Earnings Labs

Chatham Lodging Trust (CLDT)

Q3 2013 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 5, 2013

$8.69

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Chatham Lodging Trust Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. During today’s presentation, all lines will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be opened for questions (Operator Instructions). This conference is being recorded today Tuesday, November 05, 2013. I will now like to turn the call over to Jerry Daly at Daly Gray. Please go ahead.

Jerry Daly

Management

Thank you, Maurice. Good morning everyone and welcome to the Chatham Lodging Trust third quarter 2013 results conference call. Yesterday, after the close of the market, Chatham released results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2013, and I hope you’ve had a chance to review the press release. If you did not receive a copy of the release or you would like a copy, please call my office at 703-435-6293 and we’ll be happy to email or fax you one or you may review the release online at Chatham’s website, www.chathamlodgingtrust.com. Today’s conference call is being transmitted live via telephone and by webcast over Chatham’s website and at streetevents.com. A recording of the call will be available by telephone until midnight on Tuesday, November 12, 2013 by dialing 1-800-406-7325 at with a reference number of 4646993. A replay of the conference call will be posted on Chatham’s website. As a reminder this conference call is the property of Chatham Lodging Trust, and any redistribution, retransmission or rebroadcast of the call in any form without the expressed written consent of Chatham is prohibited. Before we begin management has asked me to remind you that in keeping with the SEC’s Safe Harbor guidelines, today’s conference call may contain certain forward-looking statements about Chatham Lodging Trust, including statements regarding future operating results and the timing and composition of revenues among others. Except for historical information, these forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including the volatility of the national economy, economic conditions generally, and the hotel and real estate markets specifically, international and geo-political difficulties or health concerns, governmental actions, legislative and regulatory changes, availability of debt and equity capital, interest rates, competition, weather conditions or natural disasters, supply and demand for…

Jeffrey H. Fisher

Management

I appreciate it Jerry. Thank you good morning everybody to Palm Beach. We appreciate you sparing few minutes with us this morning. I will be brief as Jerry said, but I do want to say a couple of things. Of course we are excited to tell our story. We feel it’s a great story and remains a great investment opportunity for a lot’s of reasons that we’ll talk about in detail on this call. We have acquired 24 high quality hotels comprising over 3,200 rooms for approximately $625 million since the IPO. At Chatham we focus on acquiring hotels that are well located within the top 25 MSA’s or gateway coastal markets where the customer base is concentrated around high growth energy, technology or medical industries, we expect to out sized performance. But when you look at our portfolio, please stay approximately 83% our hotel EBITDA is derived from top 25 markets up substantially from the IPO, when it was 54%. We have increased our portfolio RevPAR from $71 since our IPO to now are $110 projected for 2013. At these levels our RevPAR is well above the brand averages for extended-stay and select-service hotels, a testament to the type of portfolio we have accumulated. Our markets are showing strong growth characteristics with comparable RevPAR up 6.7% for the quarter and 6.5% year-to-date through September. This portfolio is still delivering consistently strong RevPAR growth and we’ve been able to make some great acquisitions this year in markets that not only command high absolute RevPAR, but exhibit strong growth characteristics. Through September 30, the six hotels we’ve acquired since last December have seen RevPAR growth almost 12% far exceeding industry performance. I think I’m going to quit here and turn it over to Dennis to finish my prepared remarks. Dennis?

Dennis M. Craven

Management

Thanks Jeff. The only stock market for us like many hotel owners has been the D.C. area. The recently converted D.C. Residents Inn with [indiscernible] for all of the few days of the third quarter. So it’s not necessarily a good performance parameter, but if you look at our Tysons Corner Residents Inn, RevPAR was down approximately 17% for the quarter of which most of it was due to entirely by declines in rate. As we provided in our guidance, we expect the trend will continue in the fourth quarter in the D.C. market due to a combination of obviously the shutdown and the residential impact from sequestration. We do have a unique understanding here at Chatham of owning extended-stay select-service hotels, through our relationship without our hospitality, which we feel is one of if not the best operators in the extended-stay and select-service space. The relationship allows us to respond quickly to market opportunities or operational challenges or operational opportunities as well. A perfect example was our acquisition of the Houston Courtyard Hotel in early February of this year. Since acquiring the hotel and transiting management to Island on the date of acquisition, we’ve refocused the revenue management strategies and restructured the operating SOP’s with incredible success. In 2013, we’ve raised the RevPAR index over 400 basis points and increased our operating margins at the hotel by almost 500 basis points. When we started an acquisition with the support of Island, we expect that we’ll able to get some additional to use both the operations, whether it’s revenue related, or operations related or some combination of both. It’s a unique benefit that accrues for the shareholders of Chatham. Seizing on opportunities like this allows us to continue to increase our already leading industry margins. We’ve grown our hotel EBITDA…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instruction) And our first question comes from the line of Patrick Scholes with SunTrust. Please go ahead. Patrick Scholes – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey: Hi. Good morning.

Dennis M. Craven

Management

Hey, Patrick. Patrick Scholes – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey: Just one quick question for you, that sort of your plans for the InnKeepers’ portfolio and would you ever consider monetizing that in the near-term given the significant promote value as opposed to issuing equity, rating [ph] function equity for new acquisition?

Jeffrey H. Fisher

Management

Patrick, this is Jeff. I mean certainly we believe the value, there is tremendous value to promote. I think we expect that the value in that promote will increase in 2014 and beyond and seeing how we leverage a vehicle that promote further accrues to us in that situation. It’s obviously – and we’ve always talked about the fact that we obviously have owned that portfolio before. We’ve operated that portfolio through Island and through Innkeepers hospitality. Since most of it’s in inception, those hotels’ inception. So we like the portfolio and we have always said that ideally in the right situation. We would be the appropriate buyers for that portfolio down the road. But at this point, listen, we think the industry is set up for strong growth and that leverage vehicle will provide outside returns even moving forward. Patrick Scholes – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey: Okay. I appreciate the color. And then just remind me again. In your press release you talked about your pipeline for targeted markets. Remind me again what you’re thinking about as far as targeted markets for any hotels.

Dennis M. Craven

Management

Well, I think it’s – we still do briefly, but it’s really going to be somewhere what we’ve done currently this year. It’s going to be primarily gateway, coastal type markets, East Coast and West Coast. It’s going to be markets such as Houston that are tied to a pretty thriving energy sector. So it’s going to be hotels in those areas. Again we have a lot of focus on energy, medical, technology. I think as we continue to growth those are the characteristics we like to see. Patrick Scholes – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey: Great. That’s it from me. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of [indiscernible] with FBR. Please go ahead. Nikhil Bhalla – FBR Capital Markets: Yes. Hi. Good morning everyone.

Jeffrey H. Fisher

Management

Thank you. Nikhil Bhalla – FBR Capital Markets: Hey, good morning. Just a question on the repositioning of the other remissions at the residents in Washington D.C. Dennis you may have already talked about it. I’m sorry if I missed this. Could you give us some sense of what the full year impact of the residents and renovation was both in terms of RevPar and EBITDA just so we can kind of know what to expect, how much of that you can recover next year. Thank you.

Dennis M. Craven

Management

Yes. For a full year basis the impact on the portfolio is going to be close to 150. Obviously if we grow in [indiscernible] it’s a little bit different. This can be anywhere from 150 basis points to 200 basis points to the full company. It’s what we’ve seen so far. Nikhil Bhalla – FBR Capital Markets: On RevPar?

Dennis M. Craven

Management

On RevPar. And if you actually look at from an EBITDA perspective you are looking at well over $1 million of incremental EBITDA from that hotel. Nikhil Bhalla – FBR Capital Markets: Okay. So despite D.C. being or at least expectations from the D.C. market being still, so weak next year, if nothing you should be able to make this back just the fact that you don’t have any renovations correct?

Dennis M. Craven

Management

It’s exactly right, Nikhil. Even in the fourth quarter, October it just flipped into the Residence Inn program. October wasn’t a great month. Obviously had to shutdown slow, but we are starting to see some traction from the Marriott system, which we expected starting in November and it’s gotten better and better since in the last few weeks. We do expect in that we’ll be able to recoup what we want this year, next year. So it should be a nice addition to our overall performance for next year. Nikhil Bhalla – FBR Capital Markets: Got it. And just one follow-up question on acquisitions. So this year you’ve done about $220 million of acquisitions. You talked about having a strong pipeline. Should we think that that’s about the same that you have in your pipeline in terms of value of acquisitions, maybe a little bit more – how should we think about that?

Dennis M. Craven

Management

Well, I think our pipeline is typically anywhere from $200 million to $300 million plus at any point in time. We move in all of that fairly quickly by that well design, because we turned down a lot and we ultimately don't like. But I think, listen, our goal is to continue to grow this company. We have our sights set on a few nice assets. I think we’d like to be able to – by the time we talk in February, have a few more hotels in the portfolio might add to that. Nikhil Bhalla – FBR Capital Markets: Got it. Thanks. Thanks, Dennis. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bob LaFleur with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead. Robert A. LaFleur – Cantor Fitzgerald Securities: Hey, guys.

Jeffrey H. Fisher

Management

Hey, Bob. Robert A. LaFleur – Cantor Fitzgerald Securities: You guys may know bones about the fact that you think that the Street doesn’t get it right when it comes to valuing your stock. I was wondering if you might go through sort of conceptually or intellectually how you think is the proper way to approach valuation for your company, no specific targets or anything like that, but just what you think the proper approach is and what you think the Street isn’t getting?

Dennis M. Craven

Management

Obviously our company and our profile is certainly getting a little more attention in the last 24 hours. I think we’ve obviously been a small cap company in the past and therefore haven’t gotten a lot of attention. We’ve maintained our focus on proving out our model and there’s a few things to do that that’s obviously you’re looking where our FFO per share is, you’re looking where our EBITDA is, and especially when you look at where we expect it to be based on the acquisitions we’ve made, based on the acquisitions we intend to make I think obviously there’s only a couple of inputs into the story, and that is what type of multiples should be – you be valued at on our EBITDA or NOI. And then you obviously have the benefits that accrue to Chatham as a result of the joint venture. It’s not rocket science, but I think it’s merely the fact that we have been – from 2011. Our story was a little bit cloudy and a lot of people weren’t sure of what the JV meant to Chatham. Those things are starting to become more clear. We’re in a position now with over 90% of our original capital returned to us if that promote interest within the joint venture is closer. It’s not a dim light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a little more brighter and that obviously brings a little more variety to the Chatham story. Without having 90% of the capital return, 10% of the capital have been returned. It’s a very dim light at the end of the tunnel. So there aren’t a whole lot of inputs through evaluation, but I think it’s mainly getting making sure people understand Chatham, understand our earnings and our earnings training and also obviously the value of our off-balance sheet investments.

Jeffrey H. Fisher

Management

Well, let me just add that we are here to build long-term shareholder value just like we did in the Innkeeper space. The [indiscernible] for emphasis is however find the value of this promote is probably not appropriate or I’ve seen your report. I think you’ve done a great job in addressing components of value overall, but you fundamentally believe that there is room in this cycle like we do and the JV is a great off-balance sheet investment for Chatham and shareholders to continue to grew further value as we reap the benefit from the cash flow and the dividends that that’s going to applying to this company. So all this immediate monetization conversation is literally short-term hedge fund banking that were really generally forever and have not ascribed ourselves to. We think there is lots of upside left and we intend to reap the benefits of that upside.

Dennis M. Craven

Management

Yes, I think just when you look at kind of where our remaining original investment is, 10% of 37 million, it’s obviously that 3.7 million that hasn’t been returned to us. When you look at the FFO contributed and the distributable cash flow from the joint venture, it’s over $4 million in 2013 alone. So when you move that forward and you project some nice growth the actual cash-on-cash returned are very handsome and that benefits obviously our shareholder base. Robert A. LaFleur – Cantor Fitzgerald Securities: At this point, is that where kind of the makeover [ph] is going to come from? It’s just the distribution of FFO. There are some more transactions anticipated, are there?

Jeffrey H. Fisher

Management

Well, as we spoke to we don’t expect to any depositions at real stake within the joint venture. Every asset has been cumbered with new debt. So we believe that the balance sheet is in place and we’re in that to be able to reap the benefits of our annual cash flow that gets often I think. Robert A. LaFleur – Cantor Fitzgerald Securities: Okay. Thanks, guys.

Jeffrey H. Fisher

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Charles Fitzgerald with V3 Capital Management. Please go ahead. Charles P. Fitzgerald – V3 Capital Management LP: Thanks for taking my call. Jeff, I hope you feel better. I just want a brief comment.

Jeffrey H. Fisher

Management

Yes. Charles P. Fitzgerald – V3 Capital Management LP: To the best of our knowledge, V3 is currently Chatham’s largest shareholder. We’ve been shareholders in the company since our fund’s inception in 2011 and view ourselves as patient long-term shareholders. We believe that you’re seeing some with an outstanding portfolio and managed it very well, particularly Innkeepers saving where you created substantial value that continues to be unrecognized in the share price and underestimated by most on the sale side. For a variety of reasons the public markets are not going to pay fair value for your assets and quite frankly we don’t think BlueMountain’s currency reflects fair value either. The persistent discounting your stock had caused shareholders to suffer significant dilution value from the recent equity offerings. And we believe that they’re running a full sales process now and maximizing value on investor interest is high as the best course for the company and shareholders. We deployed and make sure our views known as we discuss the matter with your Board and the advisors and thank you for the time.

Jeffrey H. Fisher

Management

Thank you, Charles and we intend to do just that. We appreciate your support.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from the line of Anthony Powell with Barclays. Please go ahead. Anthony Franklin Powell – Barclays Capital, Inc.: Good morning guys. I just wanted to ask about the acquisition market. Are you seeing more competition for [indiscernible] assets within the lodging industry and do you expect more competition going forward? Thank you.

Jeffrey H. Fisher

Management

I mean, yes, I think for us we haven’t seen any incremental change to the competition for assets. Obviously just like it was then a little different in terms of the outsiders, if you will, in the last cycle they just wanted to jump into the lodging space. We typically see fairly similar people on these deals, but the one thing that we’ve always prided ourselves is our ability to not participate in marketed type transactions. It’s the ability to go out there and find deals that find assets that are great assets for Chatham. Most of our deals have been off-market type transactions where we’ve been able to gain and buy those assets through our relationships with these guys. So typically in a marketed-type deal you’re going to see the similar players. I wouldn’t say there is a heck of lot more people jumping into the space. A lot of people got burnt perhaps six years ago in this from making some great investments into this space. So I think for us, we have to stick to what we do well, which is find deals outside of the standard marketing process where you eliminate that bid that comes from some market tight deals. Anthony Franklin Powell – Barclays Capital, Inc.: And that’s it from me.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And at this time, I am not showing any further questions. Please continue.

Jeffrey H. Fisher

Management

We appreciate your participation today on the call and we will as we said move forward to create long-term value here and we are excited with Chatham’s future. So thank you all and we’ll talk to you soon.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen that does conclude our conference call for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.