Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc. (NYSE:AHT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Deric Eubanks: Yes. So, we’ve currently got about $196 million outstanding on it that’s been paid down some from an asset — proceeds from an asset sale. It really — that portion of it became freely pre-payable in January of this year. There was a prepayment penalty prior to that, so it’s now open for prepayment. If we were to pay that down, we would still have access to the additional $250 million that’s available, it’s obviously expensive capital, and we’d rather not draw that if we don’t need it, but it’s there if we ultimately do need it. And look, in terms of plans for paying that down, I think we’ll just have to see how the year progresses. We’re sitting on a lot of cash. It’s one of the reasons why we raised capital in 2021 in anticipation of wanting to pay off this debt.

But then also, we knew we would be facing these extension tests and there was some uncertainty and there still is some uncertainty in terms of the cash that will be needed to meet those extension tests. So, I think once we get past this round of extension tests, we’ll probably have some more clarity. We also would like to see how this capital raise ramps up from our non-traded preferred, which we’re still very early days on. And so, I don’t know if Rob wants to add anything to that.

Rob Hays: I would just say, in my mind, it’s really just dependent upon three different things. What happens on the trajectory of this recovery? Do we have a recession that hits us in a significant way? Right now, we’re not seeing that, but that’s always a little bit of a risk. And then just the trajectory of the recovery of the debt markets. To the extent that the debt markets can heal up a little bit, then it’s — we’ve also either have the ability to potentially refinance them out at a lower spread or had some alternatives around maybe another structure that’s materially cheaper. And three, just kind of the pacing as Deric mentioned of this non-traded preferred. If this capital continues to accelerate as we’re hopeful it might be able to, then there could be also some proceeds that give us some cushion to be able to deploy cash to pay it off.

So, there’s just a few of these moving pieces that we’ll see over the next months to come that will kind of determine I think, how quickly paid off. We’d like to. And we’ve got the cash to do it right now, but we just think it’s prudent to pull a lot of that cash until we have some more clarity on these items.

Bryan Maher: Okay. And then as we think about your positioning with assets and potentially assets for sale and assets that you might hand back to lenders. Why wouldn’t you be in the marketplace now with assets that you’re kind of on the fence, you might end up handing back and just see if you can achieve a price above the loan value? I’m just curious as to why you wouldn’t be in the market with more assets right now in that regard?

Deric Eubanks: We are, Bryan. You’re exactly right. I mean there’s the — we’ve got a significant — significant maybe too strong a word. We’ve got a handful of assets that we’ve identified internally as for sale — or potential for sale assets that are maybe not long-term core assets and are working with a variety of the brokers to figure out what’s the best timing. Some of those are in the market right now. And some were maybe at some size and scale where we think it’s hard to maybe achieve an effective sales price. But on some of these where we think it’s questionable whether it’s value or not, then yes, they’re out in the market right now. So, we’ve got a lot of different irons in the fire with that. So, I think our thinking is aligned with you.