Real estate investment trust Summit Hotel Properties President and CEO Jonathan Stanner said he expects more normalized performance in some metrics for the company's hotels in 2024.
During a third-quarter 2023 earnings call with investors and analysts Thursday, Stanner said his company achieved an acceleration in urban and midweek demand thanks to improvements in business transient and group trends.
The 27 hotels Summit acquired in a portfolio deal from NewcrestImage in January 2022 also saw continued outperformance in the quarter, Stanner said.
Stanner said a combination of better urban and midweek demand as well as the NewcrestImage portfolio performance served as "a primary growth catalyst in the quarter."
The particularly strong urban and midweek demand trends in September and October resulted in September revenue-per-available-room growth of 3.6% over the same month last year, he said.
Summit's urban and suburban hotels had third-quarter RevPAR growth of 3.2% and 4.1%, respectively, versus the same quarter last year, said EVP and Chief Financial Officer Trey Conkling.
Today, Summit's urban and suburban hotels account for 75% of its overall portfolio, he added.
RevPAR trends during the peak summer months of July and August were pressured by difficult year-over-year comparisons as a result of leisure demand normalizing and outbound travel to Europe increasing.
"The outlook for leisure demand broadly remains positive," he said. "I think we'll look back in several years and look at the rates we were able to charge in 2022 as a bit of an outlier; we saw that as we looked at our rates in the third quarter, July and August in particular.
"As we turn the calendar into 2024, we'll have much more normalized comparisons."
In addition to the prediction of more normalized performance trends, Summit executives also forecast there could be some regularity in operating expense growth.
But Stanner said that it's too early to say for certain.
"To say that we've got perfect sight lines into that at this time of the year would be a little premature," he said. "I do think you'll see above inflationary growth in insurance costs next year. We have seen the biggest driver of our overall cost, as you would expect, is on the labor side; we have seen wages moderate significantly this year. Our wages are up about 2% year to date versus where they were last year. That's been very encouraging. It's what's helped drive what was really strong margin performance in the quarter."
The expense growth outlook for 2024 is "much better and much cleaner" than it was in 2023, he said.
Transaction Activity
Summit entered into a contract to sell the 123-room Hyatt Place Baltimore/Owings Mills for a total of $8.3 million. It's expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The company will forego any near-term required capital expenditures at the hotel as a result of the pending sale.
Stanner said in the company's second-quarter earnings call earlier this year that Summit was shifting its acquisition strategy to make fewer but more-focused deals.
Summit did not announce any acquisitions for the portfolio in the third quarter.
Third-Quarter Performance by the Numbers
During the third quarter, the REIT kept operating expense growth under 1% on a per occupied room basis, allowing it to maintain gross operating profit margin compared to a 2022 despite inflation.
Summit experienced a net loss of $5.4 million in comparison to a net loss of $0.5 million in the third quarter of 2022, according to a company news release.
Same-store RevPAR rose 2.4% to $117.85 in the quarter while same-store average daily rate increased to $159.83 and same-store occupancy grew 2.3% to 73.7%.
Same-store hotel earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in the quarter rose 2.8% to $61.4 million from $59.7 million during the same quarter in 2022.
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for real estate dropped 1.9% to $46.3 million from $47.2 million in the third quarter.
Conkling said a more than 40% increase in insurance premiums has resulted in downward pressure on hotel EBITDA margins.
The REIT's portfolio consists of 101 hotels, 57 of which are wholly owned.
On Sept. 19, Summit's joint venture with GIC completed the refinancing of its $200 million senior credit facility, which includes a $125 million revolving credit facility and a $75 million term loan.
The new revolver and term loan maturity date is now September 2028.
"As a result of this refinancing, the company has no material debt maturities until the first quarter of 2025 and its average length to maturity is over three years when including extension options. Approximately 80% of the company's pro rata debt and preferred equity capital has a fixed interest rate after giving effect to interest rate derivative agreements," according to the earnings release.
Summit currently has outstanding debt of $1.1 billion with a weighted average interest rate of 4.75%. It also has unrestricted cash and cash equivalents of $48.9 million along with total liquidity of $435.4 million.
Full-Year Outlook
Summit has updated its previously provided outlook for 2023. The new guidance does not contemplate the upcoming sale of the Hyatt Place Owings Mill expected to close in the fourth quarter.
The REIT now expects pro forma RevPAR growth to be in a range between 6.25% and 7.75%; guidance provided in its second-quarter results was for 6% to 8% growth.
Adjusted EBITDAre is expected to be between $186.5 million and $191.6 million compared to the previous guidance of between $183 million and $193 million in the second quarter.
Adjusted funds from operations in its updated guidance is expected to be between $109 million and $114.2 million, compared to the previous guidance of $105 million and $115.3 million.
As of publication time, Summit’s stock was trading at $6.06 per share, up 10% year to date. The NYSE Composite was up 2.1% for the same time period.