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.

Well, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I'm Dick Marriott, and I will be presiding over this meeting. We are hosting today's meeting through a virtual online platform. The Annual Meeting of Host Hotels & Resorts is hereby called to order. We will begin the meeting by reviewing the meeting proposals to be voted on. We will then move on to the 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, 2025, to our stockholders of record as of March 17, 2025. Julie will confirm when the polls have closed, report on the preliminary voting results and adjourn the meeting. Computershare, our Inspector of Elections, has reported that a majority of the shares are present at the meeting, either in person or by proxy. Accordingly, a quorum is present, and we may transact the business before us. I'd like to remind everyone that some of the remarks made today are considered to be forward-looking statements 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 will also discuss non-GAAP financial information, such as adjusted EBITDA, 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. We have 3 proposals to present to you this morning. All proposals were outlined and discussed in the proxy statement. Polls are now open for each matter to be voted upon. Proposal 1 is the election of the 9 director nominees named in the proxy statement. Proposal 2 is to ratify the recommendation by the Audit Committee to appoint KPMG LLP as independent auditors of the company for 2025. KPMG is represented here today by Tom Gerth and Caitlin Henry. Proposal 3 is an advisory vote on executive compensation. Your Board recommends a vote for each of the proposals. If you previously voted by proxy, you do not need to vote today unless you wish to change your vote. If you have not voted your shares and you are a shareholder who has registered for this meeting, you may vote online now. I would like to now turn the floor over to Jim Risoleo, our President and CEO, to provide a business update.

Thank you, Dick. Welcome to the Host Hotels & Resorts Annual Meeting. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today and for your continued support of Host. On the cover, you will see a photo of The Ritz-Carlton Oahu, Turtle Bay. We acquired this iconic and irreplaceable resort in 2024. It is situated in a unique location on nearly 1,200 acres on the North Shore of Oahu in Hawaii. The resort features 450 rooms, all with ocean views, including 42 bungalows with direct beach access. Other amenities include 18,000 square feet of indoor meeting space, a club lounge, 6 food and beverage outlets, a spa, fitness center, 2 golf courses, 5 miles of beach, 4 resort pools and access to 12 miles of ocean front trails. We also acquired a 49-acre land parcel entitled for development, and we intend to enhance its value over the long term. This acquisition further expanded and diversified our already strong presence in Hawaii, and we look forward to seeing the results of the Ritz-Carlton Oahu, Turtle Bay is expected to deliver in the years to come. Moving to the next slide. Today, I will give a brief overview of Host and highlight some of our 2024 accomplishments, including our operational improvements, our successful capital allocation execution and our fortress balance sheet. I will then discuss progress on our portfolio reinvestments and our corporate responsibility initiatives before wrapping up with the Host investment thesis. Next slide, please. Starting with a brief overview of the company. Host Hotels & Resorts owns the largest portfolio of luxury and upper upscale hotels in the public markets. We have a geographically diverse portfolio of iconic and irreplaceable assets located in prime locations and markets in the United States and a strong analytics platform to support our capital allocation strategy. As of May, our portfolio comprises 81 hotels totaling 43,400 rooms. In addition, we are the only investment-grade lodging REIT and the only lodging REIT in the S&P 500. Next slide, please. Over the course of 2024, we delivered operational improvements driven by continued rate growth and out-of-room spending. We continue to successfully allocate capital through acquisitions, reinvestment in our portfolio, share repurchases and dividends. In addition, we made progress on the Hyatt transformational capital program and the condo development at the Four Seasons Resort Orlando at Walt Disney World Resort, maintained a strong investment-grade balance sheet and well-laddered maturity schedule and returned significant capital to our stockholders. Highlighting a few stats here. First, we delivered comparable hotel total RevPAR, which stands for total revenue per available room and includes ancillary spending, up 2.1% over 2023. This increase was largely driven by growth in food and beverage revenues and increases in other revenues from ancillary spending. In addition to our operational improvements, we continue to successfully allocate capital through reinvestment in our portfolio. In 2024, we invested nearly $550 million in capital expenditures. We ended the year with $2.3 billion of total available liquidity, including $1.5 billion of availability under our credit facility and returned $844 million of value to our stockholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases. Next slide, please. In 2024, we also acquired $1.5 billion of iconic and irreplaceable real estate across 4 properties. Pictured on the slide, you will see the 1 Hotel Nashville and Embassy Suites by Hilton Nashville Downtown, which are two separate but connected hotels, The Ritz-Carlton Oahu Turtle Bay and the 1 Hotel Central Park. Three of these acquisitions are in new markets for Host, further diversifying our portfolio, and we believe these assets will contribute to future growth as they stabilize over time. Next slide, please. Turning to our portfolio performance. A slower-than-anticipated recovery in Maui and moderating domestic leisure demand impacted RevPAR growth in 2024, while total RevPAR grew at a faster pace than RevPAR driven by out-of-room spending. As expected, margin declined in 2024 as a result of higher wages and benefits, fixed expense pressures and the impacts from the Maui wildfires in 2023. Next slide, please. As part of our successful capital allocation efforts, we significantly reinvested in our portfolio through capital expenditures and resiliency investments. In 2024, we invested nearly $550 million in capital expenditures and resiliency investments at our properties. We completed renovations to approximately 2,100 guestrooms, 213,000 square feet of meeting space and approximately 93,000 square feet of public space. In addition, we made progress on the Hyatt transformational capital program and completed vertical construction on the mid-rise condominium building at the Four Seasons Resort Orlando at Walt Disney World Resort, marking a significant milestone in the development. We believe these reinvestments will position our portfolio to outperform in the future. Next slide, please. Over the course of 2024, we maintained our investment-grade balance sheet and a consolidated portfolio that is 99% unencumbered by debt, which provides us with substantial flexibility and optionality. We also issued $1.3 billion of senior notes through two separate underwritten public offerings and repaid $400 million of senior notes at maturity, maintaining a well-laddered maturity schedule. Next slide, please. We continued to be recognized as a global leader in corporate responsibility in 2024. We were named to the Dow Jones Best-in-class World Index, which was formerly the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, which recognizes global sustainability leaders across all industries for the sixth consecutive year, and we were included in the DJSI North America for the eighth consecutive year. We were also once again included in the world's most sustainable companies in S&P's Global Sustainability Year book. Next slide, please. As a reminder, our corporate responsibility program is focused on responsible investment across our business, sustainability, our people and our community. Our efforts on the corporate responsibility front are overseen by the Board's Nominating, Governance and Corporate Responsibility Committee, which also continues to provide valuable insights to bolster our program. Next slide, please. To wrap up, we are extremely proud of the results we achieved in 2024. While there is heightened uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment, we believe our disciplined capital allocation efforts over the past few years, combined with the expected growth profile of our portfolio, our diversification across geographic markets and business mix, our fortress investment-grade balance sheet and our size, scale and reputation leave us very well positioned to perform in 2025 and beyond. Thank you for your continued support of Host. That concludes our annual meeting presentation.

We'll now move to questions and the closing of the polls. Are there any questions regarding the proposals or any general questions or comments? Having received no questions, that concludes our question-and-answer period. The polls are now closed. I have the preliminary results of the votes on the proposals contained in the proxy statement. I am pleased to report that all directors were elected and the proposals on KPMG's appointment and executive compensation were approved. Final voting results will be filed with the SEC on a Form 8-K and will be available on our website. Thank you for participating in our annual meeting today.

This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.