RLJ Lodging Trust Q4 2024 Earnings Report

RLJ Lodging Trust EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.33
• Consensus EPS: -$0.03
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.36
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

RLJ Lodging Trust Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $329.99 million
• Expected Revenue: $324.66 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$5.33 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

RLJ Lodging Trust Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 2/25/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, February 26, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

RLJ Lodging Trust (NYSE:RLJ) is a self-managed, publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT) that acquires, owns and operates premium-branded, focused-service and compact full-service hotels. The company’s portfolio is concentrated in major U.S. markets, targeting properties that benefit from strong corporate and leisure demand, limited new supply and established brand affiliations.

The trust’s hotels are affiliated with leading global lodging brands across the spectrum of service levels, including lifestyle and upscale segments. RLJ Lodging Trust seeks to enhance value through active asset management, capital improvements and strategic repositionings. Its disciplined approach to underwriting and portfolio construction emphasizes geographic markets with favorable long-term fundamentals.

Founded in 2011 as a spin-off from RLJ Equity Partners, RLJ Lodging Trust is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. The company was established by entrepreneur Robert L. Johnson, who continues to serve as chairman of the board. Under the oversight of an experienced management team with deep hospitality and financial expertise, RLJ Lodging Trust has grown its portfolio through selective acquisitions, development joint ventures and occasional dispositions to optimize returns and maintain a high-quality asset base.

RLJ Lodging Trust Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• RevPAR growth of 2.2% in Q4 (urban markets +3.7%) placed RLJ in the top quartile and outpaced industry benchmarks.
• Business transient RevPAR jumped 8% with a 7% ADR increase, while group revenues rose 3% and leisure revenues climbed 6% (urban leisure +8%).
• Six completed conversions delivered over 10% RevPAR growth in 2024, with the Courtyard Pittsburgh conversion achieving a 14% Q4 RevPAR gain and 24% above 2019 levels.
• RLJ addressed all 2025 debt maturities, repurchased $22 million of stock, boosted its quarterly dividend by 50%, and ended Q4 with $900 million in liquidity and $2.2 billion of debt.
• For 2025, the company forecasts 1–3% comparable RevPAR growth, $1.46–1.66 adjusted FFO per share, $80–100 million of capex, and expects continued urban outperformance.

Presentation

[Operator]

Welcome to the RLJ Lodging Trust fourth quarter 2024 Earnings Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. I would now like to turn the call over to Nikhil Bhalla, RLJ Senior Vice President, Finance and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

[Nikhil Bhalla, SVP of Finance and Treasurer at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Thank you, Operator. Good morning and welcome to RLJ Lodging Trust 2024, fourth quarter and Full Year Earnings Call. On today's call, Leslie Hale, our President and Chief Executive Officer, will discuss key highlights for the quarter. Sean Mahoney, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will discuss the company's financial results. Tom Bardenett, our Chief Operating Officer, will be available for Q&A.

[Nikhil Bhalla, SVP of Finance and Treasurer at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Forward-looking statements made on this call are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that may lead the company's actual results to differ materially from what had been communicated. Factors that may impact the results of the company can be found in the company's 10-K and other reports filed with the SEC.

[Nikhil Bhalla, SVP of Finance and Treasurer at RLJ Lodging Trust]

The company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements. Also, as we discuss certain non-GAAP measures, it may be helpful to review the reconciliations to GAAP located in our press release.

[Nikhil Bhalla, SVP of Finance and Treasurer at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Finally, please refer to the schedule of supplemental information, which includes pro forma operating results for our current hotel portfolio for 2024. I will now turn the call over to Leslie.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Thanks, Nikhil. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We are very pleased with our fourth quarter results, which once again demonstrate the consistent and positive momentum in our urban-centric portfolio. Our overall performance in the quarter culminated a year where we accomplished a number of key objectives. This year, we achieved top-quartile RevPAR growth that outpaced the industry, while also expanding market share.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We acquired the Hotel Teatro in Denver. We completed three conversions in Houston, New Orleans, and Pittsburgh, bringing our total completed conversions to six. These assets achieved robust RevPAR growth of over 10% in 2024. We also advanced our next wave of conversions within our multi-year pipeline, including our Nashville and Boston assets.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Additionally, we addressed all of our 2025 debt maturity. We creatively recycled disposition proceeds into share repurchases, and we enhanced shareholder returns by increasing our quarterly dividends.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Our solid performance this year highlights our portfolio's strong positioning relative to our ability to capture the evolving travel dynamic, while our capital allocation demonstrates the optionality that our strong balance sheet provides to pursue multiple channels of growth and enhanced shareholder returns.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Now, turning to our operating performance, our RevPAR grew by 2.2% over the prior year, led by our urban markets, which represent 2/3 of our portfolio and achieved 3.7% RevPAR growth during the fourth quarter. Urban markets continue to benefit from improving trends across all demand segments, including corporate travel, robust group demand fueled by citywide, as well as other entertainment-related events.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Additionally, the evolving travel patterns derived from work flexibility are also driving urban leisure demand, benefiting our urban lifestyle hotels that represent 40% of our portfolio and achieved 4.5% RevPAR growth during the quarter.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

These positive trends allowed many of our top urban markets to generate double-digit RevPAR growth. Within the quarter, November achieved positive RevPAR growth, enabled by better-than-expected performance against a muted outlook for group and business travel around the election. December was especially strong, and we were pleased to see this momentum carry into January, which achieved 3.2% RevPAR growth over last year.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

From a segmentation standpoint, BT was once again our best-performing segment, achieving 8% revenue growth over the prior year, driven by both improving demand and continued pricing power, resulting in a 7% ADR increase. Our midweek urban RevPAR growth of 4.1% is further evidence of improving BT. Robust demand from SMEs, the broadening of corporate travel among large national accounts, and the increasing return to office mandate continues to be a tailwind for this segment.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Relative to group, despite the timing of the Jewish holidays in October and the muted demand around the election in November, our Group segment performed well during the fourth quarter. Group revenues grew by 3%, led by a 1% improvement in demand and a 2% increase in ADR.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Our Group segment benefited from the continuing growth in small group, as well as increases in corporate meetings and strong citywide volume in many of our key markets, such as Houston, New Orleans, South Florida, and Southern California.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Our Group segment also benefited from incremental demand created by the remixing of our customer base from several transformational conversions and renovations in key markets, such as Southern California. Additionally, we were pleased with the recent performance in leisure that we saw during the quarter, as our leisure revenues grew by a strong 6%, balanced between rate and demand growth.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Our urban leisure revenues had a stronger pace of growth at 8%, disproportionately benefiting from special events in a number of markets. We were encouraged to see strong leisure demand, particularly around the holidays, demonstrating the continuing desire to travel by consumers.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Collectively, these trends enabled our out-of-room spend to achieve robust growth of 6.3%, leading total revenues to grow by 3%, which once again outpaced our RevPAR growth. This top-line growth, combined with our focused approach to managing operating expenses, allowed our EBITDA to increase over the prior year for the second consecutive quarter.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

With respect to capital allocation, during the fourth quarter, we officially relaunched the former Wyndham Pittsburgh as a Courtyard Pittsburgh University Center. We completed this conversion ahead of schedule and are already seeing early success, with its fourth quarter RevPAR increasing by 14% year-over-year, which is 24% ahead of 2019 levels.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We expect this hotel to generate outsized growth as it benefits from its prime location on the university's campus and by joining the Marriott system. During the fourth quarter, we also advanced our Nashville and downtown Pittsburgh conversions, keeping us on pace with our cadence of completing two conversions per year.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

And finally, we continue to ramp our conversions in Charleston, Mandalay Beach, Santa Monica, Houston, and New Orleans, which collectively achieved robust RevPAR growth of 21% in the fourth quarter.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Additionally, during the year, we utilized the flexibility of our strong balance sheet to acquire the Wyndham Boston Beacon Hill and the Hotel Teatro using existing liquidity, to redeploy disposition proceeds to accretively repurchase $22 million of stock, to raise our quarterly dividend by 50%, and to improve our debt maturity ladder by addressing our 2025 maturities.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Our balance sheet will continue to provide us with optionality in 2025 and beyond. As it relates to external growth, we expect the transaction market to improve throughout the year. That said, as we have demonstrated, we will remain disciplined and thoughtful with respect to capital allocation.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Now, looking ahead, while we expect headline volatility to persist, we are encouraged by the potential for lodging fundamentals to accelerate in a more business-friendly economic environment, assuming less regulation, lower taxes, and positive momentum in return to office mandates. However, under our baseline assumption, we expect the lodging industry to achieve low single-digit RevPAR growth with moderating operating expense growth.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We believe that urban markets will remain especially well-positioned and should continue to outperform the industry in light of broad-based growth across multiple segments of demand.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

This year, we expect group demand to remain healthy, most notably small group, which represents the majority of our booking. We are encouraged that our 2025 group pace is mid-single digits ahead of 2024, with our first quarter pace up low double digits. Business Transient should continue to have positive momentum and improve as return to office mandates increase, and leisure is expected to remain stable in light of low unemployment and a general healthy consumer.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Against this backdrop, we believe that we have a favorable footprint, which positions us well for the year, given markets such as Northern California, where citywide room nights are up over 60% above prior year. Southern California should benefit from a strong San Diego citywide calendar and improving aerospace demand.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Boston should benefit from a robust citywide calendar and improving business travel, with incremental lifts from industries such as biotech and higher education, and Washington, DC. and New Orleans having benefited from the presidential inauguration and the Super Bowl so far this year.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Overall, the resiliency that our urban-centric portfolio demonstrated against a choppy backdrop throughout last year gives us confidence that RLJ is well-positioned for 2025.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

As we look beyond the current year, we remain positive on the outlook for lodging fundamentals, given the broader consumer trends that continue to favor experiences over goods and secular trends in BT as well as group spend. These trends will disproportionately favor urban markets, especially against a prolonged period of limited new supply.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

With respect to this backdrop, we are especially well-positioned, given that our high-quality Urban portfolio is built to capture outsized growth relative to the industry, the continued ramp of our completed conversions, our future pipeline of conversions, and our strong free cash flow and balance sheet, which will continue to drive both internal and external growth in addition to enhancing shareholder returns.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

I am incredibly proud of our entire team, including our dedicated operators, whose contributions have set us up to create shareholder value in the coming year ahead. With that, I'll turn the call over to Sean. Sean.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Thanks, Leslie. To start, our comparable numbers include our 95 hotels owned at the end of the fourth quarter. Our reported corporate-adjusted EBITDA and FFO include operating results from all sold and acquired hotels during RLJ's ownership period.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We are pleased to report solid fourth-quarter operating results, which demonstrated the strength and resiliency of our high-quality Urban-Centric portfolio. Our fourth-quarter RevPAR growth of 2.2% was driven by a 2.5% increase in ADR, which was slightly offset by a 0.2% decline in occupancy. Fourth-quarter occupancy was 69.2%, average daily rate was $198.71, and RevPAR was $137.53.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Our Business Transient and Midweek continues to outperform. Fourth-quarter business transient RevPAR grew 8% above 2023, including healthy ADR growth of 7% and occupancy growth of 1%. Total revenue growth of 3% continued to outpace RevPAR growth as a result of continued strength in out-of-room spend.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

RevPAR growth remained healthy in our urban markets, such as New Orleans at 27%, Chicago CBD at 19%, Houston at 18%, New York at 11%, San Diego at 9%, Los Angeles at 8%, and Louisville at 7%. Monthly RevPAR achieved positive growth during each month of the fourth quarter and was 2.2% in October, 0.3% in November, which was constrained by the election, and 4.3% in December.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Our preliminary January RevPAR growth is 3.2% above prior year. Turning to the current operating cost environment, as we expected, our operating cost growth rate continued to moderate during the fourth quarter. Our total hotel operating cost growth was only 3.9%, which underscores the benefits of our portfolio construct and our initiatives to manage our operating cost growth.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Drilling down further into hotel operating expenses, as expected, prior outsized growth in fixed costs, such as insurance and property taxes, benefited from the lapping of difficult comps during the first half of the year. Successful property tax appeals and the renewal of our property insurance program in November, where annual premiums decreased over 10%.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

During the fourth quarter, our portfolio achieved hotel EBITDA of $90.4 million, representing $0.5 million of growth above 2023, and hotel EBITDA margins of 27.4%. We were pleased with our operating margin performance, which were only 67 basis points behind the fourth quarter of 2023.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Turning to the bottom line, our fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA was $81.1 million, and adjusted FFO per diluted share was $0.33. We continue to actively manage our balance sheet to create additional flexibility and further lower our cost of capital.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

During 2024, we addressed all of our 2024 and 2025 debt maturities, including entering into a new $500 million term loan. We will continue to take steps during 2025 to proactively address our 2026 debt maturity.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We ended the fourth quarter with a well-positioned balance sheet with $500 million available under our corporate revolver, a current weighted average maturity of approximately 3.4 years, 87 of our 95 hotels unencumbered by debt, an attractive weighted average interest rate of 4.6%, and 69% of debt either fixed or hedged.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

As it relates to our liquidity, we ended the fourth quarter with over $0.9 billion of liquidity and $2.2 billion of debt. With respect to capital allocation, as we have demonstrated in the past, we intend to invest in projects to unlock the embedded value within our portfolio, while also remaining committed to returning capital to shareholders through both share repurchases and dividends.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

During 2024, we were active under our $250 million share repurchase program and successfully recycled 100% of the non-core disposition proceeds towards the repurchase of approximately 2.3 million shares for $22 million at an average price of $9.39 per share. We have been active so far in 2025 and have repurchased approximately 1.2 million shares for $12 million at an average price of $9.77 per share.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Additionally, our quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share is well covered and supported by our free cash flow. We will continue making prudent capital allocation decisions to position our portfolio to drive growth during the entire lodging cycle, while monitoring the financing markets to identify additional opportunities to improve the laddering of our debt maturities, reduce our weighted average cost of debt, and increase balance sheet flexibility.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Turning to our outlook, based on our current view, we are providing full-year 2025 guidance that anticipates a continuation of the current operating and macroeconomic environment.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

For 2025, we expect comparable RevPAR growth to range between 1% and 3%, comparable hotel EBITDA between $378 million and $408 million, corporate-adjusted EBITDA between $345 million and $375 million, and adjusted FFO per diluted share to be between $1.46 and $1.66, which incorporates shares repurchased to date but no additional repurchases.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Our outlook assumes no additional acquisitions, dispositions, or refinancing. We estimate 2025 RLJ capital expenditures will be in the range of $80 million to $100 million. Cash G&A will be in the range of $34 million to $35 million, and expect net interest expense will be in the range of $94 million to $96 million.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We also expect total revenue growth will continue to outpace RevPAR growth due to continued success in our initiatives to drive out-of-room spend. Our 2025 outlook ranges incorporated anticipated displacement from scheduled 2025 renovations in certain high-occupancy markets, such as Waikiki, South Florida, and New York. These renovations will be transformational and should create strong growth in 2026 and beyond.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Additionally, our outlook ranges incorporate the second quarter closure of the Austin Downtown Convention Center, which is being significantly expanded to position Austin for long-term success. With respect to the cadence for the year and to assist with modeling, we expect 2025 to follow similar quarterly seasonal patterns as 2024 and expect first quarter adjusted EBITDA to be between $74 million and $77 million.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Finally, please refer to the supplemental information, which will include comparable 2024 and 2023 quarterly and annual operating results for our 95 hotel portfolio.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Thank you, and this concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the line for Q&A. Operator.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue.

[Operator]

For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the Star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Michael Bellisario with Baird. Please proceed with your question.

[Michael Bellisario, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst for Hotel REITs at Baird]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Good morning, Mike.

[Michael Bellisario, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst for Hotel REITs at Baird]

Leslie, first question, just on your one to three RevPAR guidance, maybe help us unpack the high-end, low-end, what are the puts and takes at each end? Then you mentioned a handful of tailwinds in 2025, Urban Group, Northern California. Maybe where do you see the risks or headwinds potentially playing out throughout the portfolio in 2025?

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Sure. You know, Mike, our high-end and low-end is really a derivative off of our sort of our base assumption. So, our base assumption is that the momentum from 2024 continues in 2025, that we continue to see a mix of rate and Oc, and that Urban continues to outperform the industry as Urban's benefiting from all the different segments, and it's got the most room for growth.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

So when we look at BT, our base assumption is that who's traveling, the frequency of travel, the length of stay is benefiting midweek trends, and that's going to continue. From a group perspective, as we mentioned in our prepared remarks, that our pace is strong with mid-single digits, and we have a favorable footprint that you articulated as well.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We think that on the Group side, it's going to mostly be driven by rate and that leisure remains stable and that we're benefiting from urban leisure and our conversions, so when we look at the high-end, the low-end, on the high-end, we assume that the macro conditions remain steady and that BT performs ahead of our baseline assumption, both on rate and demand.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

And that Group has a stronger demand growth in addition to rate growth, which is different from our base assumption, and that there's no real change in leisure on the high-end. On the low-end, it assumes that the pace of growth for BT is slower and that group has less rate growth on the low-end, and another variation could be if urban leisure softens relative to overall leisure.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

And then lastly, there's a scenario where we could have a little bit of incremental displacement from some of the renovations. But those are sort of the puts and takes, but it's all a derivative off of our base assumption.

[Michael Bellisario, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst for Hotel REITs at Baird]

Okay. That's helpful. And then just switching gears a little bit, just on your capital allocation priorities, maybe what's the stack ranking for 2025 as you sit here today, and how might that differ from what your priorities were in 2024? Thank you.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yeah. Mike, what I would say is that I think we have to acknowledge that the current environment is not static and that the backdrop just continues to evolve. And that requires us to be nimble as it relates to capital allocation, and having a strong balance sheet gives us the optionality. So, we have consistently demonstrated the ability to pick the right windows and use different tools.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We've done it for the last couple of years, including 2024, where you saw us buy back stock with recycled proceeds from dispositions. We invested in our conversions that have yielded great results. As we've mentioned in our prepared remarks, they're up 10% for the full year and 24% in the fourth quarter. We acquired two assets that have expanded our conversion pipeline, and we increased our dividend. And so we're going to continue to be nimble.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We're going to evaluate the windows, looking at the direction of the fundamentals, looking at the macro backdrop, and keeping an eye on our balance sheet. But I think that we've demonstrated the ability to do that. Obviously, as we've moved into the year, we've continued to be active on the buybacks, given where stocks are trading today. But you're going to still see us be nimble and look for the right windows, as we've done for the last couple of years.

[Michael Bellisario, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst for Hotel REITs at Baird]

Thanks. That's all for me.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Jonathan Jenkins with Oppenheimer. Please proceed with your question.

[Jonathan Jenkins, Equity Research Associate Director for Finance and Consumer Services at Oppenheimer]

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Just following up on that capital allocation discussion, the conversions continue to perform very well. And you've talked in the past about your cadence of, I think, two a year and around potentially on the 10, potentially on the radar. Does that continued strength change the formula in terms of how aggressive you think about that annual cadence and potentially maybe leaning into and accelerating that pipeline going forward?

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yeah. No, I think great question. We appreciate that. I think from a cadence standpoint, the way we view is layering in a couple per year is the right thing from both how we think about allocating our CapEx dollars, but also how our contracts to provide us the optionality line up.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

And so from a standpoint of just making sure that we have built a portfolio that we are constantly sprinkling in incremental growth catalysts through conversions, we think doing that over a period of time is sort of the right way to think about it without taking too much risk in one particular year.

[Jonathan Jenkins, Equity Research Associate Director for Finance and Consumer Services at Oppenheimer]

Very helpful. And then switching gears, can you help us think about the transaction market more recently, how buyers' and sellers' expectations have evolved as of late, and then maybe dive into your outlook of an improving market in 2025 and the key drivers of that view?

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yeah. Look, I would say that if I look at last year, clearly interest rates improved and access to debt improved as well. But the fact of the matter is that the transaction market didn't improve as much as we all thought it would be, particularly given the fact that interest rates didn't come down as much as we originally expected at the beginning of the year.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

So the transaction market remains choppy and the bid-ask spread remains wide. We still see small deals get done, single assets, but there's really no clear themes through the transactions. You really have to look at things on an asset-by-asset basis, transaction-by-transaction in terms of what's the catalyst.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

And so while I think there's some general optimism that the back half of the year will be better than the beginning of this year, I think you have to just remain opportunistic in this climate, which our balance sheet gives us the ability to do. I think that as the headline volatility reduces and we see some improvement on the stabilization of margins, I think that's going to help bode well for the transaction market.

[Jonathan Jenkins, Equity Research Associate Director for Finance and Consumer Services at Oppenheimer]

Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you for all the color. That's all for me.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Austin Worsham with KeyBanc. Please proceed with your question.

[Austin Wurschmidt, Senior REIT Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc]

Great. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. You highlighted in the fourth quarter that ADR was really driven entirely by ADR growth. I guess, was this kind of unique to that quarter, or could that continue based on where occupancy levels are tracking today? Maybe said differently, I guess, do your operators have the confidence to drive rate and sort of to the extent we stay in a little bit of a slower RevPAR growth environment?

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yeah. Austin, thanks for the question. Our general perspective is that the rate momentum will continue and that it's been broad-based across all of our markets. It's largely coming from group and BT. Just, I guess, for context, obviously, BT rate in the fourth quarter was up 7%. For the full year, it was up a little over 5%. And it's really a function of who's traveling, right?

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

So, we've seen the increase in national counts. They are your least price-sensitive, highest-rated customer that's coming back, and we're seeing an increase across the GDS. Corporate negotiation rates are up as well. SMEs are continuing to have a high contribution, and given how they book and what channels they book from, that's all contributing to BT able to continue to drive rate growth.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

What I would say is that BT revenues overall, using Special Corporate as a proxy, we're at about 81% of 2019 levels. So, there's still room to grow. And I think the other thing is that when you look historically at where BT rate sits relative to group, right now, today, it's 15% below group, but historically, it was 15% above.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Now, what I'll tell you is that this time last year, BT was 20% below group, and so you saw a 500 basis points pickup in the year. We expect that gap will continue to close. We don't know where it's going to settle or what degree, but we think there's opportunity and room for rate to grow on BT side.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We also think that Group has shown real strength on the rate side. It was up 2% in the fourth quarter, 3% for the year.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

And that's really a function of corporate group being strong, small group being strong, and driving rates. And so each incremental amount of demand is going to help push that rate. So, we feel pretty good about the rate trajectory and pricing power.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

And then, Austin, one incremental data point. We gave the RevPAR growth for January at 3.2%. That was all driven by rate as well. And so that's carried forward into 2025, which is a good data point from a momentum perspective.

[Austin Wurschmidt, Senior REIT Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc]

Yeah. That's all really helpful details. So I guess, given the assumption and guidance for RevPAR growth to be a mix of rate and occupancy to the extent that rate growth continues to be a primary driver of RevPAR, how big of an impact does that have on margins versus kind of the initial assumption and guidance?

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yeah. I mean, our margin range is anywhere from sort of 30 basis points at the low end down to high ones at the low end, sort of 100 basis points at the middle. Stating the obvious, rate-driven RevPAR growth is going to flow more to the bottom line than occupancy.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

I think our view is that if rate takes more center stage, that would allow us to get to the lower end of that margin range, which is, as I said, about 30 basis points down at 24.

[Austin Wurschmidt, Senior REIT Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc]

Let me just clarify on that last comment. If you hit the midpoint of RevPAR around, call it 2%, I believe, but it's all rate-driven, is that enough to get you to the low end without RevPAR outperforming initial expectations?

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

No. That would likely get us between the low end and the midpoint, and so call it that's sort of that 50-75 basis points in that scenario.

[Austin Wurschmidt, Senior REIT Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc]

Understood. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Gregory Miller with Truist. Please proceed with your question.

[Gregory Miller, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Truist]

Thanks. Good morning, all. I'd like to start off with a market-specific question and ask about LA. I'm curious how impactful, if impactful, the LA fires were to your Pierside Hotel and perhaps others in the greater LA area like Zachari Dunes.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yeah. Look, I would say that in general, we obviously mentioned that January was a strong month for us, and that's a function of a lot of markets. But LA was one of those that benefited from, obviously, some of the fire relief. We saw that in our market from a positive perspective.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yeah. Greg, we participated in the program, if you recall, when Hilton announced primarily trying to capture some of the folks that were dislocated. And so whether it was Zachari Dunes up in Oxnard to avoid the PCH, Pierside, as well as LAX and Hollywood, which we had to evacuate, we did see some demand come from that.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

And we'll continue to see additional demand through February a little bit as well through that. So unfortunate, but yes, we did have quite a few of the folks that were displaced.

[Gregory Miller, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Truist]

Maybe sticking with that topic, what are your expectations for the rest of the year in terms of the degree of falloff you might see from transient leisure or transient corporate related to the fires? Or is the expectation that that concern and the headlines that we're seeing in the news might have a dissipated impact in terms of potential demand loss to those hotels?

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yeah. What I would say, Greg, is that our budgets were not built around the fire, and so our performance and our assumptions don't include any lift from that. It's obviously improving in terms of the conditions for individuals on the grounds as they find permanent housing, so it's not baked into our broader numbers.

[Gregory Miller, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Truist]

Okay. Thanks. Appreciate it.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Dori Keston with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

[Dori Kesten, Senior Equity Research Analyst for REITs at Wells Fargo]

Thanks. Good morning. What are your expectations for urban leisure versus resort leisure on the demand and rate side this year, if they're materially different?

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We think that urban leisure is going to just continue to outperform broader leisure when we look at our footprint. We have a favorable setup in a number of markets relative to special events. And we're seeing it, whether it is all of the World Cup soccer games that are going to be taking place across the various markets.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Southern California is going to benefit from that, DC, for example. We've got Mardi Gras and NOLA, which is the timing of its slightly different than normal years, so we'll benefit from that. So, I think when we look across our markets, there's a lot of benefit on the special event side that our footprint has a favorable disposition towards Dori.

[Dori Kesten, Senior Equity Research Analyst for REITs at Wells Fargo]

Okay, and is there any update that you provided regarding the lease negotiation out in San Diego?

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We're obviously still in active discussions, but what I would say is that it's moving very in a favorable way, and we are pleased with the direction and hope to be able to give an update later this year.

[Dori Kesten, Senior Equity Research Analyst for REITs at Wells Fargo]

Okay. Great. Thanks so much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Floris van Dijkum with Compass Point. Please proceed with your question.

[Floris van Dijkum, Senior REIT Analyst at Compass Point]

Morning. Leslie, I have a question for you on your conversions. You've got six conversions that you've completed. In terms of stabilized, I don't know how many of those you deem as being stabilized today, but what's the range of returns on stabilized projects?

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yeah. Floris, I'll start, and then Leslie can chime in. I think our expectations have been sort of north of 50% on levered IRRs on the incremental capital. We are slightly ahead of that based on our underwriting. I think these assets are generating terrific returns for us on the conversions.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

What's interesting is that they are continuing to ramp year-over-year. On the three Phase 1s, EBITDA in 2024 for 2023 was up 24%. RevPAR was up about 12% for those three assets. And so we're continuing to ramp on those assets, even the ones that were converted a couple of years ago.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

And then the Phase 2 conversions, and Tom can provide color as well on the ground. Tonnelle, New Orleans, RevPAR was up 40% year-over-year. In Houston, RevPAR was up 8%.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

So, even though we're earlier in the ramp, they are all generating returns in excess of what we initially underwrote. So, super excited about them.

[Tom Bardenett, COO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

And I think the common themes that we're seeing, Floris, is when you think about contribution from the brand. We talked about the next three, which is Houston in the Hilton system, NOLA, which is Hotel Tonnelle, which is a Tribute in the Marriott system, and then Pittsburgh, which is most recently converted to Courtyard. They're all giving much more contribution, whether it's through the Marriott or Hilton system.

[Tom Bardenett, COO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

You also see a change of the mix, whether it's group or corporate, leisure higher end, redemptions in locations that are attractive when there's reasons to go there for leisure. And then less OTAs paying less percentage.

[Tom Bardenett, COO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

So, higher ADRs, higher RevPAR indexes, and then, more importantly, what Sean mentioned, higher EBITDA returns. And that's where we're seeing the general theme where rate's moving to a place where it's already in the market, and now we're taking our rightful place.

[Floris van Dijkum, Senior REIT Analyst at Compass Point]

Great. By the way, I think that one of the key things is not just higher RevPAR, but it's higher EBITDA margins, I think, is important.

[Floris van Dijkum, Senior REIT Analyst at Compass Point]

Remind us as well what your current delta is, particularly in your Urban portfolio relative to I know that you've been talking about how most of the growth in RevPAR right now is driven off of ADR. But what's the occupancy upside or delta still to get back to 19 levels, particularly in your urban portfolio?

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yeah. Let me start, Floris, and then I'll kick it over to Tom. So within our total portfolio, we're at 94% of 19 levels of occupancy. Within the segments, special Corporate's a little over 90% of 2019 levels of occupancy and Group's around 90%. So, that's where we see the terrific ramp and opportunity as return to office and groups continue to travel.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Urban is not materially different than that, and I'll kick it over to Tom for some more color. But the demand is really where we see a lot of opportunity within the portfolio and why we're so excited about urban outperforming again in 2025 after a strong year in 2024.

[Tom Bardenett, COO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

And just to drill down a little further, and that is when you look at day of week, every day this past year had RevPAR growth, Sunday through Saturday, right? But then when you look at the highest percentage of growth, it was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday because of BT being the driver of that with both demand and occupancy.

[Tom Bardenett, COO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

And I think when we layer in Group, depending upon positioning, we also have that opportunity to influence weekends in addition to what Leslie mentioned about corporate group coming back.

[Tom Bardenett, COO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

And when corporate group comes back, Floris, we get banquets, we get room rental, we're seeing F&B profit margin go up. And a lot of our renovations that were beverage-centric, creating that light meal, a bar experience in these new spaces, that's what's helping us on the profitability side as well.

[Floris van Dijkum, Senior REIT Analyst at Compass Point]

Thanks, guys.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Chris Woronka with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.

[Chris Woronka, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Hotel and Lodging REITs at Deutsche Bank]

Hey. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. I just wanted for a minute, if we could, circle back to the January commentary, especially with the rate growth. I'm curious if you kind of isolated San Francisco and New Orleans, which I know had some benefits in them, if there's a different run rate that we'd be looking at.

[Chris Woronka, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Hotel and Lodging REITs at Deutsche Bank]

I mean, I know we've seen February has been a little bit different for the industry than January. So just if there's anything you thinks a better run rate next to those markets that had benefits. Thanks.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yeah. I mean, we had a number of markets that performed well in January, but I appreciate your comment. Obviously, DC outperformed because of the inauguration, but other markets, because of, for example, Pittsburgh where we have a conversion ramping up, Atlanta had the NCAA championships, so there was a number of markets that helped us. But to your point, there were some outsized markets on that.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

What I would say from a cadence perspective, just more broadly, and then zeroing in on the first quarter, I would say when I think about the cadence, we expect every quarter this year to be positive, and we expect first quarter to be better than the second quarter because of, obviously, Easter shifting into the second quarter, but also because we had some tough comps in the second quarter.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

For example, we had the PGA Championship in Louisville at the same time we had in the same month, rather, that we had the 150th Anniversary of the Derby. And then we think the second half is going to be slightly better than the first half.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

And that's really just a function of sort of where our renovations are falling from a timing perspective, in addition to the fact that a lot of the back half has better special events as well as you're going to be lapsing the election comp. And then you've got some key markets with citywide and the better in the back half.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

If we drill down on Q1 obviously, January being the strongest month, I think that we think that February is going to come in line with the midpoint of our guidance, and March is going to be positive, but the spring break is going to be spread over March and April.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yeah, and the one additional color is that February will have one less day, and so that won't impact RevPAR, but will impact profitability compared to last year.

[Chris Woronka, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Hotel and Lodging REITs at Deutsche Bank]

Gotcha. Thanks for all the color. And just as a follow-up, this is a question about The Knick. I don't know if we've reached peak yet of brand companies writing checks for big conversions, but it feels like we're a little closer. Any updated thoughts either towards a branding or just an unencumbered sale given how strongly the New York market has recovered?

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yep. I mean, while the New York market is strong, definitely from an operating perspective, the fact of the matter is the transaction market, as I mentioned before, remains choppy. It's not the right backdrop to sell an asset of that irreplaceable real estate and location. But point taken in terms of how the market is performing.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

I would say in terms of brands, there is an opportunity to always have conversations with brands, and we have those from time to time, but it just hasn't made sense to put a brand on that hotel as we sit today. We've had tremendous success as the team walked through on our brands. We are very good at identifying what brand should sit on a hotel, how that brand will perform, and what the box can be.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

At this juncture, we haven't found a brand that we think makes sense for The Knick.

[Chris Woronka, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Hotel and Lodging REITs at Deutsche Bank]

Okay. Fair enough. Thanks, Leslie.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Chris Darling with Green Street Advisors. Please proceed with your question.

[Chris Darling, Senior Analyst and Head of US Lodging and Gaming Research at Green Street Advisors]

Hi. Thanks. Good morning. Leslie, I just want to circle back to the comment you made earlier about BT rates still being about 15% below Group. I was curious, is that pretty consistent across the portfolio, or do you see noticeable differences by market, and to the extent you do, I'd be curious what's driving that, whether it's return to office or something else?

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yeah. I think it's generally broad-based, and I think it's just a function of who came back first, Chris, right? Group came back. Leisure was first, then group, and now BT. And now you have the return to office, which is adding octane on there. You also have to look at who came back first within the BT segment itself, right?

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We all know there was SMEs, and now you have the national accounts, which I mentioned before, the least price sensitive and your highest rated customer. So, I think it's a matter of just sequencing and timing is what's driven that. But also keep in mind that people are working different today, right? And so you have the infamous word of bleisure and how that's sort of planning out today.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

I think at the end of the day, we've always thought that aggregate demand would succeed the prior peak, but we always knew that the puts and takes would be slightly differently.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

So I think the point isn't so much that we're projecting that BT is going to get back to its historical relationship. What we're saying is that there's room to grow, and we don't know exactly where it's going to land, but we think it's going to improve from where it's at today.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

The last thing I would add to Leslie's comments, if you think about dynamic pricing, Chris, the one shift that's taken place significantly for the SMEs is they're buying at what's called bar or retail, and that's our highest percentage of our mix within the Transient category, and so that's where you have your highest rate, so that's replaced some of the BT that used to go to corporate under fixed, where that customer's coming back at that level.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

The other thing we're noticing and monitoring is how they book, and so when Leslie was talking about Corporate coming back, we're seeing global distribution systems starting to rise up, and that's because of the national corporate accounts that go through that category, and then lastly, brand.com, we're seeing more and more people going direct.

[Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

The membership is helping on Hilton Honors, Marriott, Hyatt, where more people are buying through that, which is helping us on the profitability side because you're not having to pay commission on brand.com rates. So, those are the factors that we kind of see as room in the tank and how they're booking and the channels of how they see us.

[Chris Darling, Senior Analyst and Head of US Lodging and Gaming Research at Green Street Advisors]

Okay. Understood. That's all helpful to hear. And then just one more quick one for me. What's embedded in your outlook for the Bay Area this year? Fair to say that we should be expecting RevPAR sort of above the midpoint of your overall guidance range?

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

Yeah. I would say, Chris, in general, yes. Obviously, with the Citywides coming back on a relative basis strong to last year, plus 60%, and we think it's going to benefit mostly second quarter and the fourth quarter based on how the Citywides are shaping up, in particular, Salesforce moving third quarter to fourth quarter.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We are encouraged by some of the green shoots that we're seeing. There's been a few corporate conferences that have rotated back from Las Vegas to San Francisco, most notably Microsoft and Workday. Additionally, the return to office mandates from some major tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Salesforce. And so we think collectively those things will help San Francisco. But yes, you're right. You would look at San Francisco being above the midpoint.

[Chris Darling, Senior Analyst and Head of US Lodging and Gaming Research at Green Street Advisors]

All right. Appreciate the time. Thank you.

[Operator]

Ms. Hale, we have no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments.

[Leslie Hale, President and CEO at RLJ Lodging Trust]

We want to thank everybody for joining us today, and we look forward to seeing many of you in the coming weeks at various conferences. We'll be able to provide further update. Thank you, guys.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.

Participants

Executives

• Tom Bardenett, COO
• Sean Mahoney, EVP and CFO
• Leslie Hale, President and CEO
• Nikhil Bhalla, SVP of Finance and Treasurer

Analysts

• Chris Woronka, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst for Hotel and Lodging REITs at Deutsche Bank
• Austin Wurschmidt, Senior REIT Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc
• Floris van Dijkum, Senior REIT Analyst at Compass Point
• Jonathan Jenkins, Equity Research Associate Director for Finance and Consumer Services at Oppenheimer
• Michael Bellisario, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst for Hotel REITs at Baird
• Chris Darling, Senior Analyst and Head of US Lodging and Gaming Research at Green Street Advisors
• Dori Kesten, Senior Equity Research Analyst for REITs at Wells Fargo
• Gregory Miller, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Truist