PPHE Hotel Group Limited (PPH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the PPHE Hotel Group Limited Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] And I would now like to hand over to the team from PPHE Hotel Group. Greg, good morning, sir.

Hello. Good morning. Good morning, and welcome to our 2026 half year results. My name is Greg Hegarty. I'm the Co-CEO of the PPHE Hotel Group. And to my left, I'm joined by Robert Henke, our EVP of Commercial. And to my right, I have Daniel Kos, our Chief Financial Officer. So we are really pleased to report good solid half year results, good strong operating performance. But before we get into the detail, I think it will be poignant to show a quick video. Thank you. [Presentation]

Thank you for that. All right. What we're going to do, I'm going to talk you through some of our strategic and operational updates. So we have had several strategic financing highlights during the period. These include the acquisition of the freehold of Park Plaza London Waterloo for GBP 147.9 million, which was funded by a new 5-year facility at GBP 136.5 million. This transaction has simplified and strengthened our balance sheet, and Daniel will take you through that a little bit more as we go through the presentation. We also refinanced our art'otel in Rome for GBP 27.6 million, which was also on a 5-year facility. That's in euros. And as a further highlight, most recently, we have disposed of our New York development site last Friday at USD 33.5 million. The reason for that was really predominantly due to regulation changes. I mean the development really unviable in the U.S. So we optimized the site. We purchased some air rights on the site. So that means it was development ready, so it made sure we could optimize it for a sale, which obviously we did and that transacted last week. The proceeds of this will be used to repay the debt on that site. However, the additional proceeds will be used in our geographical regions. Along this, we also have numerous land pipeline within the U.K. You can see we're aware we have Westminster Bridge Road, our development on the 40 and on Leman Street as well as potential to develop our existing assets in our portfolio. Our future focus in the near term is very much going to be launching our 5,000 square meters of office space at Hoxton. That will be One Rivington, our co-working concept. That's due to open in mid-November and is currently being marketed to expected tenants. And as always, we will always continue to focus on cost efficiency, operational improvement. We are also doing a significant amount of technological transformation in our front house operations, including the introduction of kiosks across our portfolio, and we will continue to focus on those efficiencies as we go forward. Moving on to the next slide. I think it was pointing just to touch on this following the completion of a strategic review period. In November 2025, the Board announced that it was undertaking a strategic review to consider a number of options to maximize value for all shareholders. Subsequently, in May 2026, an indicative proposal regarding a possible cash offer was received from the Fattal Hotel Group at GBP 22 per share. The Board evaluated the proposal with its independent adviser and sought feedback through a consultation process from a significant portion of our shareholder base. During this consultation, Euro Plaza Holdings, the company's largest shareholder, withdrew its support from the offer of Fattal. Consequently, Fattal determined it would not proceed with any further context of the strategic review and it concluded in July 2026. Despite this fact, the strategic review did not result in a firm offer for our shareholders, it did, however, facilitate significant deeper discussions around the future strategy of the group. This has resulted in the Board concluding shareholder value, so this resulted in how the Board could conclude and how it would deliver shareholder value for the future and how this can be maximized with clear operational delivery and balance sheet simplification going forward. So with that in mind, we are putting all of those findings into our proposal to see how we move forward as a company in due course. So moving on to that, I'll hand over with Daniel with the results of the first half. Daniel?

Thank you, Greg. So as Greg already said, we are quite pleased with the group's performance for the first 6 months of the year, which reported solid growth across all key metrics. The achievement is realized despite the geopolitical environment that the group currently trades in. So total revenue on a like-for-like basis was up 4.7% to GBP 208 million, which resulted in a like-for-like EBITDA growth of 8% to GBP 49 million. And that represented a margin expansion of 50 basis points, reporting a 23.5% margin in the first 6 months. So as usual, our operations are quite seasonal and the majority of the group's EBITDA and margin is realized in the second half. And that's mainly due to the seasonal effects of our Croatian leisure portfolio that's really ramping up in the high season in July and in August. So total revenue increased really on the back of a solid meeting and events revenue growth in the U.K., particularly in the first quarter, I would say, but also due to our like-for-like average RevPAR growth of 3.1%. And that RevPAR growth increased on the back of a like-for-like room rate increase of 3.2% and occupancy stable at 72.5% -- our increased EBITDA performance was offset by higher interest costs after the refinances that we've done in the last 12 months. So therefore, our 12 months rolling EPRA earnings stayed flat at GBP 53 million or GBP 1.25 per share. Based on these earnings, the group proposes to pay an interim dividend of GBP 0.17 per share, which is in line with last year. In terms of total revenue, diving a bit deeper in the regions because it's quite different across the regions. So as you can see on this slide, the United Kingdom has clearly been the main driver behind our growth with a total revenue growth of 6.8% and a RevPAR growth of 5.2%, so while the ramp-up of Hoxton is obviously supporting this growth, in general, we had quite a strong period in the U.K. Particularly the first quarter was very strong with us with some very large-scale meeting events taking place in the usual slower month of January. So total revenue growth in the first quarter in the U.K. was 8.8% with the second quarter showing a solid growth of 5%. As you might all be aware, the Netherlands started the year with a substantial fiscal headwind as the government increased the VAT from 9% to 21% on hotel bedrooms. So as the majority of our pricing publicly is inclusive of VAT, this would have resulted in a 12% negative impact on room rates. I'm therefore, quite pleased to say that we have managed to mitigate the total revenue decline in the Netherlands to 5.3% in local currency and 2.4% in sterling instead of the 12% that was expected. This drop came mainly on the back of occupancy at this point and only a drop of 3.4% in local currency in room rates. Croatia was shut for the majority of the part of the first 6 months, and the performance isn't really reflective of a normal trade in the 6 months. And Germany, on a like-for-like basis, reported a year-on-year flat revenue and 2.9% growth in sterling terms. With regards to the EBITDA growth of 8%, the U.K. was again the main driver with both EBITDA growth and margin expansion. This growth was achieved despite of the higher business rates that are taking effect from the second quarter onwards and will increase up to and including 2028. In the Netherlands, the expected EBITDA drop amount to GBP 1.3 million, which in local currency is largely similar to the top line revenue loss we had on the back of the VAT changes we've just discussed. So anything lost in the top converts 100% to the bottom, unfortunately. However, we continue to ramp up our newly opened properties and further rollout of automation and operational efficiency programs to mitigate the effect of these fiscal headwinds. So in terms of adjusted EPRA earnings, the rolling 12 months stayed flat with December at GBP 53 million, which is GBP 1.25 per share. As you can see, earnings were positively impacted by the increased EBITDA levels, but offset with higher interest rate expenses after the substantial refinancing we've done in the last 12 months. Free cash flow for the rolling 12 months amounted to EUR 76 million and has been largely used to pay dividends of GBP 17 million, bank loan repayments of GBP 26 million and ROI CapEx, which included, for instance, 3 freehold acquisitions. One was the Leman Street acquisition in the city. The other was the freehold acquisition of the Park Plaza Park Royal and the last one was the buyback of the freehold in the Park Plaza Waterloo, which I will detail later on. Net debt increased from GBP 775 million at year-end to GBP 932 million at the end of 30 June, which is an increase of GBP 157 million, largely caused by the buyback of the freehold in Park Plaza Waterloo. The new bank loan that we took to fund this acquisition has been signed with Bank Hapoalim and has a 5-year maturity. The loan has a loan-to-value of 70% at acquisition date, which will be amortized further in the coming 5 years to a loan-to-value of 65%. 90% of this loan is fixed for 2 years at an all-in interest rate of 5.9% -- after this transaction, the average group loan-to-value increased to 39.5% from 35% before, which we feel is still acceptable levels. The majority of our loans have now been refinanced and the average maturity has been extended to 4.4 years with an average cost of debt of 4.4%. So in terms of the Waterloo transaction, we had quite a substantial transaction here, whereby we bought back the freehold interest of the Park Plaza Waterloo for GBP 148 million and inclusive of purchase expense of GBP 156 million. To explain the rationale behind this transaction, it's probably best if we go back to 2017 when we initially sold the land and leased it back for 200 years. This transaction was shortly done after we had built and opened the hotel in the summer of 2017. We had an all-in cost of construction of GBP 125 million, and we're able to sell the asset for GBP 161 million under a 200-year leaseback at 3.2% cap rate. So the sale and leaseback, the 3.2% cap amounted to a rent of GBP 5.6 million back in the day when we did this. And this is inflation adjusted going forward. And it left the hotel with the remaining EBITDA post rent of GBP 5 million. So this remaining EBITDA post rent is valued as a leasehold value at GBP 80 million back in the day. So this transaction, it really makes sense for us back in the day. It enabled us to get more cash out than we had spent on building the hotel and it remained us with an asset valued at GBP 80 million. And the GBP 161 million of cash, it was used to pay a special dividend back in the day and the rest was recycled back in the group to fund growth. Our underwriting back then expected that EBITDA would grow at a similar pace as the inflationary adjustments on the rent. This was based on experiences we had in the 10 years preceding to this deal. However, COVID, labor shortages due to the Brexit, energy cost increases, national insurance increases and business rate increases made that our EBITDA did not grow at a similar pace as the rent adjustment. So really, the rent was eroding the EBITDA over time. So with this acquisition, we stopped the EBITDA erosion. The freehold was bought back at GBP 13 million lower than we did the initial deal in 2017 at a cap rate of 4.9%. So when we bought back this lease, the rent increased from the GBP 5.6 million back in the day to GBP 7.3 million at acquisition date. So after this transaction, the free cash flow of the group will remain at similar levels, slightly lower at the start due to the high base interest rates. However, on the long run, these will improve with annual interest expenses expected to decline, expected to decline because we are amortizing the loan. And if the interest rates in the future go down further, we will benefit from that. And that's opposed to a rent that was going to increase 4% on an annual basis. This transaction led to a large simplification of our balance sheet, derisking the impact it had on EBITDA erosion and holding the freehold will create more optionality with the future with this asset. Handing back to you for current trading and outlook, Greg.

Thank you, Daniel. So I'm pleased to report summer trading in the city locations is comparable to the similar trends we've observed in half 1. And we actually see these mostly improving in -- as half 2 continues. U.K. properties also continue to perform strongly with a gradual improvement in momentum seen in the Croatian region through the summer season. As we've already alluded to, we have a clear focus on operational delivery alongside future balance sheet simplification as we go forward into the second half. And most of all, trading is in line with the consensus of the expectations for full year '26 despite the headwinds which we are seeing in the regions. So I think with that in mind, let's go to some Q&A, Robert.

Thank you. Probably one for you, Daniel. We've received a number of questions around the largest shareholder, Euro Plaza, rejecting the offer that was proposed. Can you give some more context perhaps as to the rationale and the reason for?

Obviously, I see that the 2 questions raised here are around the decision of our largest shareholder to oppose this transaction. So as Greg already alluded to, we had a planned offer from Fattal Hotel Group, which the majority of the substantial amount of shareholders we consulted supported. Also, the Board supported it as being fair value. However, Euro Plaza has decided to not support this. And with the acceptance conditions that Fattal and later placed in their offer, the offer was not deliverable. We can unfortunately not detail the reasoning or go into details of the reasons why the objection was. We cannot comment on somebody -- on the shareholder -- on the largest shareholder subsequently.

Thank you. Greg, one for you. There's a question around the development sites. You've obviously touched on the slightly. What do you see as sort of the next stage in all of these projects?