Earnings Labs

Hyatt Hotels Corporation (H)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 3, 2015

$158.91

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2015 Hyatt Hotels Corporation Earnings Conference Call. My name is Melissa, and I will be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host for today, Mr. Atish Shah, Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer. Please proceed.

Atish Shah - Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thank you, Melissa. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Hyatt's third quarter 2015 earnings call. Here with me in Chicago is Mark Hoplamazian, Hyatt's President and Chief Executive Officer. Mark is going to start by discussing the progress we're making toward our long-term strategic goals, and then I'll come back to provide detail on our financial performance during the quarter. Then, we will take your questions. We also have with us today Amanda Bryant (1:02), who joined the company last month, as our new Director of IR. Many of you know Amanda (1:07) given her experience covering lodging and leisure equities. We're delighted to welcome her to team Hyatt and know that she will be a great resource to the investment community. Before we get started, let me remind everyone that certain statements made on this call are not historical facts and are considered forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties as described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and other SEC filings, which could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by our comments. Forward-looking statements in the earnings release that we issued earlier this morning along with the comments on this call are made only as of today, November 3, 2015, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update any of these forward-looking statements as actual events unfold. You can find a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures referred to in our remarks on our website at hyatt.com under the Press Release section of our Investor Relations' link and in this morning's earnings release. An archive of this call will be available on our website for 90 days per the information included in this morning's release. And with that, I'll turn it over to…

Atish Shah - Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer

Management

Okay. Thank you, Mark. Let me start by touching on overall RevPAR results around the world. On a systemwide basis globally, comparable RevPAR grew 5.4% in constant dollars. In the United States, we saw continued rate-driven growth as our comparable full service hotel RevPAR increased 5.2%, comparable select service hotel RevPAR increased 7.1%. Our RevPAR growth exceeded U.S. upper upscale and U.S. upscale RevPAR growth, respectively, as reported by STR. In fact, year-to-date through September, our U.S. hotels outpaced industry growth as reported by STR by approximately 190 basis points. Outside of the United States, the results were positive as well. In the EAME and Southwest Asia region, RevPAR increased 6.2% on a constant dollar basis. In the Asia Pacific region, RevPAR increased 3.1% on a constant dollar basis. At our owned and leased hotels, RevPAR grew 5.9% in constant dollars as we increased our market share. Owned and leased hotels in Orlando, Berlin, and Mexico City all posted RevPAR growth in excess of 10%. This growth was a result of both strong group and strong transient business. Conversely, a handful of our hotels experienced RevPAR declines, including those in Aruba, Seoul, and Baku. The decline in the market in Aruba was due to new and recently repositioned hotels. In Baku, a combination of new hotel inventory and a decline in energy related demand drove down results. And in Seoul, the impact of MERS negatively impacted results, though business appears to be more stable heading into year end. Moving ahead to the margin front, comparable owned and leased margins decreased 60 basis points in the quarter, this reflects varied performance by region based on dynamics I will detail now. In the Americas, margins decreased 50 basis points. Margins were negatively impacted by property tax increases at four hotels. Excluding this…

Operator

Operator

Your first question comes from Joe Greff with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Joseph R. Greff - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open

Good morning, everybody.

Atish Shah - Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer

Management

Good morning. Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Morning.

Joseph R. Greff - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open

Just with respect to your buyback activity in the 3Q and the fourth quarter to-date here, are you buying in the open market discretionarily or is it part of a more preset programmatic approach where you blacked out at all this quarter or this month. How much buyback activity occurred between the A and the B shares? Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Joe. The repurchases in the fourth quarter have been A shares. And we said in the past that we have availed ourselves of various different methods for repurchase. But, we haven't really gone into detail about that. And we won't, at this point, either.

Atish Shah - Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. I only add that the purchases in the fourth – third quarter were also A shares... Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yes.

Atish Shah - Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer

Management

...both third quarter and fourth quarter to-date.

Joseph R. Greff - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open

Okay. And, Mark, from where you sit and what you're seeing, given that you owned the Park Hyatt New York in the past were considering selling additional limited service hotels. What's your view on the property transaction market in the U.S., both in terms of capital out there (33:03) and pricing, maybe in relation to where both capital out there (33:08) and pricing were at beginning of the year? Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Joe. I would say, overall, the big change sort of last year to this year has been the volume of – and maybe just velocity of large portfolio deals in select service assets and so we saw lot more of that a year ago than we have this year. But, overall, I would say activity remains really high, interest remains really high, there is capital flows from many different sources, a lot of different foreign capital seeking investments. And, of course, rates have remained very low. So I would say, both our perception and our experience in looking at different things suggest to us that asset values have held up well. And we're also constantly looking around the market for new opportunities and I would say expectations remain strong as well. So I would say, both in terms of practice and reality and perception both strong. New York has been an interesting market for us, because while the overall market has had some challenges, our ramp with our Park Hyatt New York property, which you mentioned, just now has been extremely strong. We ran a very strong third quarter, over 70% occupancy and $900 rate – over $900 rate. So I think our rate exceeded $1,200 in September. So we've really seen some significant demand at that level and in that customer category in New York.

Joseph R. Greff - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open

Okay. Great. And my last question here, the adjusted SG&A came lower than what we had modeled in the 3Q, and you referenced there were two reasons there. How do you look at the growth rate and adjusted SG&A at the medium-term here, assuming the current business model, excluding any potential M&A on a like for like basis, relative to how you reported that line item in 2015?

Atish Shah - Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer

Management

I mean, we – generally, we think of SG&A growing in the 3% to 4% range. I think we benefited this year both from timeshare coming out. So from a comparison perspective, but also some expense management particularly on the payroll side. So we've done a good job on cost containment and expense management this year, but sort of medium to longer term, 3% to 4% is the range that we're targeting.

Joseph R. Greff - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open

Great. That's all from me. Thank you.

Atish Shah - Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thanks, Joe. Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Joe.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Steven Kent with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Steven E. Kent - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hi, good morning. Couple questions. First, do you or your shareholders need to have more float or liquidity in order to achieve diversification goals. Is that part of what the board talks about? And then, since – may be you could talk a little bit about onefinestay, your investment there and your thoughts on Airbnb? Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. So with respect to the first question, as we have been active in the repurchasing area, we do pay attention to float and trading volume. It happens that trading volumes have remained very, very strong and we've seen continued ability for people to be able to trade in and out of our stock. So it doesn't mean that we're not paying a lot of attention to it because we are and it's a factor that we consider as we look at our repurchase activity. But so far it's not really been an issue that's constrained our thinking. With respect to onefinestay and may be the sharing economy more broadly, it's interesting to be commenting on this with the group on this call, because there's been so much written in the recent past of wide and – widely ranging, I guess, and widely varied perspectives on what's going on. And I think that partly reflects the fact that there aren't really good statistics. A lot of people are making a lot of sort of guesses as to what the impacts look like and how to think about this. From our perspective, we've always – we've, for some time, looked at this whole sharing economy dynamic as a broad consumer issue and the consumer…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Bill Crow of Raymond James. Your line is open. Bill A. Crow - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Hey, good morning. Mark, I want to dig in on the same subject, Airbnb, because it's in the news today on two fronts with Prop F in San Francisco. And then the area I want to focus on, which is the American Express announcement, where they announced a partnership with Airbnb, which among other things gives the cardholders a chance to use Amex points for Airbnb stays. It seems to be, if nothing else, just kind of legitimizes Airbnb amongst Amex's core business customer. So, my question is, given the importance of the traditional hotel industry to Amex and their business, what is your gut reaction to that and is it possible that hotel industry could potentially promote other forms of payment to send a message to Amex? Thanks. Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Look, I think the fact is that the dynamics with respect to both – because you've covered a lot of ground there, Bill – so with respect to both the regulatory aspects of what's going on, which are really heightened at this point, there has been a lot of activity in depositions taken and testimony given in New York and San Francisco, there has been a lot of activity in London, Amsterdam, Paris. So, I would say in all the major jurisdictions where you see concentrations of sharing economy lodging, there is a lot of regulatory activity. And, I think, it's all generally headed in the direction of ensuring that there is a level playing field, having a tax regime that makes sense, and also making sure that there aren't effectively illegal hotels operating, which has really been…

Atish Shah - Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Jeff Donnelly with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Jeff J. Donnelly - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open

Good morning, guys. I have a few questions. Mark, I just want to circle back on the comments concerning asset prices. There had been some chatter obviously earlier in the year about you guys looking to monetize the Park Hyatt, I don't expect you'll be able to talk specifically to that property, but can you talk about whether or not you're actively exploring the sale of any owned real estate at this time? Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks. When we closed that transaction to buy the Park Hyatt New York, I was asked at that time whether this would be an asset that would be available for recycling and I – my answer was emphatically, yes. Because we always thought that – the whole purpose of doing the deal was to secure that location and, over time, if it makes sense to sell it, we should sell it. So that remains true. But, having said that, we're not actively marketing anything at this point. It doesn't mean that there aren't dialogues – there isn't dialogue and discussion in different places around the world, we happened to own a number of key assets in key locations that always garner interest. And so, there seems to be a steady flow of discussions that relates to those types of assets, and that's really through the cycle, it's not necessarily only when there is a lot of activity, because it's very owner or buyer specific in that regard. But, right now, we're not out – actually out marketing properties.

Jeff J. Donnelly - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open

Okay. And just, maybe a separate question was on your group pace. I think in your remarks you said that it was up in the low-single-digits for 2016 and that was two-thirds of your business was on the books for next year. I just want to clarify, is that low-single-digit growth rate you're referring to a same-store change in the gross dollar volume booked thus far, how is that calculated? Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yes, it is. And that's, of course across the market. So, the thing I – it's an Americas number. What I would say, is two things, one is the – given convention calendars, there is an ebb and flow to – and a cycle to conventions in different markets, and given how we're set up, when we look at how 2016 unfolds. The convention calendar is not as strong as it was in 2015 in some key markets, in which we happen to have bigger representation. Having said that, our group pace for our owned and leased properties is up over 8% for 2016, and so our confidence level – I think you can probably hear it in our tone, our confidence level in what we're looking at and how group continues to evolve is really high and we just see continued strength and momentum in corporate bookings, the current bookings from different corporate segments has really been extremely strong. So we look at corporate profitability and there were some commentary recently about how corporate profit growth may be underwhelming at this point across the board. When I look at what we're looking at here our top three corporate sectors, which is high-tech, pharma, and banking and finance. They were up in room nights in the third quarter over 5%, almost 6% and revenue was up over 10%. So we're not serving the broadest base of corporate America, we're serving some segments. And by the way the reason I pick those three is that they are the three largest corporate sectors that we serve in that order. So I would say, as I look at the demand and nature of the demand and where it's coming from and so forth, it's really very, very positive.

Jeff J. Donnelly - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open

And just one last small question, Marriott had made some comments about maybe looking to change their guests cancellation policies and potentially having some degree of an impact on occupancy rates. Are you guys going to be changing or making that more restrictive as you move into 2016? I think in the past some brands talked about it maybe being a benefit to their occupancy rates, I was curious what your thought was?

Atish Shah - Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer

Management

Jeff, a little over a year ago, we moved to 24-hour cancellation across the board. And I think if you look at different properties and different markets, we do have kind of stricter cancellation policies, but there's no intention to sort of make an across the board change right now, but I do think we're looking at that depending on property and season with a little bit closer an eye.

Jeff J. Donnelly - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Thomas Allen with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Thomas G. Allen - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hey, good morning. I was hoping to clarify a couple of things you said earlier, get more detail around them. First, just around group RevPAR in the third quarter, you said it was impacted about 290 basis points from the timing of holidays. Do you expect to get a benefit in the fourth quarter from the timing of holidays comparable to that 290 basis points? Second question, was just on your incentive management fees. You noted that FX had a negative impact, ex-FX it would have been flat; looked like it was tracking up mid- to high-single-digits through the second quarter. So just wondering why the deceleration there? And then finally, third thing is just you noted around Hong Kong, weakness in Hong Kong, you said that Mainland tourists were travelling to other markets not Hong Kong. Did you actually see that in your traveler databases or is that more of a high level economic comment? Thank you.

Atish Shah - Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer

Management

Okay. So on the first question with regard to group, I think, if you look at the change in group, if you think about September and October together, group was up about 7%. So I think that really shows that it's pretty consistent, if you take out kind of the impact of the holiday. So I don't want to give kind of a fourth quarter group number or what we specifically expect but across both it was roughly 7%. Your second question was with regard to incentive fees and it's frankly just a comparison issue to last year I think that we had a couple of properties that hit incentive fees in a different way. So, that drove a tough comp and we'll look into a little bit more detail on that and we can get back to you or post the answer. And with regard to Hong Kong, Mark, do you want to take that one? Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. It's a market dynamic and also validated by what we've seen. So, we've seen increased travel to other destinations in Southeast Asia for sure and there were some specific restrictions put into place with regard to travel to Hong Kong and a little bit of sort of follow-on effect from the decline in Macau, travel to Macau. So, I would say, it's both a market dynamic, it's something that we've been able to validate as we look at travel across Southeast Asia. Thomas G. Allen - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Helpful. Thank you.

Atish Shah - Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Shaun Kelley with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Shaun Clisby Kelley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open

Hey, good morning, guys. I just wanted to revisit the Airbnb stuff because there's so much going on about it today. But, Mark, I was curious because you mentioned, obviously, a little bit more of a constructive approach to the kind of concept here from the consumer standpoint than I think we've heard from some other hoteliers. And you guys also have a lot of owned hotels and look at it from both an ownership perspective and from a management and franchise perspective. So, my question is this, what would it take to become more interested and more open to you thinking about Airbnb or using something like Airbnb as an additional distribution platform, perhaps as an opportunity to potentially push back or negotiate against the OTA landscape which just starting to – which continues to gain strength and is starting to actually consolidate as well. Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks for the question. It's a complicated topic, because, frankly, Airbnb is not in the business of representing hotel rooms on its platform. So, it's really hypothetical, I haven't really given that much thoughts of that particular opportunity or potential, I would say. So, really hard to try to piece together what would need to be true in order for that to work well.

Shaun Clisby Kelley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open

Or maybe I can ask it differently, if they approached you with the opportunity to maybe sell hotel rooms on their platform, is it something Hyatt would ever consider or do you think you'd be a non-starter with the ownership community? Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think the issue always relates to, how – and this relates to any distributional channel, but how – first of all, what's the interface with our guests, and what's their interaction with our brand and who we are versus someone else's brand and who they are. So that's one key consideration. How our inventory would be represented is another key consideration. Frankly, the big divide that we are very focused on, because we – as you said, we own a lot of our own hotels, we also manage a lot of hotels for others, and we are hyper-vigilant on paying attention to how people are travelling and what their purpose of visit is, and how that segregates or sub-segments and what kinds of choices they make when they're travelling. And so, that would be another dimension that I would be thinking about, which is what's really the purpose of visit for people and people are showing up on, say, that platform versus someone else's and what does that imply about, what it is that we would be thinking about offering through such a vehicle. So, those are the key considerations I would be thinking about.

Shaun Clisby Kelley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open

That's really thoughtful and helpful. So appreciate that. My last question would just be on a bigger picture sort of thinking about the landscape more broadly. We have seen a number of your competitors launch collection brands relatively recently, you guys sitting here with seven brands, do have some pretty compelling offerings in most of the key chains scaled (55:25) at this point but you don't have a collection brand per se. So I'm curious on your thoughts on that, is it something that you could look at or how do you view those types of opportunities directionally? Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks. Well, we have nine brands actually not seven. But I would say that the – there is a – again back to the framing, the mindset of thinking about purpose of visit and stay occasions, I think one benefit that comes from having – from broadening the diversity of the types of stay occasions you can offer guests is that you're able to have them stay with you in your system, so to speak, from more of their travel meets. And so, and – but in a very, very significant expansion and diversity. We've actually sort of approached this by affiliating with the some hotels. We have a few hotels that are in the portfolio currently that are part of the Hyatt system but not branded and that has led us to be thinking about whether and how we would approach a collection brand. So it's under active discussion at this point.

Shaun Clisby Kelley - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Harry Curtis with Nomura. Your line is open.

Harry C. Curtis - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst · Nomura. Your line is open

Yes, hi. I've got a couple of questions here. In the third quarter, you mentioned transient demand was up 9% and then in the fourth quarter you've cited the strength of the group side. Can you give us a sense of has there been any sequential change on the transient side in the fourth quarter?

Atish Shah - Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yes, sure, Harry. I think, first of all, as to the transient demand so far in October, it's been up in the mid-single-digit percentage range. Group demand has been stronger. And I think one of the dynamics is that you had so much strong group that has displaced some transient business. But, overall, I'd say, look I gave the numbers that we've experienced so far in the quarter for the month of October and we're pleased with the results and certainly at expectations. Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Harry, I just – I would just correct one thing that you said, and that is, we – so transient revenue was up 9.2%. Transient demand, so if you break it down, rate was up about 5% and rooms rev – rooms, that is, demand, was up a little over 4%. Just to be clear.

Harry C. Curtis - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst · Nomura. Your line is open

Okay. Very good. Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: That's for the third quarter.

Harry C. Curtis - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst · Nomura. Your line is open

In terms of displacing transient, is there much opportunity, do you still have lower-rated transient business that, I mean, does – do airline cruise even qualify as transient? Are there – is there some transient business that you're trying to kind of squeeze out? Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So crew cruise business and similar business is not considered transient in the way we track it, it's more contracted business. And the fact is that, mix shift and across different sub-segments of transient, travelers has continued. So there are always opportunities to mix shift. And the key is when you've got demand at the level that it's at and occupancies where they are, it becomes really a key part of ongoing revenue management.

Harry C. Curtis - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst · Nomura. Your line is open

And last question for me is when we think about Hilton and Marriott, they have the benefit of scale and with the benefit of scale you get brand diversification, you get more interest on the part of some developers. So, if you guys could talk about the importance of scale and the advantages that it could benefit or could bring to Hyatt? Mark S. Hoplamazian - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, look, I think one of the things that we have consistently focused on is purposeful growth, very, very focused growth. And we have really focused on the fact that we are underpenetrated in a lot of markets and maybe not present in a lot of markets. And that's really led to I think very, very strong net growth in both hotels and rooms. So, I was looking at this to see how we can start to track this longitudinally. And if you look at 2014, we were up in hotels net growth of 6.5% and rooms of just under 5%, 4.6%. And if you look at the trailing 12 months, our net growth in hotels is over 8% and in rooms is at 5%. So, I guess it's just demonstrating that how we've gone to market and really focused on increasing the reach of our brands in key markets. So – and this isn't just adding a bunch of hotels that are deep into our representation in a given market, in a lot of cases these are first or second representation in a given market. So, I would say, it's not – a lot of people talk about scale or size in this aggregated abstract, we're thinking about it through the lens of our customers and our guests and where they're traveling and where we need to be and that very deliberate approach has led to, I think – and the strength of our brands actually and how we've been operating I think yields these kinds of net increases in rooms and in hotels. So I think it's clear that our strategy is working really well. The benefit of size is awareness, I think you have more voice in the marketplace and so forth and what we're trying to do is make sure that we leverage those very deliberate and very plan-full openings to expand the brand awareness as much as possible.

Harry C. Curtis - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst · Nomura. Your line is open

Very good. Thank you.

Atish Shah - Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thanks, very much, Harry. Given that a...

Operator

Operator

We have no further time for questions. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Atish Shah for any closing comments.

Atish Shah - Senior Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thank you very much, Melissa. Thank you everyone for joining us today. We look forward to talking to you soon. Have a great day. Good bye.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.