Braemar Hotels & Resorts Inc. (NYSE:BHR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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And so I think that will also keep a lot of our U.S. travelers at home. And so yes, we’re anticipating benefiting from that. Exactly which quarter? I don’t know, Chris, you better view?

Christopher Nixon: Yes. I think it’s hard to peg a specific quarter, Michael. I think overall, we’re optimistic about 2024. I will say there are some positive indicators. I mentioned group pace at our resorts is up for 2024. That’s encouraging. Some of the leisure trends and leisure softness that we’re seeing, while still down as we look ahead it’s down to a lesser degree in lesser magnitude. And so we hope that, that — we hope and we believe that, that softening is kind of settling and we’re kind of settling into what’s going to be kind of the new norm.

Michael Bellisario: Got it. That’s helpful. And then just another one on the Scottsdale loan upsizing. I understand it was a low leverage loan to begin with. But what was the driver there? And then what’s the plan with those proceeds looking ahead?

Deric Eubanks: Yes. Michael, it’s Deric. Look, the plan there is, like you mentioned, it was low leverage going in. The property has obviously ramped up very well. And we just felt like it was an opportune time to increase that — the loan sizing on that property. From a use of proceeds standpoint, basically just replenishing some cash. We had made a big debt paydown a couple of months earlier. Back in June, we extended that 4-pack loan. And I just felt like it was the prudent thing to do to replenish our cash to make sure we’ve got maximum liquidity.

Richard Stockton: Yes. I’ll add to that a little bit to what Deric said. As you look forward to 2024 and you look at some of the interesting ROI CapEx projects that we have. One of those that you’ve heard about in the past is the Ritz-Carlton Lake Tahoe townhome development. That development is progressing very nicely. We’re working through the entitlement process with Plaster County. And we anticipate spending some significant capital to get that out of the ground next year. And so as Deric said, we had the opportunity to shore up some cash, and that’s one of the uses of it as we move into 2024.

Deric Eubanks: We’ve also got a decent amount of debt maturities coming up in 2024, and we’re well in front of those. Those should all, for the most part, be very easily refinanceable loans. We’ve been a little bit slow to pursue refinancing of those. Normally, we’d be a little bit more in front of those upcoming maturities. But because the market is just so unattractive at the moment, we wanted to keep the debt that we have in place as long as we possibly can. And I mentioned there’s only really one of those upcoming maturities in 2024 that might be challenging, but it’s a very small loan. It’s a $30 million loan on our Canyon Beverly Hills. And just from a — if you look at it from an EBITDA debt yield perspective, that one would probably be a little bit more challenging of a refinancing. So having that additional cash on our balance sheet from the Scottsdale upside might come in handy for that as well.

Michael Bellisario: Understood. That’s helpful. Actually just one follow-up for Chris. Just I think you mentioned peak nights up 27% year-over-year. Can you quantify how many nights is that across the portfolio? And what’s the RevPAR growth that you achieve on those high occupancy nights?

Christopher Nixon: Yes. Thanks for the question, Michael. I would estimated that the 27% increase is probably a dozen nights or slightly fewer. I will say that those are the nights where we realize the majority of our revenue within the portfolio. And so we are able to push rates. We get very aggressive. We’re seeing most of those peak night increases across our urban hotels. And it wouldn’t be uncommon for us to realize RevPAR for those peak nights that are double kind of what the monthly average is. And so that’s a very critical thing for us. It’s kind of where we make a majority of our money. We’re laser-focused on how we kind of revenue manage those nights. It’s something that we work with the properties to identify and advance. We factor in our group, our ancillary strategies all the way down to our loyalty program strategies to ensure we’re getting the most out of the respective brand loyalty programs on those nights. So indeed, it is significant.

Operator: And there are no further questions. I’d like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Richard Stockton: All right. Thank you all for joining us on our third quarter earnings call, and we look forward to speaking with you again on our year-end call.

Operator: Thank you. That does conclude today’s presentation. Thank you for your participation today, and you may now disconnect.

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