Travel + Leisure - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello, and welcome to the Travel + Leisure Q3 2023 earnings call and webcast. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. You may be placed in the question queue at any time by pressing star one on your telephone keypad, and we ask you please limit yourselves to one question and one follow-up, then return to the queue. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Christopher Agnew, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Christopher Agnew (SVP in Investor Relations & FP&A)

Thanks, Kevin, and good morning. Before we begin, we'd like to remind you that our discussions today will include forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements, and the forward-looking statements made today are effective only as of today. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise these statements. The factors that could cause actual results to differ are discussed in our SEC filings and in our earnings press release accompanying the earnings call. You can find a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures discussed in today's call in the earnings press release available on our website at travelandleisureco.com/investors.

This morning, Michael Brown, our President and Chief Executive Officer, will provide an overview of our third quarter results, and Mike Hug, our Chief Financial Officer, will then provide greater detail on the quarter, our balance sheet, and outlook for the rest of the year. Following our prepared remarks, we will open up the call for questions. With that, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Michael Brown.

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Thanks, Chris, and thank you for joining us on our third quarter earnings call. This morning, we reported adjusted EBITDA of $248 million, a 6% increase over the prior year, and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.54, a 20% improvement over Q3 2022. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA margin was 25%, flat compared to the prior quarter and prior year. Our team delivered solid results against key performance indicators, particularly the vacation ownership business. Sales volume per guest and gross VOI sales were at the top end of expectations. As well, new owner and total tour flow increased 36% and 18% respectively year over year. In keeping with our commitment to grow our new owner base, the transaction mix increased nearly 200 basis points to 35% of sales.

The provision for loan loss came in ahead of expectations at just over 18.5%, reaffirming the improvements in owner credit quality. Regarding capital allocation, we returned $98 million to shareholders in the third quarter through a combination of dividends and share repurchases, which puts us on track to reduce our outstanding shares by 10% for the full year. From the start of 2022 until the end of the most recent quarter, we have reduced our share count by 16%. Since then, we have reduced our share count by 27 million shares or 27% of shares outstanding. Let me update you on the key performance indicators we monitor to gauge the health of our consumer: forward resort bookings, sales volume per guest, and the performance of our consumer finance portfolio.

Regarding forward bookings, Q4 owner nights on the books are 7% ahead of fourth quarter 2019, reflecting a continued strong booking pace. Total owner arrivals are ahead, and length of stay is 5% above the fourth quarter of 2019. Of note, in our post-stay surveys, nearly one quarter of respondents worked remote while staying at our resorts, reinforcing the work from anywhere trend that we believe is one of the factors behind longer length of stay. Turning to VPG, our third quarter VPG was $3,108, above the top end of our guidance range. On an absolute basis, VPGs are healthy and reflect the strong value proposition of our products, and for the full year, our outlook is improving to $3,100-$3,150.

VPG did decline $42 from the second quarter, but 90% was due to the higher new owner mix. VPG remains well above our long-term guidance range of $2,700-$3,000. In 2023, we made a strategic decision to ramp up new owner marketing channels to continue growth of new owner tours. Year to date, we have had success with new owner tours, which have increased 35% over the same period in the prior year. Over 70% of this growth have come from open market channels or packaged sales. This investment positions us to achieve our long-term plan for new owner transactions to be 35%-40% of all sales. We expect this tour pipeline to yield incremental growth over the next twelve months and grow our pipeline of future upgrade sales.

Blue Thread, which is our new owner marketing channel aligned with Wyndham Hotels, continues to exceed expectations with VPGs nearly 50% higher than other new owner channels. We expect Blue Thread sales to finish the year at an all-time high over $100 million. Our third key performance indicator is our consumer finance portfolio, which performed well in the quarter. Delinquencies remained below 2019 levels, and our outlook for the full year loan loss provision is unchanged at 18%-19%. At the end of the third quarter, only 10% of our portfolio had FICO below 640. And year-to-date, the average FICO score for originations is 738. All in all, our Vacation Ownership segment continues to perform well. The continued strength in our vacation ownership business was challenged by headwinds in the Travel and Membership segment.

This segment continues to lag expectations due to lower exchange propensity and slower than anticipated ramp up of travel clubs. Accordingly, we are making structural and operational changes to reduce its cost structure while maintaining focus on driving transactions in both exchange and travel clubs. These changes will occur prior to year-end, allowing us to enter 2024 more streamlined. Coming into this year, our expectation was that our exchange business would maintain the 2022 transaction propensity levels and that travel clubs would ramp up through the year. Instead, we experienced a decline in exchange propensity throughout the year. To put it in perspective, our exchange propensity is nearly 20% off pre-COVID levels.

Mike will provide more details in a moment, but the lower expectation of Travel and Membership, in combination with 3Q coming in toward the lower end of our guidance, is the reason for our full year reduction in full year Adjusted EBITDA guidance to a range of $900 million-$915 million. As we look ahead to next year, it is worth reflecting that Travel and Membership over the last four quarters had revenues of $716 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $253 million, with a healthy 35% Adjusted EBITDA margin. The business has low capital requirements, strong returns and cash flow.

We expect that Q4 will mark the trough in revenue momentum for Travel and Membership due to a combination of stabilizing transaction propensity trends and pricing at RCI and growth in our travel clubs. On the strategic front, we acquired the rights to the vacation ownership business of Sports Hospitality Ventures, the hotel and resorts licensee of the Sports Illustrated brand. Our plans include a network of sports-themed resorts located in popular college towns and in leisure destinations. We will be launching and managing a vacation ownership club under the Sports Illustrated Resorts brand. Among the strategic goals we shared at our Investor Day was the intention to add incremental vacation ownership revenue streams under the Travel + Leisure brand. We are proud to launch this expansion with Sports Illustrated, the most celebrated name in sports, with nearly 70 years of legendary content.

Tuscaloosa, Alabama, home of the University of Alabama, has been selected as the first college destination in the Sports Illustrated Resorts portfolio and is projected to open in late 2025. Our goal is to develop Sports Illustrated vacation ownership inventory in a capital efficient manner. We have several additional locations in the pipeline and more in consideration after significant inbound inquiries following the Tuscaloosa announcement. We are excited by the initial representation of our strategy to add new brands to our portfolio, and we look forward to sharing more with you over the coming quarters. As a reminder, it's important to remember that the prepaid nature of timeshare ownership is a key differentiator for our business model within the leisure travel industry. 80% of our owners have fully paid for their timeshare, and therefore, the choice to vacation is less dependent on economic conditions.

As we have seen historically, our healthy mix of recurring and predictable revenues is one of the reasons we expect our business will continue to be resilient if we enter a more challenging economic environment. This resilience and demand among timeshare owners has been proven time and time again, most recently coming out of COVID. With that, and for more detail on our performance, I would now like to hand the call over to Mike Hug.

Mike Hug (CFO)

Thanks, Michael, and good morning to everyone. As well as discussing our third quarter results, I'll provide more color on our balance sheet and cash flow, as well as update our outlook for the remainder of the year. All my comments will refer to comparisons to the same period as the prior year, unless specifically stated. We reported third quarter Adjusted EBITDA of $248 million and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.54, increases of 6% and 20% respectively. Year-to-date Adjusted EBITDA growth is 5% and Adjusted EPS growth is 16%. The Adjusted EBITDA growth was achieved in spite of several headwinds in the third quarter, which include the fires in Maui, two hurricanes in Florida and up the East Coast of the U.S., and higher than anticipated healthcare expenses.

Although not individually material, they amounted to $5 million and combined to push our results to the lower end of our guidance range. Vacation Ownership reports segment revenues of $812 million, an increase of 8%, while Adjusted EBITDA of $203 million also increased 8%. We delivered 187,000 tours in the third quarter, representing 18% growth, and VPG was $3,108, above the top end of our expectations. The Vacation Ownership segment also incurred some incremental marketing expenses in the quarter associated with the ramp up of our tour package pipeline and opening of additional new owner marketing locations, both of which are designed to benefit our tour flow in 2024 and beyond.

Revenue in our travel membership segment was $174 million in the quarter, compared to $183 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was $62 million, compared to $65 million in the third quarter of 2022. Exchange member count has started to recover, but not enough to offset the reduction in transaction propensity. We expect the headwinds to exchange transaction propensity to continue into the fourth quarter. Turning to our balance sheet, our financial position remains strong, and in the third quarter, we continued to return capital to shareholders through share repurchases and a quarterly dividend of $0.45 per share. Through the first three quarters of the year, we repurchased $267 million of common stock and paid $104 million in dividends.

In October, we closed our third ABS transaction of the year, a $300 million transaction with a weighted average coupon of 6.8% and an advance rate of 92%, continuing to demonstrate our ability to access this market on a regular basis. In addition, during the quarter, we renewed our $600 million ABS conduit facility and moved the maturity date to September 2025. Adjusted free cash flow was $81 million through 9 months, compared to $195 million in the same period last year. Similar to the first 6 months, this is due to higher year-over-year originations on our loan portfolio, certain other working capital items, and an increase in interest payments on our corporate debt.

For the full year, our expectation for free cash flow conversion from Adjusted EBITDA is for it to be around 50%, with the majority of free cash flow generated in the fourth quarter. Our net corporate leverage ratio for covenant purposes was 3.7 times at the end of the third quarter. We continue to expect our leverage ratio to decline by the end of the year to below 3.5 times. Turning to our outlook for the rest of the year, we are reducing our expectation for full year Adjusted EBITDA to range between $90 million-$915 million, a 5%-7% increase over 2022. Our expectation for the fourth quarter is for Adjusted EBITDA of between $233 million-$248 million.

With respect to vacation ownership, we remain confident in our core timeshare business and its ability to continue to deliver strong sales performance. We are increasing our outlook for gross VOI sales for 2023 to range of $2.15 billion-$2.2 billion on improved VPG guidance of $3,100-$3,150. In the travel membership segment, we expect fourth quarter Adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $45 million-$50 million. Related to EPS, we are expecting our effective tax rate to be around 27% for the full year, with stock-based compensation expected to be around $12 million in the fourth quarter and anticipate net interest of $52 million in the fourth quarter.

Looking ahead to next year, we expect the rapid rise of interest rates in 2022 and 2023 to stabilize at elevated levels in 2024. As such, our expectation is that interest expense on our asset-backed securitizations will once again be an incremental $30 million headwind to Adjusted EBITDA in 2024, similar to 2023. As we continue our 2024 planning process over the next few months, we will also revisit our longer-term outlook. This will allow us to take into account the impact of the interest rate environment over the full time horizon, slower travel membership growth, and the updated view of our well-performing VOI business. We'll provide more color in the first quarter of 2024.

In summary, we are pleased with our third quarter performance, our continued growth in Adjusted EBITDA and double-digit growth in adjusted diluted earnings per share, as well as our continued return of capital to our shareholders. With that, Kevin, can you please open up the call to take questions?

Operator (participant)

Certainly. We'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. We ask you, please ask one question, one follow-up, then return to the queue. If you'd like to be placed in the question queue, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing star one. One moment, please, while we pull for questions, and once again, please ask one question, one follow-up, then return to the queue. Our first question is coming from Joe Greff from JP Morgan. Your line is now live.

Joe Greff (Managing Director in Equity Research)

Good morning, guys.

Mike Hug (CFO)

Morning, Joe.

Joe Greff (Managing Director in Equity Research)

Michael, you mentioned that you think travel membership is gonna trough here in the fourth quarter. What gives you that confidence in both the exchange business and travel clubs? And then when you think about next year, do you look at next year as a growth year, or is it just the rate of change is less negative next year than what it was this year?

Mike Hug (CFO)

Well, let me start with the second one. No, we expect 2024 for the Travel and Membership segment to be a growth year, for a number of different reasons. So let me jump back to the first question is, as we came into 2023, we expected exchange propensity to reflect pre-COVID levels. 2022 was a revenge travel year, and I think what the trends we saw in 2022 mask a little bit of what was happening in exchange propensity. VOI was super strong, and exchange propensity was similar to pre-COVID levels. As travel normalized in 2023, the unmasking of post-COVID travel trend in VOI and COVID and exchange really came forward.

The first two quarters, propensity was slightly down, and I had expected the second half of this year for a rebound and recovery in that propensity rate.

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

... to pre-COVID levels, because that's what we saw throughout leisure travel. Instead, what we saw is more and more of, owners within the timeshare industry were returning to their home resorts. It's no different within the Wyndham Travel Club. And as the year progressed, instead of getting that rebound that I had forecasted, that we had forecasted, it continued to dip, as I mentioned, to a level that was around 20% below pre-COVID levels. So what gives us confidence that, we think Q4 is going to trough? Number one, is we have seen a stabilization in that propensity over the last few months, so we, we think we have a good anchor as what the true propensity is once the revenge travel and once we've made our way through 2023 is.

You've heard us refer to the fact that membership dropped about half a million in RCI through COVID period, and finally, the membership is beginning to grow again, and that is absolutely happening. Then lastly, as we head into 2024, on the travel club side, although our transactions are flat to last year, that's taken into account the loss of one of our major clients. So absent that loss, we're actually seeing growth in our travel clubs, and we will start to lap that in the second quarter of next year.

So I know that's a long answer to a lot of what's happening, but in the end, we absolutely expect through a number of the actions we're taking in Q4, but also with the clearer visibility of what the travel trends in should return Travel and Membership, will return Travel and Membership to a good profile in 2024.

Joe Greff (Managing Director in Equity Research)

Thank you for that. And then you also mentioned that you're reducing costs in this business. Can you help quantify that? And how much of that is revenue dependent versus fixed costs coming out?

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Well, we are, as I mentioned, gonna be going through that here in Q4 to make sure that our overall cost structure aligns to the revised forecast. You would expect that, and instead of being reactive to it, we've already proactively begun to look at the realities of our revenue forecast this year and make sure that our cost structure is reflective to it. We'll give you an update a bit more later in the quarter, but, you know, as is the case, we will adjust to the realities of our revenue forecast.

Joe Greff (Managing Director in Equity Research)

Great. Thank you very much, guys.

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Thanks, Joe.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question is coming from David Katz from Jefferies. Your line is now live.

David Katz (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst in Gaming, Lodging & Leisure)

Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to just focus for a minute on the SI deal.

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Yes.

David Katz (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst in Gaming, Lodging & Leisure)

You know, those of us that are huge sports fans see the opportunity out there as potentially very, very large. But maybe you could help us just set our expectations as to how big an opportunity this could really be, and, you know, what your vision for it is.

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Well, thanks for the question, David. And let me just, since this is the first quarter we've been on the call, let me take a little bit of time with this answer on a number of different subjects. First of all, the overall model looks very similar to the vacation ownership model that we currently have with Wyndham, targeting similar margins and returns, as this business grows. Three primary revenue streams: the sale of vacation ownership, the operations of resorts and the club, and as well, the financing income streams. The difference from the outset is, as today we talked about 35%-40% new owners on an annual basis with Wyndham. In the first year, it's 100% new owners into our system.

We're excited about the opportunity because the timeshare model used to be the two things you have to secure are new tours and new inventory. Over the last decade, securing inventory has not been anyone's issue because people appreciate the model and want to do developments with timeshare companies. It's all about growing your addressable market and the reputation of Sports Illustrated, the reach that it has in a number of different ways, not just data, social media, but also passion. There's probably not a more passionate lifestyle in America than college sports. We were excited when we signed the deal with Sports Illustrated. The day after the announcement, we became even more excited with the outreach that we received from universities around the United States wanting us to be part of their infrastructure.

So for us, it's really clear that we mentioned we'll be announcing over the next few months additional locations. We're excited about the partnership with the Sports Illustrated team, but we're probably most excited about the additional reach that this gives us to reach new timeshare owners. When you look at the U.S. population today, there's around 10 million timeshare owners for over 100 million households. It's safe to say that college sports will allow us to reach a lot more than that 10 million household base. And we're looking forward to get started. As I mentioned, the one in Alabama will open in later in 2025. But needless to say, we have a lot of work going on to get that up and running and eventually into pre-sales.

David Katz (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst in Gaming, Lodging & Leisure)

Right. Now, the follow-up question I wanted to ask is, when we think about the Blue Thread, which you commented is running ahead of expectations... And I think your commentary was exactly the same as it was a quarter ago. Part of the question is, is that accelerating? But the meat of the topic is really what is it that drives that? Is it just a function of getting integrated or, you know, is larger scale, you know, something that could drive that more? And, you know, for obvious reasons, that's a topic that's hit our brains over the past, you know, couple of months.

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

So just to clarify, when you say larger scale, Blue Thread is accelerating because, with anything, it's, it comes down to relationships and, and maximizing them. And, and our team, tying closely into the Wyndham Hotels team, has allowed us to really accelerate, the strength and the performance of the Blue Thread initiative. We have continued to invest into this space, not only through our call center operations, but also outside of Blue Thread and, and, and starting to lean heavier into forward-looking package sales. So yes, scale matters, data matters, and the Wyndham Hotels team has done a great job growing Wyndham Rewards, and that's benefited us, it's benefited them. And ultimately, the more Wyndham Hotels grows its Wyndham Rewards programs, the more opportunity we have in the Blue Thread space.

David Katz (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst in Gaming, Lodging & Leisure)

Okay, fair enough. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question is coming from Dany Asad from Bank of America. Your line is now live.

Dany Asad (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, good morning, everybody. Just to start off, for the guidance cut for this year, can we just walk through the buckets, like, the different components of, like, what changed from last quarter?

Mike Hug (CFO)

Yeah. Good morning, Danny. Thanks for the question. This, this is Mike Hug. It's really a pretty simple walk. First of all, I touched on in my comments the fact that the third quarter was impacted by a few things that were individually immaterial, but they totaled up to $5 million, that being the fires out in Hawaii, the hurricanes in Florida and the East Coast, and then some higher healthcare expenses. So to get from the previous guidance to the current guidance, you have about $5 million there, and the remainder, about $15 million, is really due to the reduction that we have in the Travel and Membership business forecasted for the fourth quarter. So pretty easy walk down and really driven by the reduced revenue forecast on Travel and Membership.

Dany Asad (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Okay. That's super helpful. And then when, if we look at this year as a whole, and then we turn to 2024 and 2025, can you just maybe walk us through, like, the puts and takes of kinda where free cash flow conversion from EBITDA can go? Kinda what drives from one year to the next compared to from this year?

Mike Hug (CFO)

Yeah, I think the big drivers are going to be, you know, our continued securitization activity. What we're experiencing this year, and the reason that cash flow is weighted to the fourth quarter, is build up in the receivable portfolio throughout the summer. As you guys know, the busiest time of the year, we start to get that into ABS transactions and into our conduit in the fourth quarter. So that's why the cash flow this year, like always, is way towards the fourth quarter. On a long-term basis, the two big drivers are going to be that continued ABS market available to us and then our inventory spend.

We've talked about, you know, inventory spend remaining below $100 million for, you know, for several years into the future, as we have four years of inventory on the balance sheet. The other thing about Sports Illustrated is we do expect to deliver that inventory in a capital-efficient model. So the investment we'll need to make in Sports Illustrated from an inventory perspective shouldn't significantly impact our free cash flow conversion. But it's really the ABS markets, which remain strong to us. As you saw, we got the transaction done in October, and then us being smart and keeping our inventory spend, you know, below $100 million.

Dany Asad (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you very much.

Mike Hug (CFO)

Sure. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question is coming from Brant Montour from Barclays. Your line is now live.

Brandt Montour (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. Mike Hug, maybe, maybe you could just, we could, dive back into that, that free cash flow, question a little bit deeper. I'm curious, on the 50% free cash flow conversion, commentary. I think that's a little bit lower than what we were expecting before. So what are the dynamics that, could change that? I know obviously, you know, there's a guide down on the, the, on the travel and membership side, and that's probably a better sort of free cash flow business, especially if you're, growing VOI and lending more as a percentage of mix. But maybe you could just talk, talk me through the dynamics of what led to that conversion guide down.

Mike Hug (CFO)

You're exactly right, as far as the free cash flow generation conversion from the travel membership business is very strong. One of the reasons we continue to like the business is the great margins of free cash flow generation. But that's one of the drivers as it relates to, you know, the 50% as opposed to the range we previously talked about. And then, as I mentioned, in the previous answer, as we continue to grow the portfolio, there's definitely timing in terms of, if you think about sales in the second half of the year, we're able to get that into those receivables into the ABS conduit, most of them, not all of them.

And then, obviously, in the first quarter of next year, and then we do the second deal, get them into the term transactions that are at a 90%+ advance rate. So in my mind, it's primarily timing as far as the growth in receivable portfolio. The one headwind we continue to have is on the corporate interest expense, right? That's obviously not timing, that's permanent. So, you know, with what's happened with interest rates compared to the model we had from the Investor Day, we are seeing higher interest expense. But, you know, most of it's just going to be the way we manage the portfolio and getting that into the ABS securitizations.

Brandt Montour (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

... Okay, great. And then, my follow-up is related to something happening away from you guys, the hostile or sort of a proposal from Choice to acquire Wyndham, you know, your licensor of your brand for Blue Thread. You know, when you look at your license contract with Wyndham, what are the stipulations within those documents? What would happen if this transaction was to go forward to your agreement?

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Without going through the whole legal document, basically, any M&A would have no negative impact. Our agreements really do protect what we need to continue growing our successful and very valuable relationship with Wyndham Hotels.

Brandt Montour (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. So if Wyndham Hotels became Wyndham Brands by Choice or something like that, you would sort of grandfather in your-- you would still have access to that database?

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Correct.

Brandt Montour (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Thank you very much.

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question is from Patrick Scholes, from Truist Securities. Your line is now live.

Patrick Scholes (Managing Director and Senior Analyst in Lodging, Vacation Ownership & Cruise)

Hey, good morning, Michael and Mike.

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Good morning, Patrick.

Patrick Scholes (Managing Director and Senior Analyst in Lodging, Vacation Ownership & Cruise)

A follow-up, follow-up question on the hypothetical combination of Choice plus Wyndham. You know, it sounds like there wouldn't be any downside, but could there be potential upside from that? You know, certainly Choice has a massive guest reward system, and, you know, I believe their primary color is yellow. So, you know, would it be the Blue Thread, plus the potentially, plus the Yellow Thread at that point? Or would you just be, you know, or would you be just limited to the legacy Wyndham Hotels?

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Well, let me comment a bit more broadly because I'm not a party to those discussions. What I would say is something very similar to what I said to David earlier, is that the key to growing vacation ownership in general is to gain more and more access to new customers and create partnerships that allow you to open up your marketing universe. Not being party to any of those discussions, if that were the case, then that's beneficial. But I, whether it was that question or one related to any partnership, the key to growth in this space is marketing and data and new customer opportunities. So my answer broadly is, anytime that occurs in the vacation ownership space, it has possibilities to be a positive to our VO business and

Patrick Scholes (Managing Director and Senior Analyst in Lodging, Vacation Ownership & Cruise)

Okay. So fair to think that you would hope that you'd get access to it, but again, no guarantees, and certainly there's Bluegreen with an existing contract, so a lot of devil in the details possibly to be worked out here. And then, taking a step back, just Michael, on sort of the high level macro question, you know, your average household income, as I recall, $90,000-$100,000 for a vacation ownership buyer. Any discernible changes in propensity of that customer to, you know, to purchase or use your product, that you've noticed? Thank you.

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Yeah, and I really appreciate that question because, in a quarter like this, I think it's really important to reground ourselves on what's happening in our business. And, we raised our credit quality throughout COVID. Our FICO score, 738, matches anyone in the industry. The portfolio, which I'm gonna ask Mike to speak about in just a second, is performing extremely well, and it's very important, in my opinion, to take away from this quarter, on the vacation ownership business, VPGs are strong, at or above the high end of our range. We raised our guidance. Our portfolio remains strong, and our forward bookings are ahead of last year. The core, the primary driver of our business for our consumer, is continuing to perform consistently well and is not showing signs of weakness.

Our household income is actually around $100,000 now, and I don't want the noise of the quarter related to our overall guidance to distract from the foundation of our overall travel and leisure business, which is an extremely consistent and well-performing VO business that did not in Q3 show signs of change in its performance or its metrics. As we sit here almost through the month of October, nothing that's happened in the first three weeks of October would indicate that that commentary has changed.

Brandt Montour (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

And then just touching on the portfolio a little more. First of all, a few things. We talked about the provision. Our guidance for the quarter was over 19%, and it came in under 19%, which I think once again shows a good performance on the portfolio. You'll notice delinquencies moved up from Q2 to Q3, but that's always the case. What was positive about that, in my opinion, is if you look at the movement from Q2 to Q3, as far as the increase-

Mike Hug (CFO)

... It was the lowest increase we've seen since 2016, except for in 2021, when the portfolio wasn't growing. So when you look at that increase, it's a very manageable increase, one that was actually better than we expected. And then finally, you know, I always appreciate getting the securitizations done because we love the free cash flow it generates. But just as importantly for me, it's a proof that others also believe in the confidence of the portfolio, because in essence, that's what they're purchasing with the notes that they purchased related to the ABS transaction.

So overall, couldn't be happier with the portfolio performance and, you know, the big move to move from 600 to 640, and most importantly, sticking with that move when a lot of other industries have dropped down to below 640, even subprime, if you will. It really has allowed us to have confidence in our portfolio and see the results that we're seeing, throughout this year's charge performance.

Isaac Sellhausen (Director of Equity Research)

Okay, thank you. Very thorough answers.

Mike Hug (CFO)

Sure. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Next question today is coming from Chris Woronka from Deutsche Bank. Your line is now live.

Chris Woronka (Senior Analyst in Hotel & Lodging REITs and Leisure)

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for all the details so far. I guess the first one for you is, Michael, I think you mentioned the prepared comments that stimulate these new owner tours. You're going back to some of these open market channels and package sales, and I wonder if you can kind of maybe compare and contrast. I know in the past, those, you know, were not always the best, and they weren't always the most efficient or cost-effective. Can you talk about, you know, why some of them might be better today than they've been historically?

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Yeah, absolutely. And we have stepped back into locations that we can ensure profitability in those channels. We've been very selective. When your FICO band starts at 640, you need to make sure that your open market channels are performing from really day one. But also, you know, subtle commentary, we didn't want to get too far into it today, but we— there is an investment that we are making into our overall package pipeline. Wyndham has traditionally been an on the week tour generator, and we will remain that. It is one of the distinguishing key characteristics of our marketing model in the space.

But that doesn't prevent us from starting to lean in more toward a little bit more to create diversification on a package pipeline that gives us visibility as well, 12-18, so 18 months out. So it's really being selective in what we're going into on the open marketing and starting to diversify it and create incremental workflow opportunity through the investment in our package pipeline. And we've already seen early signs of success in doing exactly that.

Chris Woronka (Senior Analyst in Hotel & Lodging REITs and Leisure)

Okay, very helpful. Thanks, Michael. And then just, so I'm not gonna ask you for 2024 guidance and you've already shared with us the headwind on interest. And I guess, though, the question is, and there's a lot of puts and takes, obviously, that'll impact what happens. But if we kind of revisit just the free cash flow generation, I mean, whatever somebody might come up with for an EBITDA estimate, you said inventory is below, spend is gonna continue to be below $100 million per year. I mean, is there any reason why the free cash flow conversion wouldn't be at least where it is this year, if not higher?

I guess what I'm asking you is, is there anything in your, you know, current thinking in terms of a placeholder for an acquisition or anything like that?

Mike Hug (CFO)

Well, I think when we think about free cash flow conversion, and acquisition would be outside the free cash flow conversion. Obviously, that's, you know, the decision we make as far as capital allocation, right? Dividends, M&A, and share buybacks. But overall, from a free cash flow perspective, yeah, I would expect that, you know, as we move forward, we're back north of, you know, the 50%, kind of that 55% range, maybe even higher. Everything, except for the increase in the corporate interest expense, everything else on that walk across is timing, right? You think about the receivables portfolio, if you think about the, you know, the payables and the inventory spend. So, and, and, and with our cost of sales coming in lower this year, very, very nice cost of sales performance due to the price increases.

The inventory we have on the balance sheet is even going to last longer than we expected, kind of when we came out with the model in 2021. So long term, I would say no view, no change in the view to the free cash flow conversion being, you know, 55%+.

Chris Woronka (Senior Analyst in Hotel & Lodging REITs and Leisure)

Okay, very good. Thanks, guys.

Mike Hug (CFO)

Sure. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, that's star one to be placed in the question queue. Our next question is coming from Ian Zaffino from Oppenheimer. Your line is now live.

Isaac Sellhausen (Director of Equity Research)

Hey, good morning. This is Isaac Sellhausen in on for Ian. Thanks for taking the question. I just have two quick ones. On the VO business, could you just touch on tour flow, and the expectations for that for the remainder of the year? I guess, should that still be in sort of the double-digit range? And then secondly, for the acquisition of the the Sports Illustrated rights that you guys, you know, announced earlier, you know, was that a large capital commitment, or is that something you guys haven't disclosed? Thanks.

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Well, let me touch on the tour flow, and then I'll hand it to Mike on the Sports Illustrated acquisition. Yeah, the tour flow expectations will be both double-digit growth for Q4 and for the full year, the higher teens. So that our tour flow strength continues into Q4 and obviously reflected in our full year number.

Mike Hug (CFO)

And then on the acquisition of the Sports Illustrated brand, we haven't disclosed that number, but what I would say is, you know, half of it is inventory or land that we purchased in Tuscaloosa to start the development. Now, as I also mentioned, going forward, we'll find a partner that will do development for us, so don't expect additional cash flow drag because of that. But, you know, overall, most of the acquisition costs that we pay is cash out the door that will be recovered as we sell the product.

Isaac Sellhausen (Director of Equity Research)

Okay, great. Thank you very much, guys.

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We've reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further closing comments.

Michael Brown (President and CEO)

Thank you, Kevin. We were pleased with the third quarter and in particular, the performance of our core vacation ownership metrics. We also executed on the first of what we expect will be several deals to grow our brand portfolio with the announcement of the Sports Illustrated Resorts portfolio. I would like to take a moment and thank our partners on that deal, Sports Hospitality Ventures, the Eastern Band of the Cherokees, and Authentic Brands. I also want to thank all of our associates who are working hard to deliver great vacations for our owners and guests. Thanks, everyone, and have a great day.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.