Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc. (HST) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello and welcome to the Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Host Hotels & Resorts. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Richard Marriott, Chairman of the Board of Host Hotels & Resorts. Mr. Marriott, the floor is yours.

Thank you and good morning to everyone. I'm Dick Marriott, and I'll be presiding over this meeting. We're hosting today's meeting through a virtual online platform for the first time. Like many other companies, we're conducting in a virtual meeting to support the health and well-being of our stockholders, employees and communities as we all deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. I want to thank you all for taking the time to join us. I hope you're safe and well and that your families are safe and well as we navigate through this unprecedented time. Before we start, I'd like to remind everybody that some of the remarks made today are considered to be forward-thinking and forward-looking and under federal securities laws. As described in our filings with the SEC, these statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, which could cause future results to differ from those expressed. We are not obligated to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements. We will also discuss non-GAAP financial information such as adjusted FFO, adjusted EBITDA and which we believe is useful to investors. You can find a description of this information, including reconciliations to GAAP financial measures in our latest earnings press release, which has been posted on our website. I'd like to begin by thanking all our Board members for their dedication and service. I especially want to thank Ann Korologos, who will be retiring after this annual meeting. Ann's retirement comes after 27 years of distinguished service as a director. She was the first person I called on to be on the Board of Directors of this new company called Host Marriott at that time, since now changed our name to Host Hotels and Resorts, but she has been an invaluable counselor and friend down through the years. We thank her for many years of service. We will now move to the business, which has brought us together for this meeting. The annual meeting of Host Hotels and Resorts is hereby called to order. We will start with the formal portion of the meeting, on which the meeting proposals will be voted on. After the formal portion of the meeting, we will move on to a business update from our President and CEO, Jim Risoleo, followed by a question-and-answer period. Our General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Julie Aslaksen, who is also participating in today's meeting, has reported to me that the notice of the annual meeting was first mailed on April 3, 2020, to our stockholders of record on March 19, 2020. Computershare, our inspectors of election, have reported that a majority of the shares are present at this meeting, either in person or by proxy. Accordingly, a quorum is present, and we may transact the business before us. We have 4 proposals to present to you this morning. All proposals were outlined and discussed in the proxy statement. A link to the annual meeting materials, including the proxy statement, is available on the virtual meeting website. The polls are now open for each matter to be voted upon. Proposal 1 is the election of the 10 Director nominees named in the proxy statement. Proposal #2 is to ratify and recommend by the Audit Committee -- the recommendation by the Audit committee to appoint KPMG LLP as independent auditors of the company for 2020. KPMG is represented here today by Andy Corsini and Pramit Patel. Proposal #3 is an advisory vote on executive compensation. Proposal 4 is a vote to approve the company's 2020 comprehensive stock and cash incentive plan. Your Board recommends a vote for each of the proposals. If you have already voted, you do not need to vote again unless you would like to change your vote. If you have not voted your shares and you are a stockholder who has registered for this meeting, you may vote online now. [Voting]

At this time, I would like to open the meeting to questions on the 4 proposals only. Julie, do we have any questions on the proposals to be voted on?

Mr. Chairman, we do not have any questions on the proposal.

Okay, thank you. The polls are now closed. I have a preliminary results of the votes on the proposals contained in the proxy statement. I'm pleased to report that all directors were elected and the proposals on KPMG's appointment, executive compensation and adoption of the 2020 comprehensive stock and cash incentive plan were approved. Final voting results will be filed with the SEC on a Form 8-K and will be available on our website. I'd now like to turn over the floor to Jim Risoleo, our President and CEO, who will give you a business update.

Thank you, Dick. I'd like to welcome everyone to Host Hotels and Resorts' very first Annual -- Virtual Annual Meeting. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today and for your support. We hope that you and your families are safe and healthy, and we -- our deepest sympathies for those affected by COVID-19. It is an extraordinary time for the world, the lodging industry and for Host. As a company, we continue to prioritize the health and safety of our employees, guests and partners, while protecting the long-term strength of our business. With that important backdrop, let's begin on Slide 2. This presentation lays out where we've been, where we are today and where we are going. First, we're going to cover our most relevant 2019 accomplishments. Then we'll move on to where we are today with our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. And finally, we will conclude with how we're positioned for the future. We have the next slide, please. In 2019, we recycled assets, returned cash to shareholders and further strengthened our balance sheet. We sold 14 of our lower total RevPAR, higher capital expenditure hotels for $1.3 billion, at what felt like then, and we know now was the top of the market. We further upgraded the quality of our portfolio by acquiring the iconic 1 Hotel South Beach for $610 million. This iconic resort ranks among the top 3 in the company's portfolio in terms of RevPAR, total RevPAR and profitability per room. We returned $1.1 billion to shareholders through dividend and share repurchases, while further strengthening our best-in-class investment-grade balance sheet. Additionally, we capitalized on the favorable debt capital markets last year to execute over $3 billion of refinancing, which extended our debt maturities and reduced our borrowing cost at an opportune time. As a result, we ended 2019 with the strongest balance sheet in the company's history, [ specifically ] $1.6 billion of unrestricted, 1.6x net debt to adjusted EBITDA re and no near-term debt maturities. Today, Host is well positioned to withstand the magnitude of the impact of COVID-19 because of prior years of prudent capital allocation that emphasize maximizing balance sheet capacity and liquidity towards the end of the cycle. We have the next slide, please. We generated an almost 17% total return in 2019 and ranked third among a group of 7 full-service lodging REITs. Moreover, we continue to improve comparable hotel total RevPAR as well as adjusted FFO per diluted share. We ended 2019 with comparable hotel total RevPAR of $292 and adjusted FFO per diluted share of $1.78. Next slide, please. Our business was off to a strong start in January and February this year. The spread of COVID-19 has created an unprecedented downturn for the global economy at large and the lodging sector specifically. More pressingly, it has created a health and safety crisis for the world, and our priority remains the health and well-being of our employees and their families as well as the health of our managers, employees at our hotels. Beginning with our humanitarian response. We've been encouraging our hotels to find ways to get back to their communities. They are donating much needed medical supplies, including surgical masks, gloves and sanitizer and donating food and toiletries to health care workers and employees in need and to local food banks and nonprofits. They also have donated meeting space to local schools and nonprofits to host school supply drives and blood drives and offered special rates to caregivers. Through Host's services team, we held a virtual food drive to benefit DC Food Project's Weekend Bag Program to help DC students in need. We also matched employee donations to COVID-19-related charities. Our Board of Directors held special meetings in March and April that were focused on the risk posed by COVID-19 and the impact of COVID-19 on our operations and our employees. We are monitoring guidance provided by the CDC, World Health Organization and other federal and state agencies closely, and we have closed our offices and suspended all business travel. We have been communicating frequently with our employees, including hosting all employee virtual meetings on almost a biweekly basis throughout the duration of the office closure. Additionally, we have a dedicated COVID-19 Intranet page that is regularly updated to keep employees abreast of pertinent updates, including resources and how the management is stressed with the pandemic, utilizing our existing benefits and wellness programs. Our medical and leave benefits are compliant or better than COVID-19-related legislation, and employees are always encouraged to use our health and wellness benefits. Finally, we expect to reduce our full year corporate and other expenses by 10% to 15% without reducing headcount to conserve as much cash as possible. We have the next slide, please. Moving on to hotel operations. Our operators have suspended operations at 35 hotels as of May 6, 2020, while continuing to operate the remaining 45 hotels at reduced capacity. They have also implemented portfolio-wide cost reductions, including reducing shared services fees, suspending food and beverage outlet operations, closing guestroom floors and meeting space and the temporary suspension of most brand standards. As a result, we expect to reduce portfolio-wide hotel operating costs by approximately 70% to 75% in April compared to initial forecast. Finally, we have also reduced our capital expenditures by approximately $100 million to $125 million compared to our February 2020 forecast, which represents an approximately 50% reduction to the portion of the CapEx budget that wasn't already spent, underway or committed. Approximately 85% of our CapEx savings are derived from eliminating nonessential renewal and replacement CapEx spend, with the remainder coming from suspended ROI projects. We have the next slide, please. As I mentioned near the beginning of this presentation, we began 2020 with the lowest leverage in the company's history at 1.6x net debt to adjusted EBITDA, no near-term debt maturities, $1.6 billion of cash on hand, a fully unencumbered consolidated portfolio and an investment-grade balance sheet. In response to COVID-19, we drew down our $1.5 billion credit facility revolver in mid-March and ended April with approximately $2.7 billion of cash, including FF&E reserves. At quarter end, our leverage ratio as defined in our credit facility was at 2x. Our interest coverage ratio was at 6.8x and our fixed charge coverage ratio was at 4.6x, all of which are well within the limits specified in our credit facility covenants. We expect to remain in compliance with our credit facility covenants through the second quarter and are currently in discussions with our supported bank lending group to secure greater flexibility on our covenant requirements. We have the next slide, please. As a result of our relatively strong balance sheet and liquidity position, we have outperformed the composite index of the 6 full-service lodging REIT peers, referenced in our proxy statement, by 17% and the FTSE NAREIT Lodging and Resorts Index by approximately 10% in the first quarter. We have the next slide, please. We believe Host is well positioned for the future. We're earning a new lodging cycle with the highest quality portfolio of iconic and irreplaceable hotels in the company's history and likely in the lodging industry. Over 70% of our portfolio and our strongest drive to leisure markets will be fully refreshed by next year. Specifically, our hotels in Phoenix, San Diego, Orange County, San Antonio and Florida, which represent over 13,000 keys or nearly 30% of our total portfolio, are very well positioned to capture a recovery in drive to leisure demand. When demand recovers, we believe that the quality of our assets, many of which will be newly renovated, will be a true differentiator that will help us to gain market share and outperform the industry. We continue to believe in the strength of both geographic and demand diversity through the cycle. Geographic diversity will serve us through an uneven recovery as various states and markets end their lockdowns at different times. Demand diversity will help us drive optimal revenue management and pricing through the cycle. Finally, we expect our relative balance sheet strength to continue to be a differentiator that will provide us with greater flexibility to capitalize on future long-term value creation opportunities that meet our strategic objectives. Thank you. That concludes our presentation, and I will now turn it over to you, Dick.

Thank you, Jim. That's the formal part of our meeting. This was now adjourned. We'll now open the floor for questions from stockholders. In order to provide all of our interested stockholders time to ask questions, we request that you limit your yourself to one question each. Julie, do we have any questions?

Mr. Chairman, we do not have any questions.

All right. Then that concludes our question-and-answer period. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in our virtual annual meeting today. Please stay safe, be well and keep staying at our hotels. We love you. Have a great year.

This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.