InterContinental Hotels Group PLC (NYSE:IHG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Keith Barr: There are some hotels that have closed. We haven’t seen it being on that yet and we are seeing definitely conversions into our brands. I think we signed a Vignette, a couple of Vignette potentially in China into that play. We have a great new signing. We mentioned it early on. The Regent Shanghai on the will be one of the most iconic locations in all of China. A couple of other regions we’ve signed are going to be in some of the most iconic architectural designs in all of China. So that’s got great momentum. There’s definitely going to be some supply that comes out. I think it will be a question of hotels that were alternate use and maybe local brands or independents, what happens with those products when they come back into the markets overall. But the great news is we’re seeing demand come back which is good for everyone.

Operator: And the next question go to Jarrod Castle of UBS.

Jarrod Castle: Great. Just coming to your churn rate on hotels. It was 1.3% versus historic 1.5% and you’re now talking 1.5% going forward on this call. You’ve obviously undertaken quite a big cleanup of the portfolio. So is there room for it to be below 1.5%? Why we’re going back to historic rates, I guess. Just on kind of the Iberostar kind of deals. I mean trying to get an idea of what the competitive landscape when you put yourselves forward to sign such a deal? And what is, I guess, your unique selling point compared to others if you might be talking to those kind of organizations? And then just lastly, fee margin. Is it still — should we still be thinking in the kind of historic guidance range for fee margin for ’23?

Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson: Yes. So churn rate, 1.3% removals this year, lower certainly than I can remember over my last 19 years. And we’ve said that on an underlying basis, so i.e., when you take out the Holiday Inns and Crowne Plaza which was a higher rate as we were cleaning up that portfolio for a long time, it’s actually been the 1.5%. I think 1.5% is probably the right level going forward and that will be an average. So some years, you might see it a little higher, in some years, it might be marginally lower. So it will blend out over time to around that 1.5%. What’s important is having a healthy estate. And 1.5% gives us the capacity to take out hotels that we don’t think are representing the brand as we would like it to be represented or perhaps the owner has got an alternative use for the land, et cetera.

So I think that’s about the right rate of exits. And on fee margins, obviously, higher now and the Americas had a very strong performance on fee margin in 2022. EMEAA and China will grow back probably wouldn’t be pushing the Americas margin in ’23. I think we need to make sure that business is well invested into. But I would expect to see margin accretion in EMEAA and China. And then going forward, this business is run to generate margin. It’s a scaled platform business. So it will naturally accrete margin over the last 19 years, on average, it’s about 125 basis points. And I’d expect that we will continue to accrete margin as we move forward.

Keith Barr: Great. And then I guess, what’s the — what’s IHG’s unique value proposition to be able to attract groups like Iberostar? I mean, we’ve talked about it for a while about the enterprise platform we’ve built. It is 1 of the most powerful in this industry and it’s got materially stronger over the last 5 years. And so wanting to be part of that sort of enterprise platform. Additionally, I think we’re more international than some of our competitors. And the fact that we actually have probably some deeper relationships internationally and closer to the market because most of these exclusive partnership relationships will be international. They will not be necessarily U.S. focused because of the tenure of the marketplace overall, too.

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