Marcel Verbaas
Analyst · Nomura Instinet. Please go ahead
Thanks, Lisa, and thank you all for joining our second quarter call. We were pleased with our portfolio’s performance during the quarter as top line results met our expectations and the portfolio outperformed on the bottom line through our continued focus on cost containments and portfolio initiatives. During the quarter, we had net income attributable to common stockholders of $69.4 million, which included a $49 million gain on property sold during the quarter. Our adjusted EBITDA was $79.6 million and our adjusted FFO per share declined to $0.59 due largely to our 2016 and 2017 dispositions which make a year-over-year comparison challenging. As a result of our previously announced transactions here in the quarter, the same property portfolio numbers we will be discussing today are reflective of the 37 property portfolio we owned as of June 30. We experienced a 1.4% decline in same property portfolio RevPAR in the second quarter with April, down 3.8%, May up 1.4% and June down 1.7%. As discussed in our first quarter call, April was negatively impacted by the Easter shift, which positively influenced our March performance. May and June came in as expected, with June particularly being impacted by four citywide convention business and some of our larger markets and continued disruptions from our now completed Westin Galleria rooms renovation. Our Houston area hotels had a negative impact of approximately 170 basis points on our same property portfolio RevPAR in the second quarter. When excluding the Houston area assets, our RevPAR increased by 0.3% over last year. We expect the negative impact of our Houston area assets on overall portfolio performance to moderate during the second half of the year, as the year-over-year comparisons get somewhat easier and the most disruptive part of the Westin Galleria renovation is now behind us. Barry will provide additional details regarding our renovation progress later during the call. Our focus on portfolio efficiency and cost containments resulted in same property hotel EBITDA margin of 34.2%, a decline of only 32 basis points despite experiencing the aforementioned declining RevPAR and a significant increase in property taxes, due in part to tax refunds received in the second quarter last year. Excluding property taxes, hotel operating expenses decreased by 1.4% primarily due to the continued benefits of our property optimization process, and a strong focus on expense controls throughout the portfolio. The second quarter was active on the transaction front, as we continued our process of further refining and upgrading the portfolio while maintaining our strong balance sheet position. During the quarter, we completed nearly $400 million in transactions. This included the disposition of six limited service hotels and the acquisition of the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress in Orlando. Our transaction activity during the quarter has further improved the overall quality of our portfolio as well as the long-term growth profile and overall supply picture. As we discussed last quarter on our call, our disposition activity started in April when we sold the Courtyard Birmingham at UAB for $30 million or $246,000 per key. This price represented an 11.4 times multiple on trailing 12-month EBITDA. We also retained the $1.1 million balance in the [Indiscernible] reserve. In June, we completed the sale of a five hotel portfolio for total price $163 million or approximately $201,000 per key. The portfolio included three courtyards in Fort Worth, Kansas City and Pittsburgh as well as two Baltimore hotels, the Hampton Inn & Suites and the Residence Inn. We were pleased with the execution and pricing achieved in this transaction. The sale price represented an 11.1 times multiple on trailing 12-month EBITDA before brand required capital expenditures, which the buyer estimated to cost between $13 and $16. We also retained the $5.6 million balance in the capital reserve accounts in this transaction. The five assets had an average trailing 12-month RevPAR of $115.52 significantly below the remainder of our portfolio. Subsequent to quarter end, we also exited one of our non-core markets and assets through the sale of the Marriott West Des Moines. We sold this hotel which both of the second lowest RevPAR in our portfolio in 2016 for $19 million in July. We estimated that this sale allowed us to avoid approximately $10 million in required capital expenditures. We are pleased to have been able to exit the third tertiary markets and focus our attention and capital investments on assets and markets that we believe have stronger growth characteristics. On previous calls, I have spoken about our expectation that after being a significant net seller between 2014 and 2016, we would be more balanced between dispositions and acquisitions this year with the bias towards being a net acquirer. I’ve also spoken about our desire to continue to operate our portfolio by making targeted investments in luxury and upper upscale hotels while selectively disposing of assets that do not meet our long term investment criteria. In the second quarter, we successfully executed on this strategy to the completion of the dispositions I mentioned, as well as the acquisition of Hyatt Regency, Grand Cyprus in Orlando. As announced in May, we acquired this 815 room resort hotel in one of our target markets for $205.5 million or $252,000 per key. Orlando represents all the characteristics of a core investment market for our company. It is one the top lodging market in key leisure destinations in the United States and benefits from many diverse demand generators, particularly for group and leisure leader. Additionally, near-term lodging supply growth is benign with current forecast calling for supply growth of approximately half a percent in 2017 and 1% in 2018. Asides from the favorable market characteristics, we also believe this hotel specifically has strong earnings growth potential through the deployment of our asset management strategies and near-term capital investment initiatives. And finally, the pricing at approximately 11 times trailing 12-month EBITDA has substantially below placement cost presented an attractive entry points into a market leading resorts in a market where we have significant experience and expertise. As it relates to our capital plants for the hotel, we believe there are several near-term opportunities to drive future earnings growth. Overall, the hotel is in excellent condition, having received approximately $32 million in capital over the past five years, including renovations of the pool and outdoor spaces as well as the lobby and food and beverage facilities. This year, we expect to spend approximately $5 million in capital expenditures, including addressing some near-term guestroom needs such as televisions, refrigerators and desk chairs addressing minor roof and infrastructure issues and planning and design for an upcoming guest room and meeting room renovation and proposed ballroom expansion. We expect to spend an additional $9 million next year for the guestroom and corridor renovation as well as approximately $6 million over the next two years, upgrading the existing 65,000 feet of meeting space. We intend to execute the guest room renovation in the summer of next year, which will minimize the expected revenue disruption at a time of lower demand. This renovation will merely be a soft goods renovation and no significant bathroom work will be necessary, as the hotel had previously converted approximately 45% of its bathrooms from tubs to showers. In addition to these upgrades, we have embarked on the analysis and planning for the development of an additional ballroom as the hotel has a much lower ratio of guestroom to meeting space than its direct competitors. We believe that adding a 25 to 30,000 square foot ballroom will greatly benefit the property and provide a strong return on investments as there were a lot of hotels to increase and better balance group bookings within its dynamic market. Additionally, we will analyze further opportunities to optimize performance and take advantage of the 30 acre site on which hotel is situated. We are delighted to have been able to expand our relationship with Hyatt through its transaction. Hyatt manages five other hotels for us, and we have been extremely pleased with the results of these hotels. We look forward to working together to achieve similarly positive results at Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress. The results of our various transaction during and subsequent to the quarter is that our whether portfolio has been further refined and improved without impairing our ability to take advantage of additional investment opportunities whenever they may arise. We will continue to pursue on strategy acquisitions, and look forward to continuing our positive momentum. I will now turn the call over to Barry.