Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Summit Hotel Properties Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I will now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today Adam Wudel, EVP of Corporate Development.

Thank you, and good morning. I am joined today by Summit Hotel Properties’ President and Chief Executive Officer, Jon Stanner; and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Trey Conkling. Please note that many of our comments today are considered forward-looking statements as defined by federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, both known and unknown as described in our SEC filings. Forward-looking statements that we make today are effective only as of today, November 5th 2024, and we undertake no duty to update them later. You can find copies of our SEC filings and earnings release, which contain reconciliations to non-GAAP financial measures referenced on this call on our website at www.shpreit.com. Please welcome, Summit Hotel Properties’ President and Chief Executive Officer, Jon Stanner.

Thanks, Adam, and thank you all for joining us today for our third-quarter 2024 earnings conference call. We are proud of our third quarter financial results, highlighted by our third consecutive quarter of adjusted FFO growth, despite what was a challenging quarter for industry fundamentals broadly and several of our markets more specifically. Today, Trey and I will provide additional commentary on the current operating environment, including the effects of the recent hurricanes, our outlook for the balance of the year and into next year, our recently announced sale of the four-point San Francisco Airport Hotel, and an updated review of the significant progress we have made strengthening our balance sheet. Our third-quarter operating results reflect the continuation of many of the industry trends we've experienced over the past several quarters. Specifically, the continued strength of group demand, the ongoing recovery of business travel, which is driving better relative midweek performance in urban and suburban markets, and the ongoing normalization of leisure travel demand patterns, which is offsetting some of the gains realized in other segments. Overall, RevPAR for our same-store portfolio increased 0.2% in the quarter, driven by a 1.2% increase in average rate that was partially offset by a 1% decline in occupancy. Third quarter RevPAR in our urban and suburban hotels increased 1.3% and 3.9% respectively with those two location types representing nearly 75% of our total room mix. Weekday RevPAR grew 1.6% as Tuesday and Wednesday nights continue to exhibit the strongest growth, particularly in our urban and suburban hotels, which experienced RevPAR growth of nearly 5% during the quarter reflecting strong group and improving business transient trends. As hybrid work schedules have remained in place, we've seen increased opportunities to drive higher rates on compressed midweek nights when larger urban markets are once again often…

Thanks, Jon and good morning, everyone. Our third quarter 2024 performance represented a continuation of prior quarter operating trends as growth within our portfolio was once again driven by the company's urban and suburban hotels, which generated RevPAR increases of 1.3% and 3.9% respectively. Strength in our urban portfolio was driven by continued outsized growth in notable Sunbelt markets such as Houston and New Orleans, but even more so by markets outside of the Sunbelt such as San Jose, Chicago, Louisville and Cleveland. In particular, our urban hotels benefited from robust group demand for which RevPAR increased 10% versus the third quarter of 2023. It should be noted that our urban portfolio faced a difficult year-over-year comparison as three cities within our portfolio hosted Taylor Swift concerts in the third quarter of last year compared to none this year. Growth within our suburban portfolio was also driven by strength and group demand for which RevPAR increased 10% in the third quarter. This was led by our hotels in the Frisco submarket of Dallas, suburban Denver, Hillsborough, Portland, and Houston Energy Corridor, which had a combined RevPAR increase of over 9% for the third quarter. Stepping back Summit's urban and suburban portfolios have generated RevPAR growth of 3% and 4.2% through the first three quarters of the year respectively, which have outpaced the total industry by 180 basis points and 300 basis points year to date. With nearly 50% of our portfolio guest rooms located in urban markets and nearly 75% of our portfolio guest rooms located in urban and suburban markets combined, we believe our portfolio is well-positioned for continued outperformance as growth in group and business transient serve as the primary demand catalyst for the industry moving forward. While third quarter RevPAR for our resort and small town metro…

Thanks, Trey. Before we open the call for questions, I want to take a brief moment to publicly thank the members of our team and those of our management companies for their efforts in navigating a few very difficult weeks during the recent hurricanes. Several of our management company associates were personally affected by the storms and I'm proud that through our Summit Foundation, we've been able to provide valuable financial support to many of those who were affected. We wish them all the best as they work through the long and difficult recovery. We'll now open the call to your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Austin Wurschmidt with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Jon, really appreciate kind of the early thoughts on next year, but wanted to focus specifically on the 13 or 16 hotels in those 4 to 5 markets that have kind of lagged meaningfully in the recovery. And just get a sense, specific to those markets again, what really gives you the confidence that they could continue to deliver above-average growth if we do remain in sort of a slow growth economic and RevPAR growth backdrop. What specific I guess from a demand perspective has changed for these markets that you think that they're going to continue on the trajectory you've seen this year?

Yeah, good morning, Austin, and appreciate the question. Look, it's a little bit of a different story for each one of those markets, but we do believe we're going to continue to see outsized growth in those markets through the balance of this year and very likely into next year. New Orleans for example, had a Taylor Swift concert in October, so we'll have a huge fourth quarter there. They host a Super Bowl next year, which will be a big lift to that market and just broadly speaking, the convention center calendar is better in ‘25 in New Orleans than it was in ‘24. In San Jose Silicon Valley, you're starting to see the return of some of the tech-driven midweek business transient demand. So we're largely full again on Tuesday, Wednesday nights in that market, which is driving better year-over-year growth. That really has started to take hold in the second half of this year and we expect those trends to continue into next year. And then I think, the one common element amongst all of the five markets kind of X maybe core San Francisco is just the demand trends are better off of a very low base. And I don't think this was kind of a 12-month recovery where we got everything back in ‘24. All of those markets are still performing, while they're performing much better. They are still a pretty significant GAAP to where they perform pre-pandemic. Again, we don't expect to get all of that back in a 12 to 24-month period, but we do think that the bar is effectively low enough that there's additional room for growth in those markets as we turn the calendar to next year.

That's very helpful. And then Trey, I recognize you have the tough expense comp. You called out in the fourth quarter. Is there anything else in ‘25 that you'd call out, I guess, ahead of providing formal guidance that we should be aware of from a comp perspective, or do you think it's a relatively kind of stable year as you see it today?

Yeah, look, we've obviously focused on the fourth quarter given some of the property tax headwinds that we're going to face given the positives that we saw in 2023 from a rebate perspective. As we look at 2025 we hope that I think will be a more traditional kind of year-over-year cleaner comp year. We've talked a lot about the labor dynamics that have been in play through this year. The expenses that we've -- expense growth that we've incurred so far this year has been kind of in that 2.5% to 3% zip code, and I think it sets up well for next year from a kind of comparable standpoint, from an expense perspective.

Yeah. Also, you know, I might add, and again, we're, you know, we are working through budgets for next year right now, and we're not in a position to provide guidance, but I do think if you look at the way that the expense environment normalized throughout 2025, you know, kind of the implied midpoints of our full-year guidance range imply at 1.5% RevPAR growth on the top and 25 basis points of margin contraction on the bottom. I think when we gave guidance initially at the beginning of the year, we talked about needing 3% to 3.5% RevPAR growth to breakeven on margins. Clearly, we were able to manage expenses much more efficiently than that, and part of that is a reflection on the great work that the team did to manage expenses in a lower RevPAR growth environment, but also what you're seeing this kind of continued normalization in the wage, and the labor environment, which has moderated expense growth for us.

Yeah, I think that's kind of most evident is when we gave initial guidance at the beginning of this year, we thought expense growth would be 4% to 5% to Jon's point. And, you know, it's going to we think now it's probably 2.5% to 3% in wage growth now sits in the low twos, and so that gives us some conviction as we kind of think about the cost structure for next year.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Michael Bellisario with Baird. Your line is open.

Jon, just wanted to go to transactions. You sounded more optimistic about the potential for capital redeployment acquisitions. I think you referenced higher yield. Is that because seller expectations have come down? Maybe what are those going in yields today? How much have they moved versus a quarter or two ago? And then how would you differentiate kind of leisure resort potential acquisitions versus urban acquisitions? Thanks.

Yeah, appreciate the question, Mike. Well, look, you know, let me kind of take a step back and we've talked about, for 18 months now, and we've gone through a very methodical targeted process where we've sold 10 assets, we've generated $150 million of proceeds, and we did it in an environment that as everybody's well aware, has been a very slow transaction environment generally and I think that we took the approach that we did because we felt like the execution would get us to a better result. So we sold $150 million of assets, we eliminated about $50 million of capital needs in those assets. On a blended basis that equates to less than a 5% cap rate, including capital and less than a 6% cap rate, even excluding capital. So we were, I think we were very thoughtful in how we went about targeting assets for sale, lower RevPAR, lower margin hotels, and lower growth markets with significant capital needs. That did a couple of things for us. One, it delevered the balance sheet, and our net debt to EBITDA as we said in the prepared remarks, is a full turn lower than it was when we started the process. It has improved the quality of the overall quality of the portfolio and as you've alluded to, it has given us some capacity for external growth. We do think that, while the transaction market hasn't maybe thawed completely. We do think we're beginning to see the signs of a more of a market that's more conducive to transactions. The capital markets have improved dramatically, and I do think that seller expectations, broadly speaking, have adjusted for the condition where rates are today and some of the fundamental uncertainty that we've seen in the business even in the last 60 to 90 days. And so we are, again, we try to always be active in the market. We try to always make sure we have an active pipeline, but we feel good about the transactions that we've executed today.

And then anything specific on leisure resorts versus urban on the transaction side?

No. Look we've always talked about being kind of market agnostic. I think if you go back and you look at where we've acquired since the pandemic, we've acquired the end of the pandemic. We've acquired about a billion dollars of assets. All of that has either been in the Sunbelt or in mountain markets, and those assets have performed very, very well. I think where we've seen kind of near term better fundamental growth. And I think the outlook is potentially better in the kind of the near to medium term is in some of these urban markets where we're seeing better growth on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. It's really being helped by the strength of groove business and kind of this grind higher in business transient demand as we've described. We do think that those trends will continue to play out over the near to medium term, and I think that creates some interesting opportunities in some of those markets.

And then on a related point, I understand you've sold wholly-owned assets, sort of a balance sheet motivation there, but maybe on the flip side, where are you in the life cycle of some of the joint venture assets and eventually or potentially selling those, realizing some of the promotes on some of those deals? And that's all for me. Thanks.

Yes, we have sold two assets out of the joint venture to date. Particularly related to the NCI portfolio, we identified, I'll call it a handful of assets that were not going to be long-term holds. For us, very often the trigger point for those sales was when we got to a point where we needed to put material capital into the assets. I think that thesis is still very much in place. You shouldn't be surprised for us to, to continue to sell some of the lower RevPAR lower margin assets in the joint venture portfolio that will ultimately need capital over the next 12 to 24 months.

Our next question comes from Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank.

Jon, I know your exposure to union markets is very small, but as you kind of read about more of these deals getting done, do you have any concerns that labor costs come back again in the opposite direction and some of that -- some of the outcomes of the negotiations spill over into maybe some of your urban markets that concern at all?

Yes, look, I do think we're very mindful of where wage pressure is. And as you alluded to we only have 2 union assets in the portfolio today, but we do operate hotels that have exposure in those markets. And so, it's a priority of ours to make sure that we're maintaining the right employee relationships and that we're maintaining the right competitive wages. I will say, you know, 65%, two-thirds of our portfolio is in the Sunbelt where there's generally less of a union presence. And I think despite some of the headlines that we've seen and some of the disruption we've seen around the union activity in the industry, over the course of the last quarter or so, we've genuinely remained pretty insulated from some of that activity and it's something that we're just very, very mindful of continuing to make sure that we have the right programs and employee relation programs in place to manage that.

Okay. Thanks, Jon. And then I think we heard Marriott yesterday talk about some expense reduction targets at their company, and then they kind of said that some of that was going to also filter through to owners, and I don't know if that may have been a little bit more reference to full service or not, but is there anything you are looking for or hoping or expecting from brand companies with respect to some relief on costs from things they can control or mandate?

Yeah, we kind of read the same thing that you did, Chris. I don't have any insight into that. It certainly would be welcomed, but nothing that anything that I could share that's tangible on how it would affect us, though we'd certainly welcome a lower cost program.

Sure. Yeah. Got you. One more if I can, I think you guys still have about 11 Hyatt places if I did the math correct, and I think probably more of them are kind of newer purpose-built, but I think some might be legacy and Hyatt has kind of said that they're going through a process of, you know, looking at those. Can you just give us an overview of where your, Hyatt places stand kind of relative to any? Is there going to be any outsized capital need or is there any thought to selling any of them or anything like that? Thanks.

Yeah. Look, we've had outsized exposure to Hyatt Place historically. It's been a good brand for us. And in fact, if you go back and look at the acquisitions the company's made, historically, it's been one of the best acquisitions that the company has ever completed. And so I think the brand can really work in the right markets with the right RevPARs. We have sold 4 Hyatt places as part of the 10 assets that we've sold over the last 18 months. And again, I think the common thread there has been, these have been lower RevPAR, lower margin hotels that needed significant capital and we had a hard time kind of making that math pencil. There's no kind of strategic initiative internally to say, we're going to sell all our Hyatt places. In fact, we've renovated a fair number of them. I think broadly speaking, we're happy with the remaining Hyatt places that we have. We'll always continue to be opportunistic around selling assets and that really isn't a brand-driven discussion. We try to be objective around what the ROI looks like when we go to renovate a hotel. Again, there's been a number of them that we've decided to sell, but the remainder of our Hyatt place portfolio is generally in good condition and we like the way they sit in their respective markets.

Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session and today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.