Sunstone Hotel Investors, Inc. (NYSE:SHO) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

And so it’s really getting that right, and that is where we put the focus in last year, and we’re starting to see that where you’ll see considerable — you will see considerable EBITDA growth in each hotel this year, you’ll see margin growth and — but still that margin growth as far as where — when do we get stabilized, that’s a couple of years out, probably looking into next year or so. And then — but even if these hotels are hitting it out of the park, their margins are going to be lower than the other hotels in our portfolio.

Operator: Our next question comes from Gregory Miller from Truist Securities.

Gregory Miller: I apologies if I missed this, but could you share some more detailed thoughts about the Boston market and your current sentiment of your Park Plaza and Long Wharf exposure there?

Bryan Giglia: Yes. Like other urban markets, Boston has been a great market for us. As far as the cadence of where it goes in urban market recovery, maybe not where our San Diego will behind San Diego and maybe Orlando, but farther ahead than San Francisco and D.C. So very happy with both hotels. Both hotels have had very different strategies. We invested quite a bit of capital into Long Wharf, really increasing the level of quality of the room, expanding the bathroom, the hotel — the location of the hotel is fantastic. The rooms now as far as being able to compete with other high-end hotels in the market are absolutely on par. And so at Long Wharf, we’ve been a little bit more mindful of occupancy because we’ve really been pushing the rate and been very successful at doing that.

Park Plaza is more of a transient and group box. And so where we invested there was adding additional meeting space. We put at the end of ’21, we added another 5,000 square feet of very modern functional space that mixes well with the more historic space and the rest of the building. And it allows us to push more group through there. And where we really need to be successful there or making sure that we have the right in-house corporate group and not relying on overflow from the citywide. So we have a great offering now that’s very compelling to corporate events. The pace — when we look at the pace for Park Plaza, it’s very strong and ’23 should be a great year for the hotel. And so as far as the market, the market has performed well. The hotels are performing very well within the market and long term, Boston is a market that we’re — we think very highly of.

Operator: Our next question comes from Anthony Powell from Barclays.

Anthony Powell: Just a quick question about capital recycling going forward in disposition and acquisitions. In order to sell a hotel, especially maybe a larger one, would you need to have another hotel acquired or have a good sight line to acquiring a big hotel or would you be willing to maybe sell a hotel and wait to remiss those proceeds down the road? Just curious how we match up those 2 going forward?

Bryan Giglia: Good morning, Anthony. In a perfect world, you match those up very close. I think what we’ve learned over the last couple of years is we’re not in a perfect world. So we have to be a little bit more flexible. And so one of our focuses is to — while capital recycling previously was maybe a little bit more episodic, we want to make it a more routine function for the company. And what I mean by that is that there’s 2 reasons for us to divest of an asset. The first one is that it’s opportunistic. For whatever reason, someone is going to value that hotel more than we have or we’ve — there’s some events that’s unencumbered or something where a buyer can buy it unencumbered and it creates value that way. Embassy Suite Portfolio is an example of that.