Xenia Hotels & Resorts - Q4 2022

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon. Thank you for attending today's Xenia Hotels & Resorts, Inc. Q4 2022 earnings conference call. My name is Tamia, and I will be your moderator for today. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. It is now my pleasure to pass the conference over to your host, Amanda Bryant, VP of Finance. Please proceed.

Amanda Bryant (VP of Finance)

Thank you, Tamia. Good afternoon, and welcome to Xenia Hotels and Resorts fourth quarter 2022 earnings call and webcast. I'm here with Marcel Verbaas, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Barry Bloom, our President and Chief Operating Officer, and Atish Shah, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Marcel will begin with the discussion on our performance and recent investment activity. Barry will follow with more details on operating trends and capital expenditure projects. Atish will conclude our remarks on our balance sheet and outlook for 2023. We will then open the call for Q&A. Before we get started, let me remind everyone that certain statements made on this call are not historical facts and are considered forward-looking statements.

These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties as described in our annual report on Form 10-K and other SEC filings, which could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by our comments. Forward-looking statements in the earnings release that we issued this morning, along with the comments on this call, are made only as of today, March 1st, 2023. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any of these forward-looking statements as actual events unfold. You can find a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to net income and definitions of certain items referred to in our remarks in this morning's earnings release and earnings supplemental, which is available on the investor relations section of our website. The fourth quarter property level portfolio information we will be speaking about today is on a same-property basis for 30 hotels.

This excludes Hyatt Regency Portland at the Oregon Convention Center and W Nashville. An archive of this call will be made available on our website for 90 days. I will now turn it over to Marcel to get started.

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Amanda, good afternoon to all of you joining our call. Following a slow start to 2022 as the Omicron variant significantly impacted all demand segments, industry fundamentals and our portfolio's performance improved meaningfully as the year progressed. Leisure and group demand strengthened significantly in the second quarter, and this was followed by a steady recovery in business transient demand during the third and fourth quarters. Our 2022 results substantially exceeded the expectations we had at the beginning of the year, and our fourth quarter results allowed us to finish out the year near the high end of the guidance we provided after the third quarter for net income, adjusted EBITDAre, and adjusted FFO per share. Same-property portfolio RevPAR for full year 2022 declined just 5.1% relative to 2019, driven by a double-digit increase in average daily rate growth.

Notably, the RevPAR gap to 2019 narrowed as occupancy improved over the course of the year, and ADR growth remained strong. On a same-property basis, 2022 hotel EBITDA of $256.4 million was roughly 3% below 2019 levels. Margins were 40 basis points higher as compared to 2019. In 2022, all 30 of our same-property hotels achieved positive hotel EBITDA. However, only 12 of our hotels and resorts generated EBITDA in excess of 2019 levels, supporting our belief that we still have considerable recovery potential across the majority of our portfolio.

This is particularly evident in six of our larger corporate and group focused hotels, namely Marriott San Francisco Airport, Hyatt Regency Santa Clara, our two Dallas hotels, and our two Westin in the Houston Galleria markets, as these hotels were collectively over $30 million behind in terms of hotel EBITDA in 2022 as compared to 2019. Turning to our fourth quarter results, we recorded net income of $35.3 million, adjusted EBITDAre of $64.6 million, and adjusted FFO per share of $0.41. Our same-property RevPAR for the fourth quarter increased 0.6% as compared to 2019, representing the second quarter of positive growth relative to 2019 since the onset of the pandemic. Average rate growth remained very strong with a 15% increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, which offset about nine points lower occupancy.

Margins improved 17 basis points compared to 2019, despite continued inflationary pressures, particularly in labor and utilities. We continued to successfully execute our long-term corporate strategy in 2022. Through transaction activity, we improved the overall quality and anticipated growth profile of our portfolio. We acquired W Nashville early in the year for roughly $328 million, and we sold three hotels for an aggregate sale price of $133.5 million, including Bohemian Hotel Celebration and Hotel Monaco Denver in the fourth quarter. Collectively, our 2022 dispositions occurred at extremely attractive valuation multiples, despite a challenging transaction market in the second half of the year. On a blended basis, the aggregate sale price for the three dispositions reflected a weighted average multiple of 15.4x 2019 hotel EBITDA.

The sale price for the two properties we sold in the fourth quarter represented a combined 17.1x multiple on the hotel EBITDA generated during the trailing 12-month period ending September 30th. These valuations were particularly attractive in light of alternative use of square capital. W Nashville continues to wrap up in its first full year of operations. We and Marriott had several important learnings over the year, including the seasonality of the Nashville market, the optimal mix of group and transient business, rate strategy, and food and beverage optimization and positioning. Although the results during our first nine months of ownership were below our expectations, we are confident these learnings will benefit us going forward, and we remain optimistic that the hotel will achieve our expected stabilized profitability in the years ahead.

Meanwhile, we are encouraged by the results we achieved in 2022 at our other most recent acquisition, Hyatt Regency Portland at the Oregon Convention Center, during its first full calendar year of operations. Despite an extremely difficult operating environment in a market that was slow to reopen, its EBITDA matched our initial underwriting for its first full year of operations, helped by an excellent job by Hyatt managing costs. We are optimistic that an improved events calendar and encouraging group pace will result in steady EBITDA increases in the next few years. We expect that both W Nashville and Hyatt Regency Portland will be significant drivers for our future portfolio EBITDA growth. Over a year, we balanced a range of capital allocation priorities, including returning capital to shareholders through share repurchases and reinstating a $0.10 per share quarterly dividends.

Additionally, we further fortified our balance sheet and now have no debt maturities until 2025. Atish will discuss our balance sheet activities in greater detail shortly. During the year, we also invested in several important internal ROI projects at key properties and completed planning work for several upcoming projects that we expect to generate meaningful earnings growth in the years ahead. While Barry will provide details on these various projects in his remarks, I would like to highlight one large and exciting project we are expecting to complete over the next two years. In early February, we announced plans to invest approximately $110 million in a complete transformation and expansion of the 491-room Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort & Spa at Gainey Ranch.

The investment is intended to maximize value of a high-performing asset in a strategically important market by optimizing its ability to capture a premium rate of group and leisure transient business and compete most effectively with other luxury resorts in the Phoenix, Scottsdale market. Upon completion, which we currently expect to occur in late 2024, the property will be rebranded as a Grand Hyatt Resort with an additional five keys, a substantial increase in meeting and event space, significantly upgraded and exciting new food and beverage offerings, a revamped pool complex, and a substantially enhanced room product. While the resort generated record EBITDA in 2022 as a result of extremely strong post-COVID domestic leisure demands, we believe that this investment will allow the property to optimize its long-term mix of group and transient demands and maintain and improve its ability to drive premium rates.

Upon stabilization, we expect the property to generate 50% higher RevPAR and a near doubling of hotel EBITDA from pre-pandemic stabilized levels, effectively closing the performance gap with the property's competitive set, which has also experienced meaningful capital investment in recent years. While this transformative renovation will cause short-term cash flow disruption to a high-performing asset in our portfolio, we strongly believe this project is both attractive from an ROI perspective as well as appropriately timed to drive long-term profit growth and value appreciation in an important market for our company. Gainey has had a long and successful relationship with Hyatt, which underscores our confidence in our ability to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns in Scottsdale. This includes two recent successful ROI investments at Park Hyatt Aviara and at Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress.

Both properties have achieved significant improvement in earnings and market share following our capital investment after acquiring these outstanding resorts in 2018 and 2017 respectively. Following the acquisition of Park Hyatt Aviara in late 2018, our approximately $58 million additional capital investment has resulted in a more than doubling of the property's EBITDA and a meaningful increase in RevPAR index. While we already reached our projected stabilized EBITDA range in 2022, despite the lingering impact of COVID, particularly on group business, we see substantial opportunities for further gains in the coming years. Rate growth has been particularly impressive, but we believe that improved group business will allow us to drive occupancy and further optimize the demand mix in the years ahead.

At Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress, our post-acquisition capital investment of approximately $45 million included renovation and expansion of the meeting space as well as a targeted renovation of all guest rooms. The property performed extremely well through the pandemic, increasing its EBITDA by approximately 50% between 2018 and 2022 and continuing to gain market share. However, it's still very much in the early innings when it comes to optimizing group business and reaping the full benefits of the expanded and upgraded meeting space. We expect a 25,000 sq ft ballroom addition will allow us to unlock significant growth in the years ahead, as Orlando remains a very attractive market for group business and the property is well positioned to take market share. Additionally to the two resorts I just highlighted, we acquired Hyatt Regency Scottsdale at a very attractive basis in 2017.

Our projected capital investment will raise our basis in the resort to approximately $680,000 per key. We believe that this basis remains extremely attractive for a luxury resort in the Scottsdale market, especially when compared to recent transactions for comparable assets and current replacement costs. To conclude my remarks, we are extremely proud of our performance and strategic actions that we've taken over the past several years. We navigated through a very challenging period for the lodging industry. Yet we emerged with a higher quality portfolio and a better expected growth profile, supported by a conservative capital structure and ample liquidity. We are optimistic looking ahead to 2023 and beyond, despite a continued cloudy outlook for the general economy, especially as we look toward the second half of the year.

We believe our efforts during the pandemic and in the early phases of the recovery have positioned us well to remain opportunistic as it relates to potential acquisitions and other potential ROI opportunities. This could be additional drivers of earnings growth in the years ahead. We expect that the stabilization of our recent acquisitions, the recovery potential of our urban group and business transient-focused hotels, and the further growth opportunities for our recently renovated properties will be meaningful internal EBITDA growth drivers. With that, I will turn the call over to Barry, who will provide additional details on our fourth quarter performance and our capital expenditure projects.

Barry Bloom (President and COO)

Thank you, Marcel, good afternoon, everyone. For the full year 2022, our 30 same-property portfolio RevPAR was $166.08 based on occupancy of 63.9% at an average daily rate of $259.92. As Marcel noted in his remarks, same-property portfolio RevPAR decreased 5.1% as compared to 2019. This decrease reflects nearly 13 points lower in occupancy, which was partially offset by a 13.8% increase in average daily rate as compared to full year 2019. Our properties achieving the strongest RevPAR growth as compared to 2019 included Hyatt Centric Key West, Park Hyatt Aviara, Royal Palms, and Bohemian Savannah, all of which benefited from robust leisure demand throughout the year.

Conversely, the RevPAR declines compared to 2019 were experienced at San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront, Hyatt Regency Santa Clara, and Kimpton Hotel Palomar Philadelphia, which are more dependent on business transient and group demand. For the fourth quarter, our 30 same-property portfolio RevPAR was $166.87 based on occupancy of 64.1% at an average daily rate of $260.19. Same-property portfolio RevPAR increased 0.6% in the quarter as compared to the same period in 2019. For the fourth quarter, the same-property leaders and laggards were the same as for the full year. We note that each of the laggard hotels achieved significant growth in Q4 in 2022 over Q4 of 2021, suggesting the recovery is well underway.

As expected, results in the fourth quarter varied across the months given the timing of holidays and the usual seasonal mixtures. Same-property RevPAR in October and November declined 0.1% and 0.4% respectively as compared to 2019. December RevPAR increased 2.6% compared to 2019. Overall, business in the fourth quarter reflected a transition in our business from what has been primarily leisure demand over the past few quarters to a more traditional mix of leisure, corporate transient, and group demand. Midweek occupancies continued to improve, particularly in October, where we had several weeks of midweek occupancy above 80%. October trends followed a similar pattern to September. This was driven by an increase in occupancy, consistent with expected seasonal patterns in business transient and group, and generally coincided with a marked increase in return to office and business travel.

Overall, October occupancy of 70.9% was a post-COVID record relative to 2019, with occupancy down less than 10 points. Rate growth remained robust in the quarter, with average daily rate at our same-property portfolio up 15% as compared to 2019. Of our 30 same-property hotels, all but five achieved higher average daily rates in the fourth quarter of 2022 than they did in the fourth quarter of 2019. We are optimistic regarding corporate and group rates, particularly as we achieve higher midweek occupancies in a number of our urban markets, including Santa Clara, San Francisco, Houston, and Dallas on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, providing significant rate compression opportunities. Our managers anticipate further improvements in corporate transient business fundamentals and expect negotiated corporate rates to increase in the high single-digit percentage range this year.

Similar to prior quarters, we saw continued rate strength in our resorts and in our drive-to leisure markets, which with average daily rates for the quarter compared to 2019 of more than 30% in our properties in Arizona, Key West, Napa, and San Diego. Turning to group. In the quarter, our group business benefited from solid for the quarter bill-bookings and double-digit rate growth, resulting in group rooms revenue exceeding fourth quarter of 2019 levels by over 5%. Our performance reflected healthy demand from corporate groups, particularly at our larger group-oriented hotels in Orlando, Scottsdale, and San Diego. Our full year 2022 group rooms revenue ended about 9% lower than 2019.

Looking ahead to 2023, the group revenue pace is currently about 21% of 2022, and group rates for 2023 reflect a high single-digit increase over 2022. Turning to expenses and profit. Fourth quarter same-property hotel EBITDA was $65.4 million. An increase of 3.3% on a total revenue increase of 2.7% compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, resulting in 17 basis points of margin improvement. This modest growth in hotel EBITDA margin this quarter was primarily impacted by a continuation of higher labor and utility costs. On a full year basis, hotel EBITDA margin increased 40 basis points relative to 2019. It reflects primarily the outsized increase we achieved in the second quarter of 2022.

With respect to labor, and as we discussed in the third quarter, our operators successfully have staffed up to meet the strong recovery and demand where necessary. In general, our fully recovered hotels are operating at FTE staffing levels between 90% and 95% of pre-pandemic levels, while hotels where there's still substantial opportunity for recovery are operating FTE staffing levels between 60% and 70% of pre-pandemic levels. Now turning to CapEx. During the fourth quarter and over the full year, we invested $29.7 million and $70.4 million in portfolio improvements, respectively. This compares to our initial expectation of approximately $95 million in total capital spending for the year, as a number of projects have had portions of their spend delayed into 2023.

During 2022, some of the significant renovation projects in our portfolio included At Kimpton Canary Santa Barbara, we completed a comprehensive renovation of public spaces, including the meeting space, lobby, restaurant, bar, and rooftop. We also began a comprehensive guest room renovation in the fourth quarter, which is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2023. At Grand Bohemian Hotel Orlando, we conducted a comprehensive renovation of public spaces, including meeting space, lobby, restaurant, bar, Starbucks, and the creation of a rooftop bar we expect to be completed in the first quarter of 2023. The comprehensive renovation of the guest rooms, including substantial tub to shower conversions, will commence in the second quarter of 2023.

At Park Hyatt Aviara, we refurbished the nearly 30-year-old golf course, including replacement of turf grass, bunkers, irrigation heads and controls, cart paths, and curving, all of which will result in significant reduction in water usage. We are also well underway with the implementation of a combined heat and power system, which should substantially lower our utility costs. In the fourth quarter, we began work on a significant upgrade to the resort's spa and wellness amenities, which will be branded as a Miraval Life in Balance Spa upon completion late in the second quarter of 2023. At Waldorf Astoria Atlanta Buckhead, early in the year, we completed a guest room renovation, including all soft goods and a restaurant and lobby renovation, including re-concepting of the restaurant and bar.

At The Marriott Woodlands in Houston, we completed a full bathroom renovation in all guest rooms, including conversion of tubs to showers in 75% of the guest rooms. At Marriott Dallas Downtown, Royal Palms, and Fairmont Pittsburgh, we renovated meeting and pre-function space. At Fairmont Pittsburgh added a licensed Starbucks outlet in the lobby. At The Ritz-Carlton, Denver, we are continuing work on the renovation and reconfiguration of suites, which will result in three additional keys upon completion this quarter. At the Kimpton Hotel Monaco Salt Lake City, we continued planning work on a comprehensive renovation of meeting space, restaurant, bar, and guest rooms that is expected to commence in the second quarter of 2023.

Including the ongoing projects I just mentioned, in 2023 we expect to spend approximately $130 million-$150 million on capital expenditure projects, the most significant of which is the transformation and up-branding of the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale, as discussed earlier by Marcel. This phased project is expected to commence in the second quarter of this year, with completion expected late next year when the property will be upgraded to the Grand Hyatt brand. We are excited about the work our in-house project management team has completed over the past several years and are even more excited about the projects we have underway in various stages of planning. With that, I will turn the call over to Atish.

Atish Shah (EVP and CFO)

Thanks, Barry. I'll cover this afternoon our balance sheet and guidance. First, on our balance sheet.

We further strengthened it in January by extending our debt maturities, we now have no debt maturities until the second half of 2025. We thank our long-standing bank partners for their continued support. In addition, our base of unencumbered assets has grown. Out of our 32 hotels, 29 do not have property-level debt, which reflects an additional source of capital. Our liquidity is strong with an undrawn $450 million revolver and approximately $300 million of cash. At year-end, our leverage ratio was approximately 4.5x trailing twelve months net debt to EBITDA, which is inside of our long-term target of sub 5x leverage. Turning to return of capital. Since last fall, we've repurchased about 2.5% of our outstanding shares at an average price of about $14.50 per share.

We have over $150 million of remaining capacity under our current board repurchase authorization. We continue to view share repurchase as a favorable capital allocation tool, given that we still trade at about a 30% discount to our average external NAV estimate, which is about $21 per share. In addition, we declared a $0.10 per share dividend in the fourth quarter. Our effective annual yield is about 2.75% based on our current share price. Turning to my second topic, our full year guidance we provided in this morning's release. As the recovery continues, we are encouraged by strengthening group and business transient demand. We expect full year 32 hotel RevPAR to increase approximately 6% at the midpoint to about $173.

That is inclusive of 200 basis points of room revenue displacement due to renovations. A quarterly cadence, we expect RevPAR growth in the mid 20% range in the first quarter, driven by occupancy gains. During the second half, we expect flattish RevPAR relative to last year due to tougher comps as the year progresses, as well as the impact of renovations. For the full year, we expect adjusted EBITDAre to be about flat to last year. We anticipate growth from our new hotels, W Nashville and Hyatt Regency Portland, as they continue ramping up, as well as solid top line growth in many of our other urban and group hotels, these gains are expected to be offset by three items relative to last year.

The three items are, number one, lower cancellation and attrition fees, number two, the dispositions that we made last year, and number three, renovations. These three items represent a nearly $30 million EBITDA headwind when comparing to last year. As to seasonality in adjusted EBITDAre expected for this year, we expect to earn about 60% in the first half and about 40% in the second half. Turning ahead to adjusted FFO for the full year, we expect to earn $1.48 per share at the midpoint. That is approximately 4% behind last year due to both higher interest expense and higher income tax expense. In conclusion, we continue to be optimistic about the recovery. The long-term outlook is promising as demand continues to improve while the number of new hotels being built in the U.S. continues to decline.

We expect the rate of new supply growth to continue to fall and hit historic lows. With demand growth, that should result in strong pricing power for hotel owners. Xenia continues to be well-positioned with a high-quality, well-located asset base and multiple levers for growth. We expect the capital expenditure projects that we've discussed today to lead to a favorable setup for years to come. Our balance sheet is flexible and strong, which will allow us to take advantage of opportunities that are likely to unfold in the years ahead. That concludes our prepared remarks. We'll turn the call back over to Tamia for our Q&A session.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason at all you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by two. Again, to ask a question, please press star one. As a quick reminder, if you are using a speakerphone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking your question. Our first question comes from Bill Crow with Raymond James. You may proceed.

Bill Crow (Managing Director and Real Estate Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning or good afternoon. Marcel, this might be an unfair question. This might be a tough question to answer because of the seasonality that is really hard to get at. Do you think that your gut tell you that the business transient demand is on par today with where it was in June or say September of last year? Or do you think there's been a little bit of erosion of the underlying demand because of the macro concerns?

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

Hi, good afternoon, Bill. On the business transient side particularly, which is I think what you were asking specifically about, we've actually been seeing good improvement on that. As we talked about, we started seeing some strengthening going into particularly later in the third quarter and going into the fourth quarter. Certainly some of the recent trends that we're seeing on midweek occupancy is pretty promising. We're actually seeing a little bit more of a traditional mix when you look at day of the week type occupancy, where we're certainly seeing a little bit more strengthening in midweek. When you're comparing it to the months that you're talking about last year, I think we're actually seeing some decent improvement there.

Bill Crow (Managing Director and Real Estate Research Analyst)

I guess... Thank you. The second half of that question, I guess, is what you're seeing on the leisure front, because clearly there are concerns out there about the pace of demand in some markets like the Keys and some other markets that were so good for the last couple of years. Just to kind of highlight what you're seeing out there on the leisure side.

Barry Bloom (President and COO)

Bill, this is Barry. On the leisure side, we are definitely seeing a continuation of strong demand, even in markets like the Keys. We are seeing in some markets, we're seeing a little bit of softening on the rate side in months that truly outperform. For example, January was a relatively softer month in the Keys historically, compared to February. Over the last couple of years, we've seen January be almost as strong as February in terms of ability to drive rate. We saw a little softness in February, we saw that kind of bounce back in February, again, because we were back to traditionally high demand levels there.

Bill Crow (Managing Director and Real Estate Research Analyst)

Yeah. Thanks. One real quick follow-up and I'll yield the floor. Is Hyatt providing any sort of financial incentive either the Aviara renovation or the Scottsdale project?

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

Not specifically. Clearly, when you think about what's happening there is that, we talked about the fact that we're gonna see some disruption there in the short term. Now, as you can imagine, the property's been performing very well. Hyatt certainly was making, you know, some good incentive management fees, for example, with the property. From an economic standpoint, they are definitely participating, from the sense that they clearly will see an impact to their short-term management fees at the property. Going forward, obviously, our bases in the hotel increases, which will set a higher base for incentive management fees going forward. That's one way that we really look at it, to say...

You know, there is an economic impact to Hyatt here. We've clearly been working with them very closely over the last, you know, really 12-18 months to look at this project and say, "What is the right level of investment that we wanna make here?" We're very excited about the plan we've come up with and how we think this property will be positioned going forward.

Bill Crow (Managing Director and Real Estate Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks, all. Appreciate it.

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Austin Wurschmidt with KeyBanc. You may proceed.

Austin Wurschmidt (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks, and good afternoon, everyone. I was just curious, going back to the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale renovation. Was the decision to pursue this, you know, up-branding opportunity here, kind of a post-COVID opportunity or something that you guys have been evaluating for some time? As you look broadly across the portfolio, clearly you've had, you know, successes on the renovation front. You know, are there any other sort of, you know, more comprehensive renovation opportunities across any other properties that you'd highlight?

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Austin. That's a great question. I mean, it's something that we've been working on for a long time, frankly. We've owned the property since 2017. We've had a good run going into COVID to really understand the property and where we thought the opportunities might be. We, for a long time, talked about the opportunity to increase the meeting space there, to give us a real opportunity to optimize the mix there, get more group business, being able to compress higher rates on the leisure side. It is something that we have been considering going into COVID for sure, and COVID overall didn't necessarily change that. What we have seen, obviously, is that post-COVID, domestic leisure demand has been extremely strong.

Makes it a little bit harder from a short-term disruption standpoint, but we absolutely look at this and say, we wanna be able to sustain and grow the cash flows at this property. We think that doing this, when clearly we were coming up on a time where we had to do a renovation of the property anyway, it was time to do the cyclical renovation. The room product was getting, you know, getting a little longer in the tooth and the property overall hadn't really had a comprehensive renovation ever in a long time. We felt that this was the absolute right thing to do to really bring this to the next level. You know, it's obviously something I focused on quite a bit in my remarks, but it's a market that we are extremely familiar with.

You know, we've owned this property for a good number of years. Barry and I, when we were at CNL Hotels & Resorts, we actually owned two of the luxury hotels that are in the competitive peer set for this hotel. As a matter of fact, developed one of those hotels during that time. It's a market that I would say we probably know more about than any other market almost in our portfolio. We're highly confident about, you know, what we think is the right thing to do with this asset and positioning it very well for the future.

Austin Wurschmidt (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

That's helpful detail. How much of the $110 million, I think, of total spend you expect to hit in 2023 versus 2024? You know, assuming a similar economic backdrop, would you expect there to be more or less disruption from this asset, next year?

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

It's about, you know, roughly about half and half in the spend. There's more work that really gets done kind of next year, as it relates to the room product and those types of things. Obviously, you spend some of the money up front in deposits and those kind of things. It is probably roughly about half and half between this year and next year. Certainly, you know, it's a little early to talk about exactly what's, you know, what the disruption is gonna look like for next year. One of the reasons why we're doing it over this 18-month timeframe is that, again, we really worked on this over the last 12-18 months to look at, A, what's the right, you know, what is the right project to do here?

We got very excited about the various components that we're doing here. B, how do we stage this appropriately to kind of balance both the disruption that we're dealing with, and obviously wanted to get this project done as quickly as we possibly can, without upsetting the operations too much. Again, it's a little early to talk about next year's disruption, but there is a good amount of disruption in this year just because of the fact that, you know, we're gonna start working on the meeting space, which is obviously limiting Hyatt's ability to really put a lot of group business on the books for the second half of this year. The pool complex that will be, going as kind of the first part here, which obviously is gonna impact some of the leisure experience at the hotel.

You know, the good thing is it's a seasonal market, right? Part of how we're looking at the room for renovation that will primarily occur next year is that we're gonna stage it in an appropriate way to try to limit as much as possible the disruption during the busy season and have more disruption taking place during the summer when clearly the overall Phoenix market has lower occupancy.

Austin Wurschmidt (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

That's helpful. Just last one for me. I guess, within the context of your RevPAR growth guidance, how did you think about or what's assumed, I guess, for some of the markets that have lagged in the recovery since the onset of the pandemic, you know, the Bay Area, you know, you talked about kind of Portland's first full year of operation. How do we think about sort of that subset of hotels growing again, within sort of the overall guidance range that you outlined?

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. I mean, it's definitely above that range. You know, it varies quite a bit based on market, but the, you know, the two acquisitions that we made more recently, W Nashville and Hyatt Regency Portland, we expect to see outsized growth there. Some of the markets that have been the slowest to recover, so namely SFO, Santa Clara. You know, we expect to see stronger growth there. Really that's been being offset by, you know, the renovation disruption that we talked about, as well as just more moderate levels of growth, or no growth in some of the more leisure-oriented assets. That's great. Thanks for the time, everybody. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The following question comes from David Katz with Jefferies. You may proceed.

David Katz (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to go back. I know you made some introductory comments. Are there any data points or anything you can point to, you know, as we progress into this year? I mean, the biggest challenge, well, I assume we're all having is, you know, trying to get a sense for what the back half of this year could look like. Can you just talk about that? I know you've touched on it, but just revisit what you're baking into your back half, you know, guidance.

Atish Shah (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, sure. I mean, you know, as I mentioned, in terms of top line for RevPAR, back half, we're assuming is flat last year. The reason is, A, renovations, and B, that, you know, how tough the comps are. That's kind of how we're thinking about the back half. You know, the, in sort of a similar, you know, level of, I guess, impacts based on if you looked at adjusted EBITDA or hotel EBITDA. That's kind of how we're thinking about, you know, back half of the year.

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

Which is also part of the reason, obviously, we have a little bit wider range on guidance historically as, I mean, there clearly is a little bit more uncertainty about the second half of the year, particularly. You know, again, this is...

We're comfortable with this range that we have provided this morning. Certainly, you know, the things that Atish Shah talked about are going to be guiding how we're looking at the balance of the year.

David Katz (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Yeah. I mean, that was kind of the thrust of my question. Is the, is the flat RevPAR assuming, you know, some kind of modest economic slowdown? Is that kind of where the base case sits? What is the underlying base case for that flat?

Atish Shah (EVP and CFO)

Well, it's really, you know, sort of a similar level to where the economy is right now. We've not really modeled in a slowdown. you know, it's really.

David Katz (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay.

Atish Shah (EVP and CFO)

a function of the comparison and then the renovations, which do have a more significant impact in the second half of the year than the first one.

David Katz (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Got it. Okay. That's exactly what I was after. Thank you very much.

Atish Shah (EVP and CFO)

Okay.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Bellisario with Baird. Please proceed.

Michael Bellisario (Senior Research Analyst)

Thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. Just a couple more on Scottsdale, maybe tying together the renovation and potential acquisitions. If Scottsdale has obviously a lot of dollars, a lot of disruption, is maybe your decision there to pull the trigger now indicative at all of maybe the lack of product or acquisition opportunities you're seeing at present?

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

Well, you know, one doesn't rule out the other. I mean, we clearly have a good amount of dry powder still available based on the liquidity that Atish outlined, that if we see attractive opportunities on the acquisition side, that we can absolutely still execute on those. And something like Scottsdale is really done with a really long-term view. And as I pointed out, it's something that's, you know, been just come about over the last couple of months. Obviously, I've hinted at some significant ROI projects for a few earnings calls, you know, during the course of last year. This is obviously a very significant one that we've been working on for a long time. I wouldn't necessarily, you know. Again, like I said, one doesn't preclude the other.

We certainly look at this as a very attractive use of our capital, given, you know, alternative uses of our capital. Especially in today's environment, clearly, we are not seeing a lot of really, you know, exciting, and attractive acquisition opportunities. We're happy being patient on that side, like I've indicated, really over the last couple of earnings calls as well. I mean, it hasn't changed much. We are not seeing a great deep pool of potential, attractive acquisition targets for us. You know, we're obviously continuing to look for those and are still optimistic that as we get deeper into the year, that there might be some more opportunities on that side.

Michael Bellisario (Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. I don't think you gave it, but what might have been the incremental or I guess maybe the base case renovation cost, for kind of typical cyclical renovation at that property? I'm trying to think about what the incremental cost is for the renovation that you're doing there.

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

You know, no, it's hard for me to give you an exact number on that because, you know, it can, it can be such a wide range, right? I mean, if you just say, "Look, we're just gonna do a very basic room renovation," is that really the right thing to do as opposed to also touching common spaces, you know, restaurants, meeting space and all those type of aspects? We believe that, I mean, clearly there's a true additional cost as it relates to the expansion of the meeting space, which we think is a very important component of this overall project. There's clearly, you know, a true additional cost there. There clearly is some additional cost as it relates to going to the standards of a Grand Hyatt over what it currently is as a Hyatt Regency.

When we looked at those alternatives, we really looked at it across a really wide range, wide spectrum of various levels of cost and what we thought it would do for us on the return side. It became pretty obvious and clear to us that going down this path and being able to, you know, get the luxury branding through Grand Hyatt, doing all the things we're planning to do, especially on the food and beverage side, creates much more interesting and exciting opportunities and gives Hyatt a much brighter project and product to sell and get us the right appropriate returns on.

Michael Bellisario (Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. Fair enough. Just last one from me for Atish. Could you quantify that $30 million year-over-year headwind maybe for each of the three buckets you gave: asset sales, cancellation fees, and renovation disruption?

Atish Shah (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Asset sales is $6 million. We put that in the release. Cancellation and attrition fees, last year we earned $18 million. Typical run rate would be closer to $9 million, so that's about a $9 million headwind. The balance is the renovation disruption, which is the $15 million that we called out in the release as well. That, that together gets you to the $30 million.

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

There is obviously a number of renovation projects in there over and above Scottsdale, which we've obviously focused on quite a bit. We do have room renovation at Grand Bahama Island, room renovation at Canary Santa Barbara, renovation conference, renovation we're doing at Monaco Salt Lake. Those are kind of the bigger projects that we're kind of rolling up the $15 million disruption on.

Michael Bellisario (Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Ari Klein with BMO. Your line is open.

Ari Klein (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. Maybe just on the W Nashville. You have a few more months under your belt here, and EBITDA, I guess, came in at the adjusted expectation of $12 million. How are you thinking about that asset this year and kind of what your expectations are?

Barry Bloom (President and COO)

Hey, Ari, it's Barry. Thanks for the question. You know, I would say that each month we're kind of incrementally seeing more and more progress toward what the goals are. Obviously, we were happy to have hit our revised number, but I think we had a lot of confidence in that. What we're looking at for this year is continuing what we've done historic, which is looking at really changing the mix of the hotel so it's more group-focused. We spent a lot of time and effort focused with the Marriott team on how to best position the hotel by season. It's a different hotel in January and February than it is in April and May. It's a different hotel on week nights than it is on weekends.

Really, we've spent a lot of time and focus on that. Marriott's done some re-energizing with the food and beverage team and the focus on food and beverage, and really focus, rather than overall, really dig in and focus outlet by outlet on where the opportunities are, what's worked, what hasn't worked, and how does each outlet get positioned as the best outlet kind of within its class, within the local market.

Ari Klein (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thanks. Then maybe just on the expense side, can you talk about how you're thinking about margins this year? Marcel, I think you've always been a little hesitant to provide long-term savings targets, but is there anything on that front from a long-term savings standpoint where you still think there's some opportunity?

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. You know, I'll go back to what I've said about this before, right? I mean, we were always very hesitant about that because it was extremely unclear at that point what kind of inflationary pressures we were gonna be dealing with, where if your mix of business was really gonna change from what it was pre-COVID. You know, the second portion obviously has a lot to do with it. That's why we were always hesitant. Like, we did not believe you could just look at it statically and say, "Hey, we're gonna be, you know, X basis points higher." I think that's proven to be the case. I think we were appropriately hesitant to do so. If you look back, you know, you can just look at the last few quarters, right?

I mean, we were up 17 basis points in the fourth quarter on relatively, you know, minor RevPAR increases over 2019. That shows you obviously that we are controlling costs fairly well to be able to actually increase your margin a little bit even when you see virtually no RevPAR growth. For most of us who can remember the days before COVID, the years leading into COVID were very similar issues, obviously, where it was harder to drive RevPAR and drive rates, which made it very difficult to continue to move margins up. The fact that we're still seeing some margin improvements, I think is a testament to how we are able to control costs and how we are able to run the hotels a little bit more efficiently.

Clearly there continue to be pressures, and we've talked about those. We've talked about the labor cost increases. We've talked about utility cost increases. You know, obviously, we've built in our expectations as it relates to those into the guidance that Atish went through.

Barry Bloom (President and COO)

Yeah. I mean, just more, and more specifically, those items, utilities, real estate taxes, and insurance, those three are a 50 basis point headwind for us in 2023 relative to last year. The cancellation and attrition fees that I talked about are pretty significant headwind as well, nearly a 100 basis points. Obviously, we've got the renovation disruption. You know, we do expect margins to contract over the course of a full year, and that's included in our, in our guidance that we gave.

Ari Klein (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks for the color.

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Tyler Batory with Oppenheimer. You may proceed.

Jonathan Jenkins (Equity Research Associate Director)

Good afternoon. This is Jonathan on for Tyler. Thanks for taking our questions. I wanted to follow up on the transaction discussion. Marcel, I think you said you were optimistic it would improve. I'm curious if you could provide additional color there or sort of the house view on the acquisition environment as we move throughout the year?

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, sure. You know, obviously, like I said, we continue to, you know, build a pipeline, look at a pipeline and see what's out there. It just continues to be fairly shallow as it relates to assets that we think would be a strategic fit for us and that would be good growth drivers for us, especially with, you know, pricing anticipation that still is out there. We do think that as we get deeper into the year, that there just might be more product that comes to market. I think that's absolutely the view that most of the brokerage community has, too.

If most of the communication that we have with the brokerage community, there seems to be somewhat a consistent view of the fact that the market isn't terribly deep right now, but that there is an expectation of some more product coming to market as we get into the second half of the year. Some of that is obviously gonna be driven by what's the overall economic climate, what does the interest rate environment look like.

There certainly will be a number of owners that are looking at refinancing situations where they may just say, "Look, it might be an attractive time to potentially sell an asset as opposed to having to refinance at significantly higher rates than where they currently finance." That's, that's really our view as well at this point, that we think there should be an environment coming up that will be more conducive to more product being out there, us having more choice and more of an ability to look at what's really attractive to us and what will be additive to our portfolio.

Jonathan Jenkins (Equity Research Associate Director)

Very helpful. Thank you for the color there. Given your guys' strong liquidity position and strong balance sheet, are there any markets or locations that you don't currently have exposure to that you'd like to get more exposure to or anything that would make sense at this point?

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

Well, we're gonna remain, you know, obviously, we're gonna stick to our strategy as far as what works well for us. Clearly, we've had more of a focus on some of the locations, and I don't see that changing over time. I think we like those markets from a long-term perspective. We like the overall market dynamics. You know, there are still some markets that we're not in. There are some markets where we are, where we could still increase our exposure to some extent. I've always been hesitant to really call out specific markets because we wanna be opportunistic, and we wanna look at assets that we think are good potential fits for our portfolio without really kind of putting ourselves too much in a box of any specific market that we're targeting.

That, again, goes back to hopefully having a greater opportunity set that allows us to look at a little bit wider range of markets, and that gives us, you know, gives us a chance to say, "Okay, this is a market that we feel really confident about and where we like the current dynamics." Again, that could be a market where we're not, could be a market where we are already, where we have some exposure. Clearly there are a few markets where we have a lot of exposure already, so it's unlikely we'll expand in those. We just, we like having the kind of geographic diversity that we've always had throughout our history.

Jonathan Jenkins (Equity Research Associate Director)

Very helpful. I appreciate all the color, Marcel. That's all for me.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We have a follow-up from Bill Crow with Raymond James. You may proceed.

Bill Crow (Managing Director and Real Estate Research Analyst)

Yeah, thanks for letting me jump back in. Quick question on the Grand Hyatt upgrade. Given the amount of capital that you'll have in that asset, do you have any protection from Hyatt that they will not introduce a Park Hyatt into that market?

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

No. Obviously, Bill, as you know, we don't wanna get too specific as it relates to any kind of particulars on some of the agreements that we have in place with our operators. Let me answer it in a little bit different way, because I think, you know, I think part of your question is also as it relates to what is the right positioning for the resort in and of itself, right? We clearly looked at, we think there's an opportunity to up-brand this hotel. We think it can play better in its luxury competitor set by going with a brand that has, you know, a little bit more cachet and is appropriate for a luxury resort.

Felt that Grand Hyatt is the right branding here for a number of reasons. I mean, the size of the resort, as opposed to, you know, Park Hyatts that are generally, you know, a little bit more intimate, a little bit smaller. Having this kind of size, this kind of meeting space, being able to attract the right kind of customers that we're looking for, having the type of expense structure in place that we wanna have in place with this asset. As you know, we obviously have a wide range of assets, including within the Hyatt brand, where we do have the Park Hyatt Aviara, which is, you know, smaller from a rooms perspective, where it's more appropriate to have that brand than here.

The Grand Hyatt brand is something that, there's obviously a mix of those assets throughout their portfolio too. You know, there's obviously a few more that are urban-focused. If you think about the resort locations that Grand Hyatt has, both domestically and internationally, you really have to think more about, like, you know, an absolutely outstanding resort in Kauai, for example, that is a Grand Hyatt resort that is probably your prototypical luxury resort. It's more around the, you know, thinking about it in that context and why we think Grand Hyatt is the right branding for this asset.

Bill Crow (Managing Director and Real Estate Research Analyst)

Okay. It feels like that's a market where Park Hyatt would be, would be a good fit. That was really what spurred my question. All right, terrific. Thank you.

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now pass it back over to Marcel Verbaas for closing remarks.

Marcel Verbaas (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Tamia. Thank you all for joining the call today. We always appreciate the questions and look forward to updating you again next quarter.

Operator (participant)

This concludes the conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.