RLJ Lodging Trust Q2 FY2020 Earnings Call

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to RLJ Lodging Trust 2020 second quarter earnings call. On today’s call, Leslie Hale, our President and Chief Executive Officer will discuss key highlights for the quarter; Sean Mahoney, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer will discuss the company’s financial results; Tom Bardenett, our Executive Vice President of Asset Management will be available for Q&A. Forward-looking statements made on this call are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that may lead the company’s actual results to differ materially from what had been communicated. Factors that may impact the results of the company can be found in the company’s 10-Q and other reports filed with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements. Also, as we discuss certain non-GAAP measures, it may be helpful to review the reconciliations to GAAP located in our press release from last night. I will now turn the call over to Leslie.

Thanks, Nikhil. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We hope that you and your loved ones are remaining healthy during these unprecedented times. We would also like to express a great deal of gratitude to our frontline associates, who continue to prioritize the health and safety of our guests and our corporate associates, who are working tirelessly with our operators to help us navigate these uncertain times. As we anticipated, the second quarter for our industry was dramatically impacted by COVID-19, as much of the country shut down. The lodging industry bottomed in April with the lowest monthly demand in the history of our industry. Demand improved in May and June, which was primarily driven by pent-up leisure demand as corporate and group demand was virtually non-existent. Although we continue to lack clarity on future fundamentals, we believe that the second quarter will be the worst quarter of this year. With respect to our portfolio, occupancy at our open hotels was 24% during the second quarter. Occupancy dropped in April at 15.4% and improved to 24.8% in May and 31.4% in June, mirroring the cadence of the broader industry trends, while highlighting our ability to capture local demand. Although a number of our hotels benefited from the lift in leisure demand in markets such as South Florida, Southern California, and Charleston, many of our hotels remained suspended for a significant portion of the quarter due to state-mandated closures and restrictions. Our urban hotels were particularly impacted by the lack of demand, which limited our second quarter total portfolio occupancy to 11.7%. In light of this challenging background, we executed on a number of critical priorities. First, we remained focused on managing our liquidity and minimizing hotel operating shortfalls to reduce our burn rate. Second, we successfully reopened hotels in a socially and financially responsible manner, including 21 hotels during the second quarter and 15 hotels so far in the third quarter. And finally, we successfully amended our unsecured debt facilities. As we continue to navigate this crisis, preserving liquidity remains our number one priority. At the outset of COVID-19, we have implemented a number of aggressive cost containment initiatives, including reducing staffing levels, closing food and beverage outlets, eliminating all non-essential services and closing floors to reduce room inventory. All of these cost containment efforts remain in place and have limited our burn rate. Our second quarter cash burn was approximately $10 million lower than our expectations due to a combination of higher revenues at hotels that remained open, the reopening of more hotels than we initially expected, and the success of our aggressive cost containment initiatives. Our burn rate improved throughout the quarter as more hotels in our portfolio achieved profitability as demand materialized. During June, approximately 70% of our open hotels achieved positive gross operating profits, and over 40% of our open hotels achieved positive EBITDA. Our success in reducing our burn rate, combined with the steps we took previously to preserve and enhance liquidity, such as limiting our capital expenditures and optimizing our corporate G&A, have strengthened our liquidity position with over $1 billion in cash. Our strong liquidity position gives us the confidence in our ability to navigate through this period of uncertainty. As we outlined last quarter, we developed a thoughtful framework to reopen the 57 hotels that we previously suspended in a socially and financially responsible manner. Our approach is focused on minimizing our operating shortfalls by reopening those hotels that are best positioned to control costs and capture available demand while maintaining guests’ safety in this low occupancy environment. The hotels that best fit this criteria for our select-service assets, all-suite hotels, and hotels located in resort or drive-to markets. As many states began lifting restrictions in May, we began to execute on our plan, which led to the reopening of 36 hotels with 18 of these assets opening in June and 15 opening in July yielding positive results. Our select service hotels achieved 35% occupancy in June, and nearly 40% in July. Our all-suite hotels, including most of our Embassy Suites, achieved 32% occupancy in June and mid-30% occupancy in July, and our resort hotels achieved occupancy of 55% in June and approximately 45% in July, while hotels in our drive-to markets achieved occupancy in the low 30% over these same two months. We are pleased that 80% of our portfolio is now open. The number of properties in the pace at which we were able to reopen, and the level of occupancy that we are seeing underscores the benefits of our portfolio construct. Specifically, we were able to reopen significantly more hotels due to our portfolio's operating cost structure, which allows us to minimize our operating shortfalls even at low occupancy levels. Our all-suite hotels, which represent approximately 50% of our total rooms, are proving to be attractive to guests, especially in a social distancing environment, and our geographically diverse transient-oriented portfolio is ideally positioned to benefit from the lift in early demand in all segments. These portfolio attributes were crucial in allowing us to drive occupancy to our hotels early, as we quickly pivoted to take advantage of all demand that was available. This included near-term leisure demand pockets from existing project base and extended state corporate demand from essential workers and small social groups, such as youth sports teams. Ultimately, the construct of our portfolio and our geographic diversification will not only enable us to navigate this crisis but will also position us to benefit early once the sustainable recovery unfolds. Looking ahead, while no one knows the timing of when we will return to pre-COVID-19 lodging fundamentals, we continue to believe that any form of recovery will likely be slow to build. In order to fully recover to pre-COVID demand levels, the industry needs all three segments to be healthy. For the remainder of the year, given the current resurgence in COVID-19 cases across a number of states, including Florida, Texas, and California, we remain cautious regarding the sustainability of leisure demand, particularly after Labor Day, as well as any recovery in corporate or group demand, which we expect to remain anemic. While we, along with the rest of the industry, are facing extreme challenges, we continue to believe our relative positioning will allow us to rebound sooner and take advantage of opportunities at the appropriate time. Our confidence derives from our lean operating model, the construct and geographic diversification of our portfolio, our strong liquidity position, and the embedded value creation opportunities in our portfolio. In particular, our portfolio of select-service and compact full-service hotels, which have a smaller footprint and lower operational complexity, allows our hotels to breakeven at low occupancy levels. Our lean operating model allows our hotels to achieve profitability earlier. Our transient concentration and the nature of our hotels positions us to ramp up early during our recovery, and our all-suite products will further bolster this ramp as a new normal unfolds. Finally, we continue to believe in the embedded opportunities within our portfolio, which have the potential to unlock significant shareholder value long-term. We are already seeing the benefits of the relative advantage that our portfolio offers, as evidenced in our second quarter performance. Given the number of open hotels, the pace of occupancy ramp-up, and the number of assets that achieved positive EBITDA, all of which continued into July. Whether or not current demand levels are sustainable in the near term is unknown. Nevertheless, our recent performance illustrates that when a sustained recovery does unfold, our portfolio should benefit early. Overall, we believe that these differentiating attributes combined with our sizable liquidity of over $1 billion and flexible balance sheet continues to position us exceptionally well, not only to navigate an extended period of uncertainty but to emerge in a relative position of strength early in recovery. I will now turn the call over to Sean for a more detailed review of financial results and liquidity.

Thanks, Leslie. As expected, April marked the low order mark for lodging demand, which was significantly impacted by COVID-19. While still at anemic levels, weekly occupancy has gradually improved from April lows during May and June. Turning to the numbers, despite still having 36 suspended hotels throughout the second quarter, we will continue to include all 103 hotels within our reported results. Our second quarter RevPAR contraction of 91.4% was primarily driven by a 71.5 percentage point decrease in occupancy and a 38.5% decrease in average daily rate. During the quarter, our portfolio actualized absolute occupancy of 11.7%, at an average daily rate of $115.94. RevPAR contracted substantially throughout the quarter, declining by 95.1%, 92.3%, and 86.6% in April, May, and June respectively. The second quarter results for our open hotels were meaningfully better, with occupancy at 24% and average daily rate of $117, resulting in RevPAR of $28. Open hotel occupancy bottomed out in April at approximately 15% and sequentially improved each month to approximately 25% and 31% in May and June respectively. As Leslie mentioned, performance at our open hotels improved throughout the second quarter as our mix of resort properties, hotels in drive-to leisure markets, and all-suite hotels benefited early from the lift in leisure demand. We are pleased that our all-suite hotels gained 2,000 basis points of market share during the second quarter, ending the quarter with an index of approximately 135%, which underscores the relative attractiveness of this product type. Third quarter RevPAR is expected to improve from the lows of the second quarter as 82 of our 103 hotels are open, and we expect leisure demand to remain healthy through at least Labor Day. As an example of current operating trends, we expect July RevPAR to contract by approximately 80% for the entire portfolio. For our open hotels in July, we estimate occupancy of approximately 32% and ADR of approximately $122, which was in line with our open hotels ADR in June. We are encouraged by the fact that we expect our 103 hotel portfolio to generate positive gross operating profit during July, which is the first month of positive GOP since the start of the pandemic. Our ability to quickly return to positive GOP is a good representation of how our portfolio can perform during a sustainable recovery. Turning to the bottom line, our second quarter pro forma hotel EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA were negative $42.7 million and negative $50.5 million respectively, and adjusted FFO per share was negative $0.49. As Leslie mentioned, we continue to remain committed to monitoring operator compliance with the aggressive cost containment initiatives that we instituted last quarter. Underscoring our lean and flexible operating cost structure, our second quarter operating costs declined approximately 70%. Our team was vigilant on controlling variable costs during the quarter, achieving a 73% reduction in wages and benefits. As you would expect, our team remains focused on cost containment initiatives to minimize operating shortfalls in the current environment. Turning to liquidity, I would like to reemphasize that we entered the year in a strong position with approximately $900 million of cash and an undrawn line of credit. Even with this strong liquidity, our efforts continue to be laser-focused on ensuring that RLJ has adequate liquidity to withstand a protracted period of disruption. To that end, we have continued to suspend our capital allocation initiatives, including ROI projects and the Wyndham conversions until we have more clarity on the outlook. Additionally, we continue to closely monitor our monthly cash burn. We were pleased that our second quarter operating shortfalls were lower than prior expectations, which assumed the continuation of April demand trends for all of 2020. Our second quarter average monthly operating shortfalls were approximately 40% better than our expectations, which was primarily driven by three factors. First, revenue at our open hotels was stronger than expected as leisure demand rebounded sooner and stronger than expected. Second, we reopened 21 hotels during the quarter, which was more than expected and led to their revenues at reopened hotels exceeding expectations. And third, our cost containment initiatives were more effective than assumed with particular success in managing wages and benefits. The operating shortfalls at individual hotels would differ by hotel type, location, and other factors. The average monthly operating shortfalls at our focus-service hotels is meaningfully better than the operating shortfalls at our full-service hotels. Overall, based on our portfolio's lean operating model, our hotels’ operating shortfalls will continue to be substantially better than portfolios comprised of traditional full-service hotels. For the other costs, our assumptions have not changed for hotel fixed costs, primarily property taxes and insurance and corporate-level outflows, including dividends, debt service, and G&A. Inclusive of the second quarter, our monthly cash burn is now expected to range between $25 million and $30 million, reflecting a $5 million reduction to the top end of the range and a $2.5 million reduction at the midpoint. The improvement in the range is primarily attributable to the better than expected hotel operating shortfalls, which represent 25% to 30% of our total cash burn. Our monthly cash burn is expected to be towards the low end of the range if lodging demand remains at current levels and the high end of the range if lodging demand contracts from current levels. The timing of actual cash outflows will be lumpy as our fourth-quarter fixed costs and corporate outflows are expected to be higher than the third quarter due to the timing of payments of senior notes interest, insurance premiums, and property taxes and operating shortfalls could be impacted if there was a post-Labor Day decline in lodging demand. These estimates exclude our RLJ funded capital expenditures. Regardless, we expect to end the year with significant liquidity and remain well-positioned to withstand a protracted period of limited hotel demand. Turning to our fortress balance sheet, we ended the quarter with approximately $1 billion of unrestricted cash, $2.6 billion of debt, and no debt maturities until 2022. We continue to maintain significant flexibility on our balance sheet. As of the end of the quarter, approximately 88% of our debt is fixed or hedged and 84 of our 103 hotels are unencumbered. During the second quarter, we further enhanced our financial flexibility and amended our corporate line of credit and term loans to waive quarterly financial covenants through the end of the first quarter of 2021 and also reduce certain financial covenant thresholds through mid-2022. We continue to place great value on our lending relationships and have remained aligned with our lenders during the entire process. As we look ahead, given the high degree of uncertainty, we continue to lack visibility on the timing and cadence of returning to pre-COVID-19 levels of demand. That said, we are confident that lodging demand will ultimately return to pre-crisis levels. In the meantime, we will continue to closely monitor industry trends and stay nimble as we react to the changing environment. Despite all of the uncertainty facing our industry, RLJ remains well positioned with a flexible balance sheet, ample liquidity, lean operating model, and a transit-oriented portfolio with embedded catalysts.

Hey, Wes. This is Tom. Right now, we’re still very careful in regards to the food and beverage deliverable and the reason for that is predominantly, when we look at our select-service assets, we’re doing a bag breakfast in the morning and at the lower occupancy levels, that seems to be acceptable based on the consumer behavior and what they’re looking for. In our resort properties, we do have to-go menus. We’re also providing beverage opportunities around the pool where there’s opportunity to be profitable. But overall, food and beverage in regards to catering and the meeting space, and what’s going on based on the demand that’s in the hotels, I would say we’re a little ways off in regards to going back to normal F&B levels in regards to what we’re going to be providing to our guests at our hotels.

Hey, good morning, Wes. Look, I think that as we’ve talked about before that preserving capital is our number one priority right now. We’re in a very unique situation and not really understanding how long this dislocation will last and how the new normal will unfold. That said, we’re working hard to continue to design work on the Wyndham’s as well as finalize our negotiations with the brands and select the manager so that we can hit the ground running and move forward with those renovations. As we said in the beginning of this year, we expected to start two renovations this year and two next year, and we continue to believe that’s the right sequencing, but that’s going to shift by about a year is what our current thinking is.

Okay. And then maybe, you can – with occupancy being a little bit higher than you thought, how close are you to open up some of the food and beverage outlets?

Yes. Anthony, I would say, look, our general house view is that August will look much slightly. But that leisure will taper off after Labor Day as kids go back to school. Now, we recognize that weekends may perform better in the back half of the year than in a normal demand pattern, because people will still have a desire to get out of their homes. So, we think that there are some opportunities there. But by and large, it’s not going to be able to supplement what we’re seeing over the summer. And then as it relates to business travel, we think it’s going to be very limited and it mimics as corporations have pushed the reopening of their offices off to next year, many of them have. We think that business travel will correlate with that and so we don’t see that materializing after September to replace the leisure demand that we see right now. And right now, there’s very limited to no group that exists and cancellations are continuing on the same path; whatever is on the books now, which is very limited. We expect that to continue to cancel and there’s no catalyst for the change as it relates to the group environment. So, from our perspective, the booking windows right now are extremely short: zero to three days. If you look at what we’ve experienced so far, 50% of our contribution has come from that zero to three-day window. So, we don’t have the ability to look forward. But we just don’t see the demand is going to replace the level of leisure that we have to today.

Yes. And then Anthony, to bolt onto some of Leslie’s comments, the thing that I think is worth noting is that notwithstanding our sort of cautiousness for the fourth quarter, we still have 80% of our portfolio open in a position that if the fourth quarter is better than we expect, we’re well positioned to capture that demand. The hotels that remain suspended still are generally, roughly half are clustered hotels that will – that are in clusters that have open hotels as well with the balance in sort of some of those core urban areas that I think our view around – the demand around some of the core urban areas, San Francisco and New York specifically, we’re certainly more cautious and I don’t think any different from our peers on those markets. And so I think our portfolio is set up to benefit from that. But also when we think about how we manage costs and are able to flow in that environment, having that cautious tone is enabling us to continue to be vigilant around our cost containment initiatives.

So, what I would say is that that local business travel in the small group is right in our sweet spot and our product and portfolio makeup is designed to capture that, right. So, if you look at our contribution this quarter, we got about 10% from small groups, and we had about 20% from whatever little business travel that was out there. What I would say is that those numbers are relatively anemic, but they represent how our portfolio performed when that type of demand comes back, which we expect it to be the earlier demand, which is what you’re alluding to. The fact of the matter is it’s just not enough, Anthony, to replace what we’re seeing on the leisure side today is what our current house view is. Anthony, what I would say is that we’re in active negotiations and that these are high-quality, highly sought-after assets. And so it’s very competitive, and we feel good about what we’re going to be able to get from the contribution of the brand. Thank you guys for joining us today. As we discussed on the call, there’s no denying that the entire lodging industry has continued to face extreme challenges. However, RLJ is situated well with a strong liquidity or lean operating model on our favorable position with the asset type and our geographic footprint. I hope that you and your family stay safe, and then you guys find a way to enjoy this unusual summer. Be well, everyone.

Thank you. This does conclude today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful weekend.