Good morning, and welcome to the Hilton Grand Vacations first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode, and the floor will be opened for your questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your touchstone phone to enter the queue. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. If you should require operator assistance, please press star 0. If using a speakerphone, please lift your handset to allow the signal to reach our equipment. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up to allow the opportunity for everyone to ask questions. You may re-enter the queue to ask additional questions. I would now like to turn the call over to Mark Melnick, Senior Vice President of Investor Please go ahead, sir.

Mark Melnick, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, Thank you, Operator, and welcome to the Hilton Statement of the Effect, which we adopted in 2018. Under ASC-606, you can see the deferral-adjusted metrics that were offered do not reflect $25 million of net contract sales deferrals under ASC-606, which had the effect of reducing reported gap revenue, and were related to pre-sales of our Kahaku project, partially offset by a recognition associated with our Kyoto project, which also on slide two, we deferred a net $7 million of direct expense. Adjusting for both these items would increase the adjusted EBITDA to shareholders reported on our press release by a net of $18 million to $267 million. With that, let me turn the call over to our CEO, Mark Wang. Mark?

Morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter earnings call. We're off to a strong start this year, and overall, we're pleased with how the quarter came together. The results we delivered in Q1 reflect disciplined execution by our teams across the business and a consistent focus on our strategic initiatives. Contract sales met the expectations we laid out on our prior call, and adjusted EBITDA exceeded expectations, growing 8% versus the prior year with 130 basis points of margin expansion. In addition, we drove great new buyer growth along with cost efficiencies that supported healthy EBITDA flow through. These results reinforce our confidence that we're on track to achieve our long-term algorithm of consistent growth in sales and EBITDA and strong pre-cash generation along with a commitment to returning capital to our shareholders. We repurchased an additional $150 million of stock during the quarter, bringing the total to nearly $2.3 billion we've returned since becoming a standalone public company. Next, taking a look at our consumer environment, leisure travel demand among our members remained healthy. Arrivals were strong in the first quarter, and we see trends improving through the fall. And March was our strongest sales month of the quarter, with momentum carrying into April. At the same time, we're carefully monitoring the impact of the conflict in the Middle East and the potential broader effects on the leisure travel landscape. But our business model carries several advantages that should help us to navigate the environment. Our members have prepaid their vacations for the year, making them less sensitive to travel costs. And new buyers are attracted by the value proposition of our marketing package offerings. In addition, the efficiency initiatives that we already have underway, combined with the variable nature of our cost structure, leaves us well positioned. So, while we keep a close eye on the external risks, our focus remains on executing our strategic initiatives and controlling what we can control. From the results of the first quarter and our purchase of the remainder of the Alara JV to take full control of the project, which I'll cover shortly, I'm pleased to report that we're raising our adjusted EBITDA guidance for the full year. More broadly, the quartering guidance reinforced the progress we're making as an integrated business, and the consistency of our execution against our strategic priorities, which are operational excellence, attracting new customers, product evolution and innovation, and enhancing member lifetime value. Operational excellence drove strong execution in the quarter, while tours outpaced VPG and we saw a higher mix of new owners. Our teams effectively managed costs to drive improved EBITDA contribution, and we remained confident in our guidance to grow EBITDA for the full year. We also did a great job of adding new buyers. The investments we made in our marketing pipeline last year supported high single-digit new buyer tour growth in Q1, maintaining the strong pace that we saw in the fourth quarter. In addition, solid conversion of those tours led to the highest level of first-quarter new buyer transactions since 2023, up 8% versus the prior year, which is key to driving improved efficiency as well as growing our embedded value. Those new buyers helped to support 29% growth in our HVMAX member base over the prior year to 277,000 members. On the product front, I'm happy to announce that we reached an agreement to purchase the development rights of Alara, our flagship resort in Las Vegas, allowing us to take full control of the project by moving it from a fee-for-service JV to an owned property. As part of the natural progression with our fee-for-service projects, it provides us several significant benefits, including receiving the full economics of the real estate business, as well as assuming the existing and future financing business associated with the project, along with providing additional inventory flexibility. Olara has always been very popular with new buyers, but this transaction also unlocks our ability to better sell the project across our entire sales distribution network outside of Las Vegas, enabling owners to upgrade out of the project while simultaneously allowing any of our members to upgrade into Olara. We're also making great progress with our inventory optimization initiative. We've identified a set of eight properties that no longer fit with our portfolio. And we recently entered into an agreement with a third party for the disposition of our interest in these assets. At high level, dispositions allow us to proactively manage aging and non-core inventory, reduce long-term carry risk, and ensure capital is continually recycled into higher performing opportunities. This discipline helps us to balance between growth, flexibility, and profitability. From a strategic standpoint, dispositions support our broader goals by improving the mix and quality of inventory over time, creating capacity to reinvest into priority markets, products and experiences, and reinforcing a proactive rather than reactive approach to inventory management. Taken together with the financial benefits Dan will outline, these dispositions help us to optimize the portfolio and position the business for sustained growth. Turning to the embedded value, we're continuing to expand our industry-leading HEV Max and HEV Ultimate Access offerings to enhance our value proposition and drive member engagement. We recently introduced additional enhancements to Hilton Honor Points conversions within the MACS program to complement the suite of benefits that have proven so popular with our MACS members. Lastly, our Ultimate Access teams continue to expand our best-in-class experiential platform. In just the past few months alone, our members have enjoyed private concerts with number one billboard artist Ella Langley, the legendary Beach Boys, and Grammy Award winner Kelly Clarkson. Our partnership with the LPGA provided members in-person access to our Tournament of Champions to see this year's winner, Nellie Corder, which was televised on NBC and the Golf Channel. HEV will also continue as an official event partner of Formula One's Heineken Las Vegas Grand Prix, where members have access to exclusive trackside HEV clubhouse suites and entertainment at Alara. So, HEV Ultimate Access is already the biggest and most comprehensive program of its kind, and this year will be even bigger and better. We've got new events planned for new members, including FIFA World Cup events, NASCAR, an expanded summer concert series lineup, and we'll also be announcing additional exciting programming to further enhance member experiences throughout the year. To sum it up, I'm happy with the performance at the start of the year. Owners and new buyers continue to respond well to our value proposition. We delivered on our target that we laid out, which allowed us to increase our full-year EBITDA guidance. We're continuing to make incremental progress in our evolution as an integrated entity. And we're focused on consistent execution against our strategic priorities as we move through the rest of the year. None of this would be possible without the dedication of our team members and leadership who have built such a strong, innovative, and people-first culture. With that, I'll turn it to Dan for more details on the numbers. Dan?

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. We had great results in the quarter, achieving our contract sales forecast while also exceeding our expectations for EBITDA growth through cost controls that drove margin expansion. As Mark mentioned, the strong performance, along with the momentum that we're carrying into the second quarter, gave us the confidence to raise our full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance. Turning to our results for the quarter, total revenue before cost reimbursements in the quarter grew 2% to $1.2 billion. Adjusted EBITDA to shareholders grew 8% to $267 million, with margins excluding reimbursements of 23%, up 130 basis points over the prior year. within our real estate business contract sales of 719 million were down slightly performing in line with the expectations we laid out on our prior call the decline was the result of tough comparisons for our blue-green business as it normalized against a strong HCV max launch period last year new buyer contract sales were over 26% of the total for the quarter an increase of approximately 160 basis points from the prior year as we benefited from continued strength the new buyer tours, along with solid execution from our sales team that drove new buyer transactions to their best first quarter performance since 2023. Tours grew 8.5% during the quarter to more than $189,000, with growth coming from both our new buyer and owner channels. Conversion of the package pipeline we built over the past year fueled new buyer growth, while the strong value proposition of HEVMAX continues to drive owner toward demand. BPG was nearly $3,800 for the quarter, declining 8% and in line with the expectations of a high single-digit decline we discussed last quarter. As we indicated, the decline was driven by the normalization of owner close rates at Blue Green due to the lapping of the record HEVMAX launch period comparisons, along with higher mix of new buyer sales in the quarter, which carry lower BPGs. Cost of product in the period was 10%, which benefited from higher than expected sales mix of lower cost inventory during the quarter. Real estate sales and marketing expense for the quarter was $352 million, or 49% of contract sales, 260 basis points lower than the prior year. The strong margin performance was primarily the result of our efficiency initiatives, which the team did a great job executing against. Real estate profit for the quarter was $152 million with margins of 28%, up 350 basis points versus the prior year. Overall, I'm very pleased with our performance this quarter as our focus on efficiency was able to more than offset the margin dilutive effects of lower BPG and higher new buyer mix. In our financing business, first quarter revenue was $138 million and profit was $87 million. Excluding the amortization items associated with our acquired receivables portfolio, financing margins were 65%, up 510 basis points from the prior year. Looking at our portfolio metrics, our weighted average interest rate for originated loans was 14.5%. Combined gross receivables for the quarter were $4.4 billion. Our total allowance for bad debt was $1.3 billion on that $4.4 billion receivable balance, or 29% of the portfolio. The portfolio remains in great shape overall. Our annualized default rate for our consolidated portfolios was 10.1% for the quarter, reflecting a slight improvement against the first quarter of the prior year. And as of the quarter end, our 31-60-day delinquencies expressed as a percentage of the total portfolio remains broadly unchanged relative to the prior year at 1.48% compared with 1.49% a year ago. When measured as a percentage of the total portfolio net of fully reserved loans, delinquency performance reflects a similar trend at 1.7% versus 1.72% in the prior year. Our provision in the first quarter declined sequentially to 14.9%, in line with the expectation we laid out on our prior call, and we continue to feel confident in our expectation of provision remaining in the mid-teens for the full year. In our resort and club business, our consolidated member count was just over $720,000, reflecting strong new buyer additions offset by continued recaptured activity in the period. Revenue grew 1% to $185 million for the quarter, and profit was $126 million with margins of 68%. Our expenses were slightly elevated owing to program-related headcount additions, which reduced our margins when combined with our seasonally lower Q1 revenue. However, we expect those effects to diminish as we move into our seasonally stronger quarters of the year. Rental and ancillary revenues were up 5% versus the prior year to $197 million. Revenue growth in the period was driven by higher available room nights and a slight increase in our overall portfolio REVPAR, reflecting continued healthy trends for our rental business. Developer maintenance fees remained the largest driver of our rental and ancillary business profitability trends and were responsible for the $19 million loss in the period. Reducing the burden of developer maintenance fees is a key objective that we'll achieve through both consistent sales growth as well as our inventory optimization initiatives as mark mentioned regarding our inventory optimization we have signed an agreement with a third party to begin the process for a set of properties that we've selected for disposition broadly speaking we will trade off several revenue streams we currently receive from property hoas and owners in exchange for savings on the associated carrying costs of the inventory with the net result being a positive contribution to adjusted EBITDA. There are minimum sales generated at these resorts, and by transferring that tour flow to other sites within our sales distribution network, we don't expect to sacrifice any sales revenue. We will lose property management fees from the resorts, along with the associated rental income from inventory available for monetization. However, more than offsetting that revenue loss will be a reduction in our developer maintenance fee expense that we are currently paying on unsold inventory at these properties. Our initial estimate for the net of these items is that on a run rate basis, they will benefit our adjusted EBITDA by $10 to $12 million on an annual basis. I note that the agreement is subject to customary closing conditions, and there remains work to be done to get to closing. Therefore, our 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance does not currently include any contribution from these dispositions. This is subject to change as we move through the process, and in the coming months, we look forward to providing additional financial and timing-related details as they are finalized. Bridging the gap between segment-adjusted EBITDA and total adjusted EBITDA, JV EBITDA was $5 million, license fees were $53 million, and EBITDA attributable to non-controlling interest was $2 million. Corporate GNA was $40 million, or 3% of pre-reimbursement revenue, in line with our run rate over the past year. Our adjusted free cash flow in the quarter was a use of $37 million, including inventory spending of $71 million, reflecting the timing of our ABSDO activity in the year. We continue to expect our conversion rate for this year will remain in the lower half of our long-term range of 55% to 65%. During the quarter, the company repurchased 3.3 million shares of Common Stop for $150 From April 1st through April 23rd, we repurchased an additional 904,000 shares for $41 million. And as of April 23rd, we had $237 million of remaining availability under our current share repurchase plan. We remain committed to capital returns as a primary use of our free cash flow in 2026, and we remain on track to continue repurchasing our shares at a pace of approximately $150 million per quarter, subject to the repurchase activity not increasing our net leverage for the full year. Turning to our Alara transaction, as Mark mentioned, we entered into an agreement to purchase the inventory tail of our Alara JV. This agreement is effective as of today. Given the scale of our Alara project versus prior tail purchases, I think it's important to lay out the effects on our financials in Q2 and beyond. We had been a 25% owner of the JV, and thus historically we haven't consolidated their financials into ours. Rather, we reported our share of the JV's income to our EBITDA from unconsolidated affiliates line and our financial statements. In addition, from a revenue perspective, we recognized fee-for-service, commission, package sales, and other fees on our consolidated income statement. And on a KPI basis, contract sales from the project were classified as fee-for-service sales in our real estate business. Given the transaction, as we fully consolidate ALAR and recognize the project is owned in Q2 and beyond, you'll notice a reduction in each of those line items, which will be offset by additional sales of BOI along with the benefits of a new stream of portfolio income in our financing business. Our total initial outflow for the remaining 75% of the entity is approximately $130 million. The acquisition included approximately $85 million from the combination of unpledged eligible ABS collateral and short-term working capital, which we will monetize, and will ultimately result in a net cash use of $45 million. This will be a deleveraging transaction and should slightly reduce our corporate net leverage We currently expect Alara to contribute approximately $20 million for the remainder of the year, which was not included in our prior 2026 guidance. As Mark mentioned, Alara has been one of the marquee projects for many years, and having full control of the asset will be a positive for HEV on a go-forward basis. Turning to our outlook, for the quarter, we outperformed our prior guidance for Q1 adjusted EBITDA growth to be flat to down slightly by approximately $20 million. Due to our strong performance this quarter, along with the additional contribution of ALARA, I'm pleased to announce that we're increasing our 2026 guidance for adjusted EBITDA before deferrals to be $1.225 and $1.265 billion from the prior $1.185 to $1.225 for an increase of $40 million at the midpoint. To be more specific, outside of the contribution of a large EBITDA, our performance and adjusted EBITDA assumptions in the second, third, and fourth quarters remain the same as what was embedded in our initial guidance for the year. From a sales perspective, our prior full-year 2026 top-line targets remain in place. As a reminder, those include low single-digit contract sales growth, with low-to-mid single-digit tour growth and VBG down slightly. On a quarterly basis, our expectations for BPG growth for the remainder of the year remain unchanged. We continue to expect BPG to be down slightly for the full year, with Q2 and Q3 seeing low to mid-single-digit declines and returning to solid growth in the fourth quarter as we fully lap Blue Green's max launch period. In addition, we continue to expect that our 2026 conversion rate will be in the lower half of our target 55-65% range, as we wrap up spending on the Kahaku project ahead of its anticipated opening later this year. In addition, despite Q1 outperformance, we still expect that our adjusted EBITDA on a dollar basis will increase sequentially each quarter. For the second quarter specifically, we expect to grow our adjusted EBITDA in the low to mid-single-digit range versus the prior year, which includes approximately $3 million contribution from Alara. Moving on to our liquidity. As of March 21st, our liquidity position was $852 million, consisting of $261 million of unrestricted cash and $591 million of availability under our resolving credit facility. Our debt balance at quarter end was comprised of corporate debt of $4.8 billion and a non-recourse debt balance of approximately $2.6 billion. At quarter end, we had $150 million of remaining capacity in our warehouse facility. We also We also had $929 million of notes that were current on payments but unsecuritized. Of that figure, approximately $370 million could be monetized through a combination of warehouse borrowings and securitization, while we anticipate another $367 million will become available following certain customary milestones such as first payment, deeding, and recording. Turning to our credit metrics, at the end of the quarter, the company's total net leverage on a TTM basis was 3.9 times. As you may have seen, just after the end of the first quarter, we also completed our first securitization of the year, an oversubscribed $500 million deal, upsized from $400 million as a result of stronger investor demand. The deal priced with an advance rate of 98% and an average coupon rate of 5.13%, which included a detraunch. So despite some of the geopolitical noise, the securitization markets remain open and healthy, and we look forward to completing several more deals later this year. We will now turn the call over to the operator and look forward to your questions. Operator?

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your touchstone phone to enter the queue. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. Should you require operator assistance, please press star 0. If using a speakerphone, please lift your handset to allow the signal to reach our equipment. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up to allow the opportunity for everyone to ask questions. You may then re-enter the queue to ask additional questions. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. The first question is from Patrick Schultz from Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. Thank you, everyone. Dan, I think you made it pretty clear regarding trends in the loan loss provision and propensity to pay really no instability or whatever, pick your, I guess it's a noun there. Any additional color you'd like to provide of what you've seen with the new issuances? And then secondly, a follow-up, if you can give us a little color on expectations, compare and contrast tour growth versus VPG for 2Q and or the rest of the year.

Yeah, no, absolutely. So I'll jump in on the portfolio, and then I'm sure Mark will have some thoughts on VPG and tour. But with regards to portfolio, we're really pleased with the performance. I mean, we have a very consistently strong performing portfolio. And if you think about the balance of the portfolio, it's increased year-over-year by almost 8%. The annualized default rates have decreased by about 10 basis points. And as we talked about in our prepared remarks, the early-stage delinquencies are stable to improving. Specifically, even post-quarter close, when we look at our early-stage delinquency rates by portfolio, know, HCV is performing even better. It's down 7% from a delinquency perspective. Diamond is down 10%. Blue-green is stable, and, you know, their early, early stage delinquency, that zero to 30 day mark, is actually at a four-year low and has improved 11% subsequent to even quarter in. So that's with all the geopolitical noise, which is, you know, very encouraging. And as you probably recall mid-year last year we changed the underwriting process for blue green to allow for an enhancement uh in equity being put down initially so the the actual blue green equity at the table is up 50 compared to 2024 levels so really pleased with all that performance so when we look at the provision uh sequentially we dropped from 18 to just under 15 percent right in line with our expectations. We're right in that mid-team level where we expect it to be. So we're really pleased with how that's all coming together.

Yeah, and Patrick, on the VPG front, say, first of all, the teams are doing a great job in moving in the right direction on the demand front. You know, we called out on the last call we expected, And we saw owner VPG headwinds as we lapped max for blue-green. So pretty much all the VPG pressure was related to the max and blue-green launch. But importantly, the teams drove nice growth in new buyer sales and transactions through TorFlow. We were up 8% year-over-year on new buyer transactions. So anyways, VPG headwinds were offset. by that healthy offset with the foot traffic. So, and importantly, what we saw is margin expansion, which is really encouraging, especially in a quarter where, you know, some of the real estate KPIs would have suggested margin deterioration. So, as we focus, you know, for Q2 and beyond, our focus is really balancing, you know, healthy TOR growth with a sustainable BPG growth over time, and we expect that balance to improve as we move through the year with headwinds, really, until we lap the tough comps at the end of – all in all, pleased with how the teams have managed through the expected headwinds that we anticipated on the – on our BPGs.

Great. Thank you, both of you, for the color, and I will see you at ARDA.

The next question is from Ben Shakin from Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Hi. This is Rita Chandellian for Ben. Thank you for taking our question. Could you please elaborate on the Inventory Optimization Initiative, and do you see more opportunities beyond the eight resorts that's currently identified? And then as our follow-up, could you also elaborate on Ilara, which adds $20 million in the $26 guide? And we would have thought there's a longer-term inventory play from just benefiting from the mix of own inventory from fee-for-service. Any color there would be helpful. Thank you.

Yep. Definitely didn't sound like Ben, so thanks for – look, very – you know, we're in a really strong inventory position. following a decade of building quality and scale into our portfolio. And as we've talked about in the past, we picked up a lot of really good inventory and acquisitions in a lot of great markets. And the optimization that we laid out today and what we'll talk through today is really driven by financial considerations. It's driven by the rebranding, you know, the ability to rebrand these properties. It didn't make sense, and market overlap. So, consistent with what we said in the past, we knew that some of the acquired inventory in these acquisitions wouldn't fit. From a deal standpoint, you know, we mentioned we entered an agreement on the disposition of the P8 property. And there's a number of closing conditions, but we're confident that we'll get that achieved. The economic benefits really is about transferring the ongoing developer maintenance obligation, and Dan covered off on that 10 to 12 main run rate and net even benefit once completed. So, again, that's run rate, and these deals won't be, you know, we won't get this finalized until probably sometime in the third quarter. So, yeah, all in all, pleased with this. As far as, you know, talking about any future opportunities, we're really focused on executing this transaction, which will have a significant benefit for us. And we're going to continue to be very deliberate in our steps to optimize our portfolio. And, you know, this is not about shrinking. It's about upgrading the portfolio. We're monetizing lower quality inventory well, you know, improving the margin and cash flow. So on the Alara front, and I'll let Dan, you know, touch on the numbers here. But, you know, Alara is our flagship property in Las Vegas. And we have 38,000 owners, and we operate it. And it's been super productive for us and a very productive and strategic market for us. And, you know, Las Vegas has been a core drug engine for the company for multiple decades. And we're excited about this. This is a classic tail acquisition at the right point in the asset's life cycle. And it strategically aligns tightly with, you know, our owner-centric and new buyer strategies. So, you know, a lot has been very popular with new buyers. And importantly, when you think about what this does, okay, this transaction allows us to unlock all those owners that are sitting within the Alara ownership base. And now they have the potential to upgrade out of that project because historically, over the last, you know, 15 years, they've been upgrading within the Alara project. Now they can upgrade outside of it, and simultaneously it allows our members to upgrade into Alara. So, anyways, super excited about this one, and Dan, I don't know if you want to touch on any of the details on the numbers.

Yeah, no, I can definitely add some color on that. I mean, we talked about the benefit for the year being close to $20 million, but when you think about the transaction in general, we're also picking up from, you know, included in that $20 million clearly, But we're also picking up a consumer note portfolio net of impaired that's north of $400 million, so a material increase to the portfolio balance. When you think about other projects that are out there, this is not our only fee-for-service transaction. But to Mark's earlier point, this is a single-site transaction. We do have a partner that we've been working with for, you know, over a decade at this point in South Carolina with a series of resorts in Myrtle Beach, Charleston, South Carolina, even one here in Orlando. And so it's a different environment, though. So we're not, you know, we're not close to acquiring the tail on that. That's probably anywhere from four to seven years out, just depending on how that runs through. But it will change our fee-for-service percentage. You know, we were in the mid-teens, and it will bring us below 10% with us closing on ALARA.

Thank you both. The next question is from David Katz from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Recognizing that sometimes the press reports can overstate these things, but there definitely was some weather late in 1Q and early 2Q in Hawaii. What are you seeing and or hearing? Is some of that overstated?

Is there some impact that we should be noting? yeah look uh yeah definitely some unusual weather in the corner and you know look i lived in hawaii for 27 years it's called the kona low and and you get this these type of storms about every 20 years but i can tell you our teams did a really good job managing through the challenges and to minimize the impact uh the impact was larger on arrivals than it was for sales and and you know for instance if you look at Maui, Maui, which got hit pretty hard, was actually one of our strongest performing sales markets this quarter. So, again, the team did a really good job, but if you look at, you know, overall the weather impacts between the ice storms in the northeast, some of the colder temperatures in Florida and Hawaii, the impact was about $5 million in revenue, with the majority of that being in contract sales and the balance and rentals. So, yeah. So I'd say it's not material for us, but, you know, I think the teams did a good job managing.

And just following that up, I assume that that's, you know, that minimal impact is reflected in, you know, whatever guidance and you're not, you know, preparing for anything, you know, further, anything ongoing. It is a one-time thing.

That's correct, yeah.

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

The next question is from Trey Bowers from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Nick Weichel on for Trey. I just have a really strong new owner performance in the quarter. I was kind of just curious what's driving that. What are you guys doing that's resonating with your owner base, new buyers, And, you know, with this and the inventory optimization program and the rebranding cycle you're going through, do you think you're approaching a period where maybe you could put up, like, sustained positive NOG? Any detail would be great.

Yeah, no. Well, first of all, you know, really pleased with that we saw, you know, three percentage points are all very, very positive. And then, you know, we've also talked about just absolute new buyers coming in. pretty impressive on a relative basis. One of the things that we've really been striving on and the teams are doing, and on the other side, you know, the value proposition. And so, all in all, feel really good about that. You know, I think on NOG, NOG in the near term is more a mechanical outcome of recapture. And ultimately, you know, that's going to improve our cash flow and returns. And, you know, what matters for us is EBITDA and lifetime value creation, and both of which we continue to grow. So, you know, we'll get back to Positive Nogget at some point, but, you know, some of this recapture is healthy, but the trends on new buyers is, you know, we're pleased with.

Great. Thank you.

The next question is from Stephen Grambling from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hey, thank you. Just wanted to go back to effectively the disposition or the optimization of the clubs. Is this something that we should be thinking about more consistently going forward, or is this more of a one-off? When you were looking at these clubs, was the reason to think about the dispositions mainly because of changes in the individual market, or is there something when you just think through the structural dynamic of the way these are set up where the HOAs just won't kind of cover the maintenance capex over time? Thank you.

Yeah, look, there's a lot of considerations, a lot of, you know, analysis that goes into this, Stephen. I'd say, you know, first of all, you know, the average age of these properties are 38 years old, right? And that is a decision, but when you look at the overlap, four of the eight are in Orlando, and, you know, we have 19 properties in Orlando were picked up through the acquisitions, and so these are, I would say, are the smaller properties and the older properties that, when you look from a rebranding perspective, just did not financially make sense. And so, and then when you look at just kind of the makeup of, you know, the inventory or the base of owners in here, the mass majority of the owners were in the trust. So, they remain in the trust. So, there's not a lot of legacy owners. There's less than 300 legacy owners in these properties. And we're going to be offering them, you know, a compelling opportunity to remain into the club or join the club. But these are legacy members that are not part of the club today. So really not a lot of work that had to be done to get past that. I don't know, Dan, if you have anything else.

Yeah, I mean, I think the only thing I'd add is, you know, very similar to Mark's earlier comment. You know, we always viewed a number of resorts that were not going to be rebranded. So when you think about this, hey, is this a one-off or is this something that we're consistently going to be doing? I'd say it's somewhere in between in the sense that this is, you know, an initial set of properties that we've identified. But it's not something that you'll hear from us every single quarter on. Will there be more? Yes. Probably at some point in the next 12 or 24 months, there'll be more. But it's not something that you'll see us do on an annual basis consistently going forward.

Yeah, and just to maybe finish up on this particular question, I think we're in a very good inventory position. You know, we're above our long-term targets, which will support a lot of strong free cash flow going forward. But importantly, when you look at our brand stack and the way we're structured now, when you go from luxury, which are with our Hilton Club brands, If you look at the property that we're selling right now in Kohaku, we're getting $175,000 average per week. Now, you go down to the other side of it, and that is really being sold to a much more mature customer, I'd say boomers, portions of the Gen X. These are people that have higher net worth. And then we have the blue-green acquisition. It really gives us a really good product where we're attracting a lot of newer, younger buyers into the system. So we like our branding position. We like our inventory position. This is really, as I mentioned before, it's not about cleaning. It's not about shrinking. It's about upgrading the overall portfolio to better fit our strategy.

So maybe one quick follow-up, just to make sure I understand. So if we think about the club and resort management side then, do you generally expect that segment to grow going forward over the long term? Because I guess this is always a segment that I think was touted as kind of, I don't want to say bulletproof, but effectively a perpetuity because you just kind of have inflationary growth every single year. Is any of that changing, or should we think that this is static? Thank you.

No, I don't think you should think of this as static. This is going to be a segment that will continue to grow over time. I think we had a couple one-time things this first quarter, but to jump into any of that. But, you know, we're expecting to grow this segment, and it's a high-margin part of our business. And, you know, so we're very pleased with that. Yeah, no, I think that's right, Mark.

I mean, we don't look at this being stacked. We look at growth opportunities. You know, the net result of this impacting resort club and rental is, you know, clearly a positive from a cash flow basis, and it's making the organization not only from a portfolio's perspective, but also from an owner's perspective, a healthier and stronger position.

Thank you so much.

The next question is from Chris Waronka from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions and for all the details so far. You covered a lot of ground. I was hoping we could maybe zoom in for a minute on, you know, some of the issues that will impact your margins, which, you know, I think were maybe a little bit better than you expected in Q1. And I'm really talking about kind of, you know, staffing levels and marketing. And maybe if you could just give us a few words on each of those. You know, are you satisfied with where the budgets are? Or is there anything that concerns you with, you know, staff attrition or turnover? Or is marketing in line with where you thought based on demand levels? And then I have a follow-up.

Sure. No, I mean, I think when you think about Q1, you think about the outperformance and the margin expansion. There was some element of timing of certain expenses, but we had really strong performance both in sales and marketing expense as well as the financing business. So some of that, you know, some of that trending does carry forward into Q2, 3, and 4. What I would say is, you know, you also have, you know, there is a bit of a mix. So things are going to come in like we originally expected, just in a different way. Clearly, on the financing side, I think everyone would readily recognize it. You know, when we gave guidance, we did not anticipate the conflict that we currently see in Iran and its impact on interest rates. So that clearly is priced into our ABS deals going forward a little bit higher than we originally anticipated this year. But we feel we're in a good, strong position there. And from a personnel perspective, I also feel that we're in a good spot.

Okay, perfect. Thanks, Dan. And then, you know, maybe if we can just circle back for a moment to, you know, some of the LLP. I know you've answered a lot of questions on it. I think it all makes sense, but is there any way that maybe if we, if we drill down a little bit to get more granularity up and, you know, are you seeing any change in trends, whether it's a legacy blue, green or legacy diamond, you know, legacy HGV, are you seeing any trends with, you know, demographics or geographic areas? Just curious as to whether, you know, we can, we can maybe, you know, put to bed some of these concerns about, you know, things, things that are concerns that are out there that haven't yet materialized or trends you would call out on a more granular level?

Yeah, I mean, look, I think there's two things worth highlighting here. One, you know, it wouldn't be timeshare if it wasn't a little bit complicated. So when you think about our loan loss provision, it's always going to be dependent upon, if you ignore macro for a second, for us specifically, it's going to be dependent upon the mix of the product that we sell. So the more trust we sell, the higher the actual provision will be, because that's our entry-level product, and that bears a higher provision. The more deed we sell, the lower the provision will be. In this particular quarter, we had a higher mix of trust being sold, which led to a slightly higher provision, especially if you look year over year. Sequentially, directionally, and absolutely, it landed right in line where we expected it to be. But that always has a little give and take. Now, you get a little benefit because the more trust we sell, it has a lower cost of product. So you'll see that we had a lower cost of product in Q1 year over year as well. So there's that dynamic. But when you think about trending and the overall stats that we're seeing in the new originations as well as our historical originations, like I said, we are very, you know, our wool is performing extremely well. No deterioration. It's solid performance, and I think that is also well-received in the ABS markets. The deal that we closed just a few weeks ago happened to be on one of the days that Trump was saying X, Y, and Z, and we still increased the actual offering from $400 million to $500 million and had strong investor demand. Even with the detrench, we priced just at $5.13 million in that kind of environment. So that is all, in our minds, extremely encouraging.

Okay. I appreciate all the color. Thanks, guys.

This concludes the question and answer session. Before we end, I will turn the call back over to Mark Wang for any closing remarks. Mr. Wang?

All right. Well, thank you again for joining the call today to our members and team members around the globe. Thank you for making HEV a part of your story. We look forward to updating you on our Q2 call. Have a great day.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.