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

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Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson: And in terms of avid, look, we remain very confident on the future of avid. Keith talked about the number of owners who have now built and then sold on their avid for very good profits and they are the best advocates for us because they talk about what a great deal it is. It’s relatively inexpensive to build and it’s quick to build on a small land parcel. It’s preferred by guests. The economics for an owner are very good to operate it. And then there’s a very good cap rate when it’s sold. We just need the U.S. construction market overall to step up again and that will come when more debt capital gets made available in the U.S. because it’s a great proposition. And it’s something that a lot of our historic owners of Holiday Inn Expresses are very interested in. So you’ve got the right owner base. It will just take a little longer.

Keith Barr: And just a quick build on there and why do you have confidence? I mean, a, we came out very, very strong with the brand. Owner demand, customer and the performance are great. The comps on these asset sales are amazing in terms of the levels of return owners are getting and that’s just going to make it more attractive. If you look at some of our competitors who launched brands during the financial crisis, they just bumped along for a period of time. And then as lending came back because the strong customer proposition, strong owner proposition, they then accelerate and scale. So that’s what will happen with avid and Atwell over time. It may not be this year or next year. But again, it’s — you’re going to see that acceleration.

And long term, they’re incredibly big segments with strong returns for owners and they’re great brands. And so it’s just a question of when does lending come back and you can just get — you can look at our competitors and see when they launch brands and how they didn’t move for a while because of the lending environment, then the lending arm comes back up, new builds happened and they take off. So we would expect the same to happen.

Operator: And the next question goes to Jaina Mistry of Jefferies.

Jaina Mistry: I’ve got three. My first question is on the pricing environment for 2023. If I’m thinking about the key moving parts, let’s take Americas, it feels like there’s more scope to push rates in business and potentially in groups. And if the leisure pricing is flat, it could mean pricing up mid-single digits, perhaps? And then in other regions where there has been a slower recovery, we could see stronger pricing there, such as Asia and China. I mean how are you thinking about pricing for 2023? That’s my first question. My second question is around OpEx inflation. How are you thinking about the moving parts to OpEx inflation? And is 4% to 5% still a good anchor for 2023? And then my last question is on net unit growth.

I think in a previous investor presentation, perhaps the 1 at Q3, the slide has spoken to net unit growth, even reaching around 5.5%. What’s holding you back from reaching 5.5% this year? And has anything changed in January and February so far? If you could fund through each region, that would be really helpful.

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