Real estate investment trust Summit Hotel Properties has adjusted its acquisition strategy to making fewer but more-focused hotel deals than in the past.
A challenging environment for transactions, due to limited availability of financing and buyer-seller divide on pricing, has led the company to reassess and hone its strategy.
On a second-quarter earnings call with investors and analysts, Summit President and CEO Jonathan Stanner said the REIT has realized the benefits of having multiple hotels and brands in close proximity to cross-sell roomnights, packages and amenities to guests.
The company's most recent deals reflect that focus.
Summit purchased the 120-room Residence Inn Scottsdale North for $29 million through its joint venture with Singapore-based sovereign wealth fund GIC. The hotel is located directly across from the Courtyard and Springhill Suites hotels also owned by the joint venture.
"The Residence Inn creates meaningful cross-selling opportunities that are expected to enhance the performance of all three hotels," Stanner said.
The Residence Inn underwent a renovation in 2019, resulting in minimal capital investments needed by Summit and GIC over the next several years.
Summit and GIC also acquired The Nordic Lodge in downtown Steamboat Springs, Colorado, for $13.7 million. It is an independent 47-room hotel located about 2 miles from the Residence Inn Steamboat Springs hotel.
Summit acquired its 51% interest in each hotel with a portion of net proceeds generated from a recent four-hotel portfolio sale, which traded for $28.1 million in May, as well as cash on hand.
The four hotels in that portfolio included the 151-room Hyatt Place Chicago/Lombard/Oak Brook; the 126-room Hyatt Place Chicago/Hoffman Estates; the 97-room Hilton Garden Inn Minneapolis/Eden Prairie; and the 93-room Holiday Inn Express & Suites Eden Prairie - Minnetonka.
Stanner said Summit "has a bias toward selling assets in part to manage leverage lower over time."
The company strives to partner with local lenders in each market to come up with financing, he said.
"The financing markets are still choppy. [But] I do think they are improving. We are seeing financing get done. ... There are some encouraging signs, but it's still a fairly slow transaction environment," he added. "We are trying to be thoughtful and opportunistic in where we can find opportunities to sell assets."
2023 Outlook
Summit has adjusted its expectations for full-year 2023 earnings. The company now expects revenue per available room growth of between 6% and 8%; guidance provided in its first-quarter results was for 6% to 11% RevPAR growth. The new guidance puts RevPAR across its portfolio in a range between $119 and $121.50.
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization for real estate for the full year is now expected to be between $183 million and $193 million, compared to previous guidance of between $190,400 and $205,900.
The updated guidance is based on Summit's 101 hotels, 57 of which are wholly owned.
Summit Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Trey Conkling said the revised guidance reflects demand normalization.
Summit's hotels in urban markets continued to benefit from strong weekday growth across all segments, he said. Overall urban RevPAR in the quarter increased 6% compared to the same quarter in the prior year.
The urban portfolio particularly benefited from the strength in demand from negotiated accounts.
"Negotiated room night contribution was a meaningful catalyst to this growth, increasing by 4% versus last year," he said. "Group demand also increased meaningfully during the second quarter, particularly within our suburban, airport and resort assets."
Leisure demand moderated during the quarter.
Minneapolis Slower To Recover
Similar to San Francisco, Minneapolis has become a challenging market to own a hotel in for a variety of reasons, Stanner said. Those factors include not recovering from riots spurred by the killing of George Floyd and little business transient demand.
"We did sell, earlier this year, two of our Minneapolis assets. We have two assets remaining; they're both downtown; they're both good assets," he said. "We've had to orient more around leisure-based demand. I hate to say never, but we do think it's a longer road back for Minneapolis."
Summit executives hold out hope that Minneapolis will recover closer to what it was in 2019, he said. Summit's capital allocation decisions in the market reflect that.
By the Numbers
During the second quarter, Summit reported an $800,000 net loss attributable to common stockholders, compared to a net income of $7.9 million in the year prior, according to the earnings release.
Its same-store RevPAR increased 3.6% to $126.89 in comparison to the second quarter of 2022. Same-store average daily rate rose 2.2% to $167.70 and same-store occupancy increased 1.3% to 75.7%.
Adjusted EBITDAre fell 3.1% year over year to $52.9 million from $54.6 million.
Year to date, net loss attributable to common stockholders was $6 million, compared to a net loss of $4.4 million in the same period of 2022.
As of June 30, Summit has outstanding debt of $1.2 billion, with a weighted average interest rate of 4.9%. It has total liquidity of $421.6 million, which includes unrestricted cash and cash equivalents and revolving credit facility availability.