaningful step down from 2025 levels. Can you walk through the strategy shift there and how you're thinking about deploying capital in the net lease business now?

Christopher Bilotto

Analyst

Yes. I think from kind of an overall strategy, I think more specifically, we're looking at just overall capital deployment holistically for the company, which includes decreasing capital spend at the hotels accordingly and then also kind of thinking about just our overall acquisition trajectory. And we've got the opportunity to kind of flex up or down as needed. But ultimately, the $25 million guidance will be supported by sales of net lease properties, so kind of net 0 in that standpoint. And we think that's kind of a healthy outlook just based on where our performance guidance is for 2026.

Jackson Armstrong

Analyst

Okay. Great. And then could you provide some color on what your guidance assumes for expense growth at the midpoint and maybe break out some of the components like labor, insurance and anything else that we should be focused on?

Brian Donley

Analyst

Sure. Overall, to the midpoint, just top line is a little over 4% expectation on growth. The bottom line, we're seeing around 6% and a big part of that is labor. Base labor and wages is roughly 3% to 3.5%, but we're seeing increased pressure on the benefit side, which continues to hamper margins. The midpoint guidance assumes margins relatively flat if we hit those numbers.

Jackson Armstrong

Analyst

Okay. And then do you have a sense of how any of the changes coming at Sonesta with the new management team may impact SVC? Is there any benefit included from that in your 2026 guidance?

Christopher Bilotto

Analyst

No. The 2026 guidance is based on kind of budgeted forecasted hotel performance and kind of the things we've touched on. Certainly, with this management team coming in, I think there's a legacy track record of experience from each of them and kind of what they've done historically. And so I think net-net, we view it as a positive, and we embraced any opportunity for change to drive performance, and I think they'll do just that. So I think anything they bring to the table will be incrementally beneficial.

Brian Donley

Analyst

So I was going to say the 34% share of Sonesta's earnings, we're not projecting much growth there in the guidance.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Tyler Batory with Oppenheimer.

Tyler Batory

Analyst · Oppenheimer.

I want to start on the hotel portfolio and the guidance. And Brian, I think you had mentioned 4% top line growth. Just help us think about how much of your RevPAR in 2026 and the performance on an apples-to-apples basis versus 2025, you think is being driven by a higher quality portfolio, maybe progress on Sonesta brand recognition versus market factors and things like the World Cup, et cetera.

Brian Donley

Analyst · Oppenheimer.

Yes. The guidance and the growth trajectory, the midpoint RevPAR is around $110, which is a 3% RevPAR growth, 4% on gross revenues. That is apples-to-apples. So again, we have higher RevPAR based on the weighting of full-service hotels. And a lot of the growth we're expecting is coming from lift from some of the low benchmarks we had in '25 because of renovations and displacement. We'll see some displacement still in 2026, and we've put that number out in our earnings presentation, and that's part of the Nautilus and some other bigger projects. But I think market factors, Chris mentioned the World Cup is America 250 and other citywide events that we should see some benefit from. So it's a little bit of everything there.

Tyler Batory

Analyst · Oppenheimer.

Okay. And then in terms of the margin outlook, you mentioned flat year-over-year, so low teens, 12%. I guess any help -- I mean, how much displacement is still in that number? How much disruption is still in that margin number? And just any help thinking about a normalized EBITDA margin for the portfolio or kind of where you'd like to see EBITDA margin for the portfolio move over the medium term?

Christopher Bilotto

Analyst · Oppenheimer.

Yes. In the '26 guidance, we've noted about $12 million in displacement from renovations. And so I think that -- it's going to vary year-to-year, right, depending on the renovations that we do specifically. And I think kind of generally speaking, we're doing some larger renovations, specifically with the Nautilus it will have an outsized impact to displacement. So I wouldn't view that as a run rate. I think it would be less than that, generally speaking, probably consistent with what we saw in 2025. But again, as we think about capital deployment, it's another factor. We touched on the fact that we're being mindful of how we deploy capital. And so that's going to then dictate how we think about the types of renovations and which hotels we address. So it really will be on a case-by-case basis as we think about kind of the go-forward scenario.

Tyler Batory

Analyst · Oppenheimer.

Okay. Great. So a good segue to my next question just in terms of CapEx in '26 versus '25, meaningful step down there. Just remind us what's being planned for 2026? How much is the Nautilus? And then any reminders in terms of what you're thinking about a normalized CapEx for the hotel portfolio going forward?

Brian Donley

Analyst · Oppenheimer.

Sure. The $120 million to $140 million is a big step for us. I think the pace of large significant renovations are winding down for us. We're going to be more spacing projects out. The Nautilus is definitely the biggest piece of this year. We had about $12 million of CapEx activity in Q4 of '25 related to the Nautilus, which is mostly exterior work. The rooms renovation is kicking off next month. And I think it's roughly $30 million, $35 million we're projecting in the first half of '26 related to that project alone. We're also -- the Cambridge Royal Sonesta, there's 2 towers in that hotel. We're doing one of those. There's a property -- one of our hotels down in D.C. as well as some other hotels scattered across the country that we're still doing renovations. But again, the pace and the volume and the size will continue to wind down. So that $120 million-ish is currently what we're thinking for next year and probably for future years as well at this stage.

Tyler Batory

Analyst · Oppenheimer.

Okay. So switching gears to the debt side of things and now that you've done the $745 million of securitized notes. I guess how much more room do you have in terms of whether it's just covenants or just overall capacity in terms of utilizing some of those assets to fund some of the debt maturities that are coming up in the next couple of years?

Brian Donley

Analyst · Oppenheimer.

Yes. I mean that was a well-executed transaction for us. It did bring our secured debt to total asset capacity down. Well, the covenant went from 20-something percent to 33% out of a max of 40% under our covenant. So not a lot of headroom for a large transaction, but the way we're thinking about debt maturities the 0 coupons are already secured by assets. So we can refinance those with the existing collateral or in another manner. We have some unsecured notes that we need to clean up in early -- by early '27. And then our focus is largely on the unsecured notes due at the end of '27, which between asset sales and potential other transactions, we'll look to refinance those out.

Tyler Batory

Analyst · Oppenheimer.

Okay. And then last question for me, just to tie together all the commentary on the debt side of things and lots of moving pieces. I know you got asset sales and you made a lot of adjustments in terms of what you're doing with your cash. But just kind of level set what you have coming due 2027 and 2028 as well? And just like in an ideal scenario, how are you thinking about handling all of those maturities?

Brian Donley

Analyst · Oppenheimer.

Sure. In my prepared remarks, we talked about the $100 million that's currently due in February, which the asset sales, we think we'll be able to use those proceeds to clean those up. I mentioned the 0 coupons is the next bigger maturity, and there is an extension option. Those are backed by TA assets. We feel very good. We'll be able to either refinance those or extend those followed by the '27 -- the December '27, the asset sales that are in flight will knock out a piece of those. And then behind that is February '28 unsecured notes, which we're very focused on, whether it be asset sales, further asset sales or refinancing. It's a little early to talk about specifics on how exactly we're going to execute. But we feel confident given what we just did, it will give us some breathing room for covenant purposes and then just be able to evaluate our options in the market and potentially bring more properties for sale to help mitigate those maturities.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from John Massocca with B. Riley.

John Massocca

Analyst · B. Riley.

Maybe focusing on the hotel dispositions that you kind of have out there in 2026. Do those largely or entirely reflect the assets you called out in December as being marketed for sale and then also the assets that needed to be remarketed that kind of slipped out of the 2025 dispositions?

Christopher Bilotto

Analyst · B. Riley.

Yes, that's correct. So the 9 focused service that are part of the 16 we're in the market with are the carryover from 2025. So that -- those reflect the remarketing. And then the 7 full-service hotels, which we launched in January reflect those hotels that we articulated that we had identified to sell. And again, these are kind of the cash drag hotels more specifically as part of that endeavor. So yes, these 16 reflect those that we previously communicated.

John Massocca

Analyst · B. Riley.

Are the 9 kind of remarketed hotels, are those EBITDA positive? And if so, how much kind of offset would that be to what you've already stated in terms of the EBITDA drag from the 7 larger hotels you're marketing?

Christopher Bilotto

Analyst · B. Riley.

Yes, those are EBITDA positive. I mean they ended the full year with roughly $3 million in positive EBITDA for those 9. And net-net, if you look at 2025, the total drag would be about $10 million of what we would be saving.

John Massocca

Analyst · B. Riley.

Okay. And if you think about potential gross proceeds from those sales, I think if I took what they're originally being marketed for plus the range you're giving for the new hotel sales you're expecting in 2026, it would be somewhere kind of, I think, roughly like $190 million. Is that still kind of what you're seeing? Or has there been some change in pricing given some of these assets are being remarketed?

Christopher Bilotto

Analyst · B. Riley.

Yes. I mean we talked about $175 million to $200 million as a range. And I think, look, activity is strong. We've been out in the market since early January with these different portfolios, the 2 and there's good activity. Call for offers is going to start in the next couple of weeks and then it will be staggered. Just there's 3 different portfolios that we're marketing. So they'll come in staggered, and I think that will be indicative of within that range, where we think we're going to land on the higher, the lower the mid. So we'll have more to talk about. But again, the activity is there. We feel good about the execution. And again, we'll just have more to talk about in the next couple of months.

John Massocca

Analyst · B. Riley.

Okay. And then I guess, pro forma for those sales, do you still expect kind of run rate EBITDA mix to be around 70% net lease, 30% hotel at the end of 2026?

Brian Donley

Analyst · B. Riley.

Yes, that's about right. Obviously, we'll get a lift from removing negative drag, but it's still right around that range.

John Massocca

Analyst · B. Riley.

Okay. And I mean, I guess, where does that roughly stand today just pro forma for all the transaction activity in 4Q?

Brian Donley

Analyst · B. Riley.

Yes. I think it's not too far off from high-60s to low-30s to -- from an EBITDA mix.

John Massocca

Analyst · B. Riley.

Okay. Maybe switching gears to net lease. Post the transaction in February, I guess, how much in the way of non-hotel assets kind of remain that are unencumbered by debt, either in terms of like total property number or just kind of brackets around value?

Brian Donley

Analyst · B. Riley.

Yes. I mean if there was something we thought we could have used in the debt transactions, we would have contributed more assets and taken more proceeds and done a little bit more. The properties that sit outside the securitization, there's roughly, call it, $27 million of rents. It's not a big portfolio. The weighted average lease term is under 5 years. There's work to do on leasing. There's movie theaters mixed in. So it's not -- I don't think we look at that part of -- the rest of that part of that portfolio is something that we're going to use for a financing necessarily unless, again, we're able to secure more lease term and growth on those assets. But for the most part, all 5 TA assets are now part of some sort of collateral package in our bonds or debt structure. The hotel portfolio is completely unencumbered, [ San Juan ], the Hyatt portfolio that backs the revolver. So there is capacity on the hotel side. But again, I think the way we're thinking about our refinancings going forward, it's going to be a mix of potential bonds or guaranteed bonds or some other form of instruments.

Christopher Bilotto

Analyst · B. Riley.

And I would add, John, that on the retail properties that are remaining, we talked about raising proceeds through sales. Some of those hotels -- excuse me, those retail properties kind of fit within the remaining properties as far as some we'd be selling as well. So...

John Massocca

Analyst · B. Riley.

Okay. And then anything specific on the net lease side to call out? It's not a huge move quarter-over-quarter, but coverage did drop below 2x. I don't know if that's just the impact of lease escalators taking effect or if there was something you're seeing in a specific either individual tenant or tenant industry that maybe is driving a little bit of weakness quarter-over-quarter on coverage?

Christopher Bilotto

Analyst · B. Riley.

Yes, John, I would say the coverage drop is largely a function of TA coverage dropping 7 basis points quarter-over-quarter. If you take out the TA assets, coverage remains well north of 3.5, 3.6x. And then with respect to the TA piece, obviously, there's a lot of components that go into that business. But I would say, broadly speaking, we're seeing BP spending a lot of time and effort with that portfolio. Towards the end of last year, they brought on a new leadership team. They've implemented a business plan for TA, specifically aimed at increasing free cash flow through 2027. We continue to see them invest in these sites, particularly EV charging at scale. So I mean, our sense is that it's probably going to take a little bit of time for that coverage to get back up to where it was probably going back 1.5 years, 2 years ago. But in the meantime, as we know, those leases are backed by BP credit. And so we feel pretty good about that. And it's worth noting that there's just a lot of inherent value in those sites, right, the overall network, the sites themselves and the long-term fundamentals for trucking. So I think overall, we feel pretty comfortable with that sub portfolio.

Operator

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Chris Bilotto, President and Chief Executive Officer, for any closing remarks.

Christopher Bilotto

Analyst

Thank you for joining today's call. We look forward to meeting with many of you at upcoming industry conferences this spring. Operator, that concludes our call.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.