Well, this is going to be the last fireside of the day, and who better to round it out than Hilton Grand Vacations and President and CFO Dan Matthews. Dan, thanks for doing this.

Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

Just from a long-term standpoint, you've articulated an algorithm. People always use algorithm for consistent top-line growth, EBITDA growing faster, and strong free cash flow conversion. you know what are some of the major puts and takes to think about within that as we look at 2026 and the guidance that you've outlined i think it's eight percent at the midpoint after you raised your your expectations after one q versus the kind of typical algorithm or is this

the is 2026 would you say a kind of normal year no 2026 is definitely not a normal year i think when you roll into 27 that's when we get to a more normalized algorithm uh i think when you think about helton grand vacations i think it's a very interesting time for us um this year we're lapping the launch of hcv max to the blue greener excuse me the blue green organization that um we launched um november 8th of 2025 so relatively tough comps the first three quarters and then returning to growth into cube four when you think about from a vpg perspective But also, just from an organization standpoint, you know, over the past five or six years, we've acquired two organizations at a very robust inventory spend and coupled with a heavy level of integration work. So when you think about the organization today, you know, the company's almost tripled its size, more stable environment. We're in an environment where the inventory spend is coming down materially from a neighborhood of $400 million to closer to $300 million. In addition to that, integration spend, which last year was roughly $200 million, is coming down to $150 million.

Next year, we'll drop to $75 million and then completely disappear.

year. So this return to algorithm, as well as a substantial source of cash flow from less investment in both inventory and integration, I think is pretty meaningful. And I think it's a good time

to look at HGV. Yeah, inflection and free cash flow. Sounds good. When you think outside just the financials, what are some of the four differences that you would describe or ascribe to quilting grain vacations versus others in the timeshare industry, or even if you look maybe more broadly at the lodging ecosystem?

Sure. Look, I would like to think about more of the vacation space in general. And when you think about our product, I think we're uniquely positioned. People constantly, or at least in the last year, I mean, the rhetoric about the K-shaped economy has been fairly robust. And our product is uniquely positioned to allow you to modulate between the high arc or the low arc. If it's a great year, you have the ability to lay flats all the way to Hawaii, stay in a great resort, go out to eat every night, spend money on every short version you possibly can think of, and spend that $40,000 family vacation. At the same time, if it is not that robust of a year for you and you're an existing owner, you can drive to Myrtle Beach, use the kitchen, 90% of our units have kitchens, use the kitchen, have a very economical stay, sit by the swimming pool or the beach, have a great time, and you can do that year after year without changing your ownership whatsoever. So the value proposition, the flexibility, and the optionality that our product provides, I think, puts us in a unique perspective within the industry itself, vacation industry itself. Within the industry, I think we're able to capitalize on our ultimate access, our experiential programs that we have out there to really provide a unique offering to our owner base.

um so that all sounds good so we've went through the algorithm free cash flow inflection getting at the k shape top of the k shape we can kind of pivot between different brands what keeps you up at night or what do you think are the the general risks or competitive threats

that you try to think about um facing the business and work around so naturally i mean i think people think about um sales right i think as investors they naturally look what is sales going to do And I would tell you that our sales force is the best in the industry, and it's amazing what they can produce. When people ask me what keeps me up at night, it's really more tour flow than anything else. Where are those leads going to come from? And we have an amazing partnership with Hilton. The partnership is 100% variable, so what is good for us is good for them. So when we come with an idea that will help drive tour flow from that partnership, they are all ears. We are also looking to expand partnerships. With the acquisition of Blue Green, we acquired a JV with Bass Pro. We also acquired a sales and marketing agreement with Bass Pro. We're in virtually every Bass Pro store out there. That provides us another touch point with the consumer. This one, not a call transfer program, which is very much akin to what we have at Hilton, but an opportunity to see people face-to-face and sell them a package, which is also very consistent with the program that we run with Hilton. If you go to a Hilton in a location where we're not located, in some cases it's locations that we do have product, if you go to the concierge, it's not unlikely that at some point during that conversation, after they help you getting a dinner reservation or whatever it might be, that they will attempt to sell you a package. That's because that's a Hilton Grand Vacation employee sitting in a Hilton hotel driving another touchpoint. We have other partnerships that are meaningful, Japanese airlines, Hawaii Airlines, through Alaska Airlines now, also Great Wolf, but really expanding the opportunity to drive tour flow, in particular new buyer tour flow, to get more people into the system. That's a real focal point that we've had in our DNA, so to speak.

I think you're a little over 70% existing owners in terms of contract sales currently.

What is the right mix?

And as you're thinking about that workflow, should we anticipate that you're going to go after more of these partnerships, or is it more about monetizing what you have?

A combination of both. So when you think about the mix, we would be happier with a mix of new buyers approaching 35% versus the 30% that we sit today. From a tour flow growth perspective, we are always looking for opportunistic partnerships that make sense on both ends. But, again, we will look to monetize our existing owner base where it makes sense. And a great example of that is the recent transaction that we did with Blackstone where we acquired Alara. That came with 38,000 owners who had a lot of equity in that project itself. In Alara, there was $1.9 billion worth of equity in that fee-for-service deal. With the closing of that transaction, those owners now have the ability to upgrade out. And just as importantly, we have owners outside of that ecosystem that can upgrade in. And so, holistically, it creates an interesting environment for us. So, that's just another focal point of it.

Do you generally view that as kind of a better return profile than greenfield development? Are there other opportunities that look like that that are out there that you could pursue?

So, that particular relationship, we had structured the deal to always allow us to step in and buy the tail of that inventory. that transaction we stepped into that attraction back in 2011 we own 25 percent of the entity they own 75 percent and as you can imagine you know blackstone is while they were in the business of timeshare using our name as a brand name uh you know being in uh timeshare in perpetuity it's not their core business so naturally made sense for us to step in and buy that are there other opportunities like that, we do have other fee-for-service partners that we would probably look to buy out. Just given where they are in their life cycle, it's probably five, seven years away before we consider it. There's a little bit of runway. A lot of runway. Yeah, but I mean, today, fee-for-service makes a dramatically smaller piece of our business than it did pre-COVID. Pre-COVID, it was closer to 50% today. Prior to the Alara transaction, it was just under 20% post a LARA transaction will be in the low double digits.

Are there opportunities to improve costs or even conversion rates as we think about existing versus new buyers?

Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, that's part of some of the initiatives that we have honed since the acquisition of Diamond in particular. but you know I think this speaks heavily to ultimate access ultimate access is the experiential platform that we are using to curate and drive higher owner demand effectively we provide an opportunity for owners to have a great experience and when people come and stay with us and have a great experience they tend to buy more and the VP G's on owners at tour that have experience in ultimate access. Significantly outperform owners who tour who have not come on experiential platforms.

Is there an upper bound in terms of how many upgrades you can have in the system or how to think about where you are in that life cycle of upgrades? Sure, there's always a

balancing act. I mean, at some point you can sell timeshare to someone to the point where it just doesn't economically make sense. So we try to be very cognizant of that. We're trying to sell a balance. When you come in, we cannot dictate what you're going to buy. We try to analyze what your position is in our particular ecosystem, what your likes are, what your dislikes are, and we sell you what we believe is the most opportune product for you. Or, in many cases, an owner, an experienced owner, they know exactly what they want to buy, and we're happy to provide that.

How would you characterize the demand environment today? There's a lot of questions and concerns around fuel prices, interest rates, et cetera. Is that spilling over? I realize you're at the higher end of the K-shape. There's probably some exposure to, as you said, higher airfare. But what are you seeing from a demand environment now? And then how might that compare as you think about it longer term?

So from a demand environment, what I would tell you is I think the acquisitions of both Diamond and, to a lesser degree, blue-green have been very helpful from a risk perspective in particular on oil price when I think about it and I think about oil going pick your mark three dollars gas going from three dollars a gallon to five dollars a gallon does it is that impactful I think it is not I'm not trying to be tone-deaf to it but I do I am a big believer in the fact that if prices go up two dollars per gallon Does that change your decision to take a vacation, in particular, to a drive-to market? I think the answer is no. We're fortunate that about 70% of our owners live within a four-hour drive of one of our properties, which I think is very helpful.

Does it change your perspective?

Does it allow you to modulate, to get back to that first comment that we were talking about, to change your perspective on do I go to Hawaii versus do I go to Gatlinburg or Virginia Beach or Myrtle Beach? But it's all about optionality, and that's why we think we're –

One of the other announcements that you had was around inventory optimization, and this is something that one of your peers has also talked to, and I guess there's a little bit of a back and forth that I think about. One is that this has been a segment about club management that has been viewed as high visibility recurring. But then at the same time, we're removing some of these from the base. But it seems like it's a positive from an EBITDA standpoint. So help us understand kind of what drove that review and how you think about maybe the ideal portfolio composition from here.

Well, I think when you look at Hilton Grand Vacations over the last five years, we've been dealing with a lot of integration with the two acquisitions. One of, you know, part of that narrative that we've had since the beginning of the acquisition of Diamond is acquired 92 resorts. Diamond was a culmination of, I believe, roughly 12 acquisitions. Not all of those resorts were of the same stature. Not all of those resorts were going to be rebranded. We've always talked about almost a couple of dozen not being rebranded. And some of those, due to the fact that they just need the investment required to put the Hilton brand on that, just did not make sense financially from our perspective. So when we had a chance to breathe, I was doing a little bit more focal work on the inventory portfolio, and the first thing we did was, okay, let's look at properties that, from a cash flow perspective, negative. The rental cannot offset, rental combined with the resort management fee cannot offset the developer maintenance fees. Do we have any of those negative properties? Are they branded Hilton or are they not branded Hilton? If they're not, move up the chain on a decision point. Is there a potential for a special assessment for those who actually do own those properties? Because in that kind of scenario, it doesn't really behoove them as well, those individual owners. Is it a property that is highly utilized by our owner base? If not, you also move up that decision. So we identified eight resorts that were kind of, lack of a better term, low-hanging fruit, the easy ones to identify, and we've entered into an agreement with a third party to step into our shoes and ultimately sell those. Now, to avoid any confusion, this is not a growth strategy. This is truly an inventory optimization strategy. Cash flow beneficial to us, ultimately beneficial to owners, no special assessment. They're not being heavily utilized. So trying to maximize the experience for everybody involved. And again, these are properties that were not rebranded already and had no plans for future rebranding. So it's a specific subset when it comes to our particular position. We talked about having some of the best

sales folks in the industry, there's been some commentary back and forth about, A, is there peers that are trying to get, be more aggressive with getting sales people and are you seeing that impact, you know, your retention metrics or are you seeing any change in compensation structure associated with sales folks in the industry? So, are they in the room here? Because they are here somewhere at the conference. There has been one competitor

Raise your hand. Yeah, exactly. There's been one competitor who's been very vocal about it.

And, look, what I would tell you is you can walk through any of our sales centers,

and you'll find individuals who've worked for travel and leisure, who've worked for Marriott Vacations. And I'm sure the same is if you walk through their sales. We want to protect, and do we want to retain our best salespeople? Without a doubt. Will we take initiatives to do so? Of course we will. But at the end of the day, ultimately, you see movement across the spectrum on any given day. So something that we focus on, of course, but it's normal, of course.

You talked to trying to drive incremental new tour flow, new owner flow. How have distribution channels changed over time? And are there new ways that you're thinking about trying to go after the new owners that you see as the biggest opportunities to improve?

So I think that goes back to our earlier conversation around driving new partnerships, et cetera. Now, if you want to focus on, you know, one of our, you know, one of the most important partnership we have, which is with Hilton, And if you go back to 2008 and, you know, progress nicely through the time frame, but just call transfer program with Hilton was very robust, a game changer in the industry, without a doubt. But I'd also, if I were to wager, I would imagine everybody in this room, you know, when's the last time people actually called a hotel? It's probably a lot fewer today than it was five years ago, definitely ten years ago, et cetera. so how do you capture those call transfers some of those some of those methods are going to new forms or digital focused on that and another way is looking at different ways to attack the same footprint back in 2015 we were not doing field package sales with Hilton that's where we sit as their concierge so you enhance programs like that to maximize package sales as well as a partnership program.

Follow-up to the making a call to a hotel, which is when was the last time anybody has called a hotel and not had to say representative almost immediately to try to get a human on the phone very quickly. Maybe turning to margins, what are the primary opportunities, both near-term and long-term, to improve the real estate contribution margins as we think about cost of product versus marketing versus other costs?

Well, I think when you think about our inventory strategy, going forward and you contrast that sharply to where we were in 2017 and 2018 at that point in time we were an organization that did about 400 million dollars in even done we had an inventory program that at the time in 2018 we made a commitment to about a billion eight in image all construction and or conversion what you see us focus on very much today is looking for very capital efficient doesn't mean that we're going to focus only on recaptured inventory although that will be a very large component going forward we still do new builds or conversions one excellent example of that is a property that we've entered into an agreement with in Nashville we structured it it's a just in time transaction where we can match cash inflows and outflows based on demand that we see for the product in this particular instance we've also built an Additional flexibility and where we can take that inventory as early as 2028 Defer it all to 2033 so having that kind of flexibility I think is Again focus on the Recaptured inventory also drives a lower cost of product recaptured inventory generally speaking will Have a cost of product in the neighborhood of five percent depending on certain nuances it could be as just out the 10%, but it's in that ballpark, versus new construction, which typically speaking in our experience has been closer to 25% to even as high as 30%.

What's like the natural churn of the owner base at this point?

Well, if you look at our annualized default rate, it's meaningfully higher than it was prior to acquisition, but that's very consistent with what the acquisitions were meant to accomplish. We have an entry price point now, which is clearly geared towards a lower net worth, a lower household income demographic.

That also comes with a higher delinquency and a higher default rate.

So, you know, it's part of the business. But when you think about the natural churn, I think about the annualized default rate. And prior to any acquisition, you know, it was as high as 6%, and today it's slightly over 10%.

But that, you have a large percentage of your owners who have already paid off.

Oh, yeah, for sure. It's a small increase in total. Including just the natural attrition. The natural attrition with legacy HCV was in the neighborhood of 2% to 3%, and it's probably north of 5% plus with the acquisitions. That you get to recapture. Okay, fair enough. And on that front, just to remind the audience, I mean, we are in a period of accelerated capture right now. just because during COVID, both Diamond and, to a lesser degree, Blue-Green paused their recapture. So we are catching up on those that were halted.

That's helpful. Since you're talking about defaults, let's turn to the financing portfolio a little bit. There's been some debate, it seems like, over the trend line of delinquencies. Even investors might be reading the Wall Street Journal and hearing about delinquencies for credit cards moving higher. What are you seeing in your portfolio that helps you think about the health of the consumer and the health of the financing receivables?

You know, when you look at the environment today, I think you see a lot of strength in the consumer more so than I think you would have assumed you would have seen given all the dynamics that are going on today. But, you know, construction is strong. Unemployment is still low. So we, as we talked about on our last call, we saw delinquencies, typically what we look for to be a leading indicator of future performance is that 30- to 60-day bucket. We saw those stable to even improving year over year. We saw our annualized default rate year over year improve, honestly, but an improvement nonetheless. So we see strength. So we also are very focused on improving the underlying dynamics of that portfolio. So during the course of the last 12 months, we've actually changed our underwriting practices to enhance the equity at the table. One of the – It's been more? It's been more. So not uncommon in the industry, but there was a program that Blue Green was running where they allowed people to upgrade without any additional equity down. We eliminated that late last year, Q2, and we're now requiring additional equity down.

So slippery slope with no equity down.

It's a slippery slope. You definitely see an increase in defaults.

You'll see optics on the contract sales, but we'll pay for it later. You need to have a no-free cash flow potential.

So really requiring that extra equity down has helped us. In fact, cash down at the table for blue-green is 50% higher than where it was in 2024.

So with that all in mind, I guess there's the legacy portfolio, the new portfolio, where you're changing things versus where it was before. What was the implication then for what the right kind of provision is for this combined portfolio and how that might evolve over time?

I think if you looked at the three companies separately and just did the math that what would the weighted average loan loss provision be on a basis or on an analyzed basis, rather, you would have seen that the combined entity would probably be close to 20 percent, plus or minus. And given the changes in the underwriting practices that we've made at both Diamond and Blue Green, coupled with some enhancements from a sales practice standpoint, we feel that the appropriate loan provision is that mid-team.

Great. You also articulated a financing optimization program where you're going to be targeting a 70%, 80%, I believe, securitization of receivables. Just remind us of how that structure works. What drove the change there? and how it impacts liquidity and access to cash.

Yeah, no, we had historically at Hilton Grand Vacations not been as robust of an ABS issuer as some of our competitors. That started to change at the time it's been, and we've got a very robust platform now. Even today, we've been one of the innovators. In particular, you probably saw last year, we introduced timeshare securitizations to the Japanese financial market. It was effectively creating a new financial instrument in Japan. And it was a healthy offering, 9.5 billion yen, 85 million U.S. Sounds better when you say it in the end. But the interest rate is extremely favorable to the U.S. The interest rate on that deal is 1.4%. The most recent transaction that we did in the U.S., the $500 million deal in April, and that was at 5.13%. So clearly the interest rate arbitrage is that front. And I'm sorry, I think I dodged your question completely.

No, no, so how does that lie?

Oh, the finance business optimization. So we're much more of a serial issuer today than we were, and we're actually at 70%, a little north of 70% of people securitized today. And it was really trying to annualize that where we're consistently at that level. And we've used that cash to fund integration as well as share repurchases. And we're effectively at that run rate. And by the end of the second quarter, we'll have that fully finalized.

When we think about, so clearly you can get a little bit more consistency in terms of tapping that cash flow. So is there any change in terms of how to think about the cyclicality of your free cash flow then because of this? Like, does this actually reduce cyclicality? In the long term, it ultimately will.

In the short term, you still have a nuance in between timing.

Is there any cost differential for this relative to just tapping the situation?

Yes, there is, and that's why we indicated when we originally launched this that this would cost us around $25.

going back to the Japan because that's a lower cost one do you have to hedge that and two is that something that you'll pursue simultaneously with this and there's still opportunity to continue to build

on it? There's still an opportunity to build on it. We have about 75,000 owners in Japan so we're well positioned to do that what I would tell you is it's a bit of a competitive advantage today being able to tap that market but that's not what we want it to be We really want our peer set and group issue securitizations in Japan. The more liquidity, the more knowledge about the product, the healthier it will be for all of us. Now, that being said, we recognize we have to be the pioneers just given our structure versus our competitive set. So we'll be back in the Japanese market this year. We're changing the structure of the original transaction. The original transaction was Japanese owners and borrowers with Japanese asset backing that facility. The next deal will be Japanese owners that have Japanese collateral as well as U.S. collateral. And ultimately, we're looking to bring in U.S. borrowers and U.S. collateral into that mix, too. And by the time we do the third or fourth deal, hopefully some of our competitors will be coming into the market, too. The more liquidity, the better. So we're very excited about the opportunity. Great.

We haven't touched on the rental side of the house yet. Still running at a loss on that segment specifically. It used to be positive, but I know there's been some changes in terms of the dynamics there. So what should we be thinking about in terms of the trajectory of that business? What could profitability look like we're even getting to break even?

Yeah, no, I mean, we're focused on getting to break even at this point. Most of the loss is associated with the developer maintenance. So things like asset dispositions will help optimize that. But the true driver of that is really selling through the available inventory that we have available for sale.

That lowers, obviously, our obligation and becomes the owner's obligation.

That's what will drive that. Other elements that will help that is rebranding some of the properties. We're still in the process of rebranding some of the diamond properties. To Hilton, those are predominantly European-based. But when we put the Hilton name on a property, we see an ADR lift. We also see a benefit from the cost side. We'll move away from OTAs and typically move towards Hilton.com. That has a lower cost structure for us. It all goes through the rental side of things. And we acquired 50 properties with Blue Green. To date, we've only rebranded 11. I think we're on number 12 now. So there's still a lot of work to do on that front, too. I would look for the rental business to still run at a loss this year and probably next as well. But it's really the developer maintenance obligation that pulls that loss more so than anything.

What's the potential timing on additional conversions or how many conversions do you think you have left?

And what's the decision process for conversions from – sorry, converting to Hilton brand? We will continue to convert to the Hilton brand through all of 27, and a few properties will slip into 28. There's several dozen left to go.

And that sounds like that's one of the big swing factors for the rental.

It's one of the swing factors. The biggest swing factor is the amount of inventory we have available. Look, when we acquired Diamond, we walked in with eyes open, and we knew we acquired excess inventory, four years of excess inventory. So it takes going through that and optimizing the inventory, too.

What is your current owner occupancy and rental occupancy?

So when you look at our annualized occupancy rates, generally speaking, assume a resort has occupancy of 85 points. Owners will account for about 50 points of that 85 points. Out of the 35 points left, oversimplify it a bit, but roughly half are going to be associated with marketing packages, assuming it's a property with a sales center. And the other half is basically FIT, you know, typical hotel.

What do you think is like an optimal occupancy for both?

No, I think that is where we're running. You can tweak it, perhaps, to a little bit more owner to drive owner sales, but it ebbs and flows between 45 and 50. But it depends on the market. Some markets without a sales center, you'll have more opportunity to rent rooms, but at the same time, if it's a desired location, you want to make sure the utility of the owner is there as well.

You just talked about this reduction in inventory, selling through the inventory over time. What's the right level, kind of talked about this in the very beginning, but thinking about maintenance, inventory spend, we look long-term.

So we believe to support $3.5 billion in contract sales and Boeing, that that $300 million mark on average is probably where we would expect it. Which, again, is obviously materially lower than where we were in 2018 and with a dramatically smaller entity at the time and clearly lower than where we've been in the past few years.

So turning to artificial intelligence has been a topic across this entire conference. how do you think about what the implications are for your business and what are the ways that you're trying to leverage AI to either drive revenue, drive margins, and which is a bigger opportunity?

I think there's opportunities on both fronts. Which one to talk about first? You know, part of it is also just lowering the friction with our owners, maintaining maximum utility of the product. What I would tell you is, you know, we're making a lot of investments. Part of the integration that we're doing, a lot of that investment is associated with technology infrastructure. And while this is an example that I've probably given for about a year because I think it's very meaningful. But a year ago, if you logged into our website and you wanted to go to Orlando, we could be July 15th. Type it in. It would say, okay, books. You can't go. and then you would have to randomly find the location today if you do the same thing it gives you by 15th you have X number of points here's your top three suggestions the next opportunity is going to be hey we also have access to your Hilton honors database we know where you travel we should be able to ascertain what is for vacation what is for work travel those start to populate recommendation and then at some point in time assuming people opt-in will have access to social media even loves to golf that will properties with golf courses start to populate so it's elements like that to help drive utility uh for the owner which i think will help decrease default rates which will be hugely meaningful there's clearly the opportunity on the cost side as well what does a chatbot do today versus what does it do next week how can you maximize that i think it'll be a bit of an evolution because i think to your point i I mean, you mentioned it earlier, how many people call and immediately say, agent, try to get to a real person, right? Now, with AI handling some of the calls where you may very well be able to tell the operator is an agent, but they're actually being productive and solving a problem. I think the evolution you'll see is people being more willing to call in because their answers are being responded to, which will drive demand for that call, which will allow real people to handle the most complicated problems until such time AI can handle it all. So there will be efficiencies over time. I think it's an evolution. Awesome.

We're just about at time unless anybody wants to throw in a question.

Brave souls.

All right, well, please join me in thanking Dan and all his insights on Hilton Grand Vacations. Appreciate your time.