Hilton Grand Vacations Q4 2025 Earnings Report

Hilton Grand Vacations EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.88
• Consensus EPS: $1.05
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.17
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.49

Hilton Grand Vacations Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $1.33 billion
• Expected Revenue: $1.38 billion
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$43.78 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +3.80%

Hilton Grand Vacations Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 2/26/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, February 26, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

Hilton Grand Vacations (NYSE:HGV) (NYSE:HGV) is a vacation ownership company that develops, markets, sells and manages timeshare interests and related vacation experiences. Its products generally provide members with an allotment of vacation time or points that can be used at participating resorts and accommodations.

The company serves vacation owners through resort properties and membership programs under brands including Hilton Grand Vacations, The Hilton Club and HGV Max. Its offerings may include access to resort accommodations, exchange programs, travel services and other member benefits. HGV also operates vacation ownership businesses associated with the Diamond Resorts and Bluegreen Vacations portfolios.

Hilton Grand Vacations was established in 1992 and became an independent publicly traded company through a spin-off from Hilton Worldwide Holdings in 2017. The company serves customers across vacation destinations in the United States, including Hawaii, Florida and Nevada, as well as selected locations in the Caribbean, Mexico and other international markets.

Hilton Grand Vacations Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Strong 2025 performance and capital returns: Contract sales grew ~10% for the year, Adjusted EBITDA was about $1.15 billion (Q4 Adjusted EBITDA to shareholders was $324M, +12%), the company hit its $100M cost synergy target ahead of schedule and returned $600M to shareholders in 2025 (over $1B returned in the past two years).
• Positive Sentiment: HGV Max driving member value: HGV Max memberships grew ~35% to 266,000, with Max members showing >20% higher lifetime value vs. non‑Max members and driving new-buyer and upgrade demand.
• Neutral Sentiment: Financing optimization improving liquidity but has near-term costs: The company securitized ~73% of receivables and introduced timeshare ABS in Japan to lower funding costs and boost cash flow (Adjusted FCF $756M for the year), while acknowledging the program raises consumer interest expense in 2025–2026.
• Neutral Sentiment: 2026 outlook and cadence: Guidance calls for Adjusted EBITDA before deferrals of $1.185–1.225B with low single‑digit contract sales growth, an expected Q1 trough/flat EBITDA then sequential improvement, and adjusted free cash flow conversion targeting the 55%–65% long‑term range (lower half in 2026).
• Negative Sentiment: Resort/rental headwinds and inventory review: Rental/ancillary results were pressured by excess inventory and developer maintenance fees (reported a $8M loss), and management is evaluating organic and inorganic options to reduce inventory and optimize the portfolio, which could weigh on near‑term segment profitability.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, welcome to the Hilton Grand Vacations fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode, and the floor will be opened for your questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your touchtone phone to enter the queue. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. If you should require operator assistance, please press star zero. If using a speakerphone, please lift your handset to allow the signal to reach our equipment. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up to allow the opportunity for everyone to ask questions. You may re-enter the queue to ask additional questions.

[Operator]

I would now like to turn the call over to Mark Melnyk, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

[Mark Melnyk, Senior VP of Investor Relations at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Thank you, Operator, and welcome to Hilton Grand Vacations fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. Our discussions this morning will include forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements. The statements are effective only as of today. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise these statements. For discussion of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ, please see the Risk Factors section of our SEC filings. Our reported results for all periods reflect accounting rules under ASC 606, which we adopted in 2018. Under ASC 606, we're required to defer certain revenues and expenses related to sales made in the period when a project is under construction, and then hold off on recognizing those revenues and expenses to the period when project's construction is completed.

[Mark Melnyk, Senior VP of Investor Relations at Hilton Grand Vacations]

The aggregate of these potentially overlapping deferrals and recognitions from various projects in any given period are known as net deferrals. Please note that in our prepared remarks today, we'll only be referring to metrics that remove the impact of net deferrals, which more accurately reflects the cash flow dynamics of our financial performance during the period. To simplify our discussion today, we've uploaded slides to our investor relations site showing these metrics, which we'll be referring to on today's call. I'd urge you to view these slides on our website on investors.hgv.com. On slide two of these materials, you can see the deferral adjusted metrics that we'll be referring to.

[Mark Melnyk, Senior VP of Investor Relations at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Reported results for the quarter do not reflect $61 million of contract sales deferrals under ASC 606, which had the effect of reducing reported GAAP revenue and were related to presales of our Ka Haku and Kyoto projects. Also shown on slide two, we recorded deferred $29 million of direct expenses associated with these revenues. Adjusting for both of these items would increase the Adjusted EBITDA to shareholders reported in our press release by a net $32 million-$324 million. Let me turn the call over to our CEO, Mark Wang. Mark?

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter earnings call. Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to thank our team members around the world for their hard work and dedication over the past year to create memorable vacation experiences for our members and guests. 2025 was a year of meaningful progress for HGV. We consistently delivered against our strategic initiatives during the year, driving material growth in package sales, significantly improving our execution, and further enhancing our HGV Max offering. As a result, we grew contract sales 10%, representing the highest growth since 2022, with EBITDA above the midpoint of our guidance. We also made investments in our lead generation capabilities, opening 41 new marketing sites with our partners at Hilton, Bass Pro, and Great Wolf to support our future tour flow.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

We grew HGV Max memberships by 35% through the recent introduction of Max to our Bluegreen members, along with the continued demand from new buyers and upgrades in our legacy member base, optimized our financing business to structurally improve our industry-leading cash flow generation, including opening a new low-cost financing market in Japan, the first of its kind for any U.S. timeshare operator. It enabled us to return $600 million of capital to our shareholders, achieving the target we laid out. Over the past 2 years, we returned over $1 billion to investors through share repurchases, and we remain committed to capital returns as the primary use of our free cash flow.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Our strong 2025 results not only demonstrate the progress we made in integrating our business. They also underscore the advantages of our business model, backed by the strength of the Hilton brand, with nearly 60% recurring segment EBITDA, a highly engaged base of over 720,000 members, including 266,000 Max members with substantial embedded value, and an established, differentiated experience platform in our HGV Ultimate Access. We look forward to the year ahead, we continue to see a stable consumer environment overall, one where travel remains a top priority within consumer discretionary spending. That consistent backdrop and much of the integration work behind us, we're carrying significant momentum into 2026, putting us further down the path to achieve our long-term algorithm of resilient, profitable growth and material recurring cash flow generation to enhance our shareholder value.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Our guidance today represents another step toward that goal, reflecting low single-digit contract sales with mid-single digit EBITDA growth, along with strong cash flow conversion, which Dan will get into shortly. I'd like to provide an update on our strategic priorities and the progress we've made on our integration work. Our strong results were achieved through disciplined execution against our four strategic priorities, which continue to guide the organization as we've moved into the new year. First, attracting new customers in a cost-efficient manner. Second, enhancing the lifetime value of our member base. Third, product evolution and innovation, and finally, driving operational excellence. Starting with the first priority of cost-efficient new member growth, we drove strong tour growth in the fourth quarter while expanding margins and maintaining our sales and marketing cost ratios.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Consolidated tours grew nearly 9%, supported by strong package sales over the last several quarters, along with strong local arrivals. Importantly, we surpassed our pro forma consolidated 2019 tour flow levels, which is a nice milestone. We continue to focus on tour quality as we leverage the strength of the Hilton brand across our portfolio, added new lead gen partners like Bass Pro, and executed against our acquisition, integration, and efficiency initiatives. We also sharpened our data analytics and processes with a focus on optimizing cost per tour by customer segment and channel to maximize flow through. We continue to expect to drive new buyer growth in 2026, which is embedded in our guidance. That new member focus ties directly into our second strategic priority, which is to grow the lifetime value of our member base.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

The introduction of HGV Max has exceeded our expectations, with sustained adoption that has driven a greater than 20% increase in lifetime value of a Max member versus a non-Max member. In the fourth quarter, we saw material growth from Bluegreen new buyers and owner upgrades. Importantly, 4 years after our initial launch, we've also continued to see our legacy club members upgrade into Max as well. We expect that demand to continue as we introduce new guests to our offerings and further enhance the value proposition of Max membership. In addition, we strengthened our customer service and rolled out new AI-based tools to drive engagement and help members make the most of their ownership and vacation experiences. Our third strategic priority is product evolution and innovation to position our brand for sustainable growth.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

One area where we're continuing to evolve is our scaled, differentiated experience platform, HGV Ultimate Access. 2025 was our biggest and most successful year of Ultimate Access. We hosted over 137,000 attendees, a more than 15% increase in participation from the prior year. In 2026, you'll see us introduce several innovations across new categories of events, enhanced booking options, and new pricing tiers to broaden accessibility to the Ultimate Access platform. In addition, we'll continue to enhance our HGV offerings with new features and benefits throughout the year. The final strategic priority is driving operational excellence, which is at the core of everything we do at HGV.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

This focus was a driver of our performance in the fourth quarter, and building upon that success to drive incremental operational and asset efficiencies will be a key focal point in 2026 and beyond. Operational excellence also extends to our integration efforts. I'm happy to say we reached our $100 million in cost synergy target during the fourth quarter, several months ahead of schedule. It's a great achievement for our teams, and I'm proud of their hard work to hit that goal, and we remain committed to managing costs and further improving our efficiencies from here. Branding front, we've now rebranded our targeted Bass Pro locations, including more than 125 this past year. In addition, we're well underway with the rebranding process for our Bluegreen resorts, with 8 properties completed in 2025.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

We're on track to have roughly 10 additional rebrands completed this year and the remaining 10 in 2027. In summary, I'm happy with our performance this past year. We continue to demonstrate the strength of our differentiated model, and we made a lot of progress on the path towards our long-term algorithm. Our teams are all executing well in the field. We continue to innovate and evolve our offerings, which is showing in our results. As I look forward to the year ahead, our focus is on growth, innovation, and efficiency to drive additional progress this year. With that, I'll turn it to Dan for more details on the numbers. Dan?

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Thank you, Mark. Good morning, everyone. 2025 was a year of strong progress for Hilton Grand Vacations. Contract sales grew by 10% for the full year, with both our owner and new buyer channels contributing to a positive sales growth. Additionally, the growth was driven by a mix of both strong VPGs and tour flow growth, driving 140 basis points of margin expansion in our real estate business. We achieved our goal of realizing $100 million of run rate cost synergies associated with the Bluegreen acquisition, slightly ahead of our 24-month post-close target. These factors, coupled with a strong fourth quarter performance, put us well into the upper half of our guidance range, with Adjusted EBITDA of $1.15 billion, growing 4% over the prior year.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

In addition to our operating performance, we augmented the long-term cash flow generation of the business by executing on our finance business optimization. We ended the year with 73% of our current receivables securitized within our target range of 70%-80% and compared to a 55% run rate prior to the program's inception. As part of our optimization, we introduced timeshare ABS to the Japanese market, unlocking a new funding source at an attractive cost of capital. For the year, we generated adjusted free cash flow of $756 million, or more than $8.25 per share, and we returned $600 million, or 79% of that cash flow to our shareholders, repurchasing nearly 15 million shares to reduce our float by over 20%.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Turning to our results for the quarter, total revenue before cost reimbursements in the quarter grew 1% to $1.3 billion. Adjusted EBITDA to shareholders grew 12% to $324 million, with margins excluding reimbursements of 26%, up 250 basis points over the prior year. Within our real estate business, contract sales grew 2% to $852 million. We did a great job during the quarter of converting the package pipeline that we had built over the course of the year. Tours were up 9% year-over-year to 225,000, driven by growth in our new buyer as well as our owner channels. Our strong fourth quarter tour performance also enabled us to surpass our pro forma 2019 tour flow levels for the first time.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

I'm really pleased with the result of our efforts. New buyers represented 24% of contract sales mix in the quarter. As we anticipated, VPG of nearly $3,800 declined against the prior year, owing to a difficult comparison from the launch of HGV Max to Bluegreen owners, as well as the strong performance of our Ka Haku project during the initial introduction. Cost of product was 12% of net VOI sales in the quarter, down 290 basis points from the prior year, but consistent with levels we've seen throughout 2025. Real estate sales and marketing expense was 46% of contract sales, which improved slightly against the prior year. This reflects the monetization of some of the tour flow pipeline investments we made earlier this year, as a portion of that expense was recognized when packages were actually sold in prior periods.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

It also reflects the efficiency efforts the team has made during the quarter. Given the increased contribution from tours this quarter, which carries higher marginal expense, I'm really proud that the teams were able to manage costs so effectively to maintain our cost ratio against the prior year. Real estate profit was $177 million in the quarter, with margins of 28%, up 150 basis points over the prior year to the highest level we achieved since 2023. In our financing business, fourth quarter revenues were $134 million, and profit was $81 million, with margins of 60%. Excluding the amortization items associated with our acquired receivables portfolio, financing margins were 63%. Looking at our portfolio of metrics, our weighted average interest rate for originated loans was 14.6%.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Combined gross receivables for the quarter were $4.3 billion. Our total allowance for bad debt was $1.2 billion on that $4.3 billion receivables balance, or 28.6% of the portfolio. The portfolio remains in great shape overall. Our annualized default rate for our consolidated portfolios was 9.86% for the quarter, reflecting another 24 basis points of improvement from the third quarter and marking our third straight quarter of sequential improvement in our default rate. As of year-end, our legacy HGV and DRI, 31-60 day delinquencies are level with prior year, and our Bluegreen delinquencies are actually 28 basis points lower than the prior year, continuing the trend of credit outperformance on our originated platform.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

In late summer, we made meaningful changes to strengthen and streamline our underwriting processes, focusing more on equity at the point of sale, which we see as the primary driver of defaults. The result has significantly increased the equity and cash on both new buyer and upgrades, which should further improve our loan portfolio performance as we look into 2026. Fourth quarter provision of 18.1% of contract sales was slightly above our long-term target for a mid-teens rate, and sequentially higher than Q3's level of just under 17%. This was largely a function of fourth quarter seasonally strong owner upgrade trends, particularly on the Bluegreen portfolio, where upgrades accounted for 76% of sales during the quarter.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

As owners upgrade out of the acquired portfolio, the provision release for the old loan shows up in the financing segment, which was the primary driver of margins in the finance segment, being up over 700 basis points year-over-year, despite an interest headwind from our previously disclosed financing business optimization program. Assuming similar mix and economic backdrop, we expect the provision to be down sequentially in the 1st quarter of this year and feel good about the provision in mid-teens as a percent of contract sales for the full year of 2026. As a reminder, our expectations for the financing optimization program was that it would drive an increase in our consumer interest expense during both 2025 and 2026 as we achieve our run rate securitization target of 70%-80%.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

We have several ABS deals slated for the first half of this year, including another offering in the Japanese market, which will help us achieve our full targeted run rate of term securitization receivables on an annualized basis. In our resort and club business, our consolidated member count was over 720,000. Revenue grew 6% to $219 million for the quarter. Segment profit was $160 million, with margins of 73%, growing 170 basis points versus the prior year, reflecting the consistency of our recurring resort and club business. Rental and ancillary revenues were up 2% versus the prior year to $178 million, with a loss of $8 million driven by developer maintenance fees.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Revenue growth in the period was driven by higher available room nights and an increase in our overall portfolio RevPAR. While we continue to see solid demand from our standalone rental business, developer maintenance fees remain the largest driver of our rental ancillary business segment profitability trends. Inventory management is a priority for our teams this year. We're focused on reducing the burden of those developer maintenance fees by working down our inventory balance through a combination of organic as well as inorganic means. Bridging the gap between the segment Adjusted EBITDA and total Adjusted EBITDA, JV EBITDA was $3 million, license fees were $57 million, and EBITDA attributable to non-controlling interest was $5 million. Corporate G&A was $42 million, or 3% of pre-reimbursement revenue, down slightly from the prior year.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Our adjusted free cash flow in the quarter was $414 million, which included inventory spending of $103 million, representing an Adjusted EBITDA conversion rate of 128%. For the full year 2025, we converted 66% of our Adjusted EBITDA into adjusted free cash flow, or over $8.25 per share. As we discussed at this time last year with the launch of our financing optimization, 2025's conversion rate would be above our target long-term rate of 55%-65%, before returning to that long-term range in 2026. During the quarter, the company repurchased 3.5 million shares of common stock for $150 million to achieve our targeted $600 million of repurchases in 2025.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

January 1st through February 9th of 2026, we repurchased an additional 1.9 million shares for $89 million. As of February 19th, we had $339 million of remaining availability under our current share repurchase plan. We remain committed to capital returns as the primary use of our free cash flow in 2026 and believe our shares continue to represent a compelling value. We look at 2026, we expect to maintain a robust pace of repurchases of approximately $150 million per quarter, with the aim of not increasing our leverage through those repurchases. This will enable us to continue to return capital to shareholders without adding additional corporate leverage to the business.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Turning to our outlook, we are establishing 2026 guidance of Adjusted EBITDA before deferrals to be between $1.185 billion and $1.225 billion. Two important expense headwinds are taken into consideration in our 2026 guidance. The first item is regarding our license fees. During 2026, we will experience the annualization of the final rate step up on our Diamond business, as well as our second rate step up on our Bluegreen business. We estimate that these items combined will be approximately $15 million-$20 million for the full year. With the Diamond step up being fully realized by August, the majority of the headwind will be realized in the first three quarters of the year. The second is the annualization of our finance business optimization.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Consistent with our original expectations when we initiated the program, we expect that this will negatively impact the year by approximately $10 million-$15 million, with the majority of the impact being felt during the first half of the year. Our full year guidance also embeds a low single-digit contract sales growth. As Mark mentioned, we expect this growth to be driven by tour flow this year. Specifically, our current expectation is that VPG for the full year will be down slightly as we lap the elevated growth rates from 2025. However, despite that increased mix of tours, which generally deliver lower flow through than pure VPG changes, we still expect to maintain Adjusted EBITDA margins consistent with where we ended 2025 due to continued execution against our efficiency initiatives.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

In regards to the cadence of the year, our current expectation is that contract sales and EBITDA in the first quarter will be flat to slightly down as we lap the near record VPGs in Q1 of the prior year that were driven by the strong initial launch periods for HGV Max and Ka Haku, along with the anticipated expense headwinds associated with the expected step up in rates for our license fees, as well as consumer finance interest expense as we analyze the ramp of our finance optimization program. We expect EBITDA to improve sequentially in each successive quarter, consistent with sales growth, execution against our efficiency initiatives, and as the expense headwinds subside. As I mentioned, our adjusted free cash flow conversion this year will fall within the long-term range of 55%-65%.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

We expect that our 2026 conversion rate will be in the lower half of that range as we wrap up the spending on our Ka Haku project ahead of its anticipated opening later this year. As our level of annual inventory spend trends towards a maintenance level in the upcoming years, we expect to move higher within that target range. Moving to our liquidity, as of December 31st, our liquidity position was over $1 billion, consisting of $239 million of unrestricted cash and $809 million of availability under our revolving credit facility. Our debt balance at quarter end was comprised of corporate debt of $4.5 billion and non-recourse debt balance of $2.7 billion. At quarter end, we had $235 million of remaining capacity in our warehouse facility.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

We also had $943 million of notes that were current on payments but unsecuritized. Of that figure, approximately $374 million could be monetized through a combination of warehouse borrowing and securitization. We anticipate another $388 million will become available following certain customary milestones, such as first payment, deeding, and recording. Turning to our credit metrics at the end of the quarter and inclusive of all anticipated cost synergies, the company's total net leverage on a TTM basis was 3.78x. We will now turn the call over to the operator and look forward to your questions. Operator?

[Operator]

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up to allow the opportunity for everyone to ask questions. You may reenter the queue to ask additional questions. 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. 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. The first question is from Patrick Scholes from Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

[Patrick Scholes, Senior Analyst at Truist Securities]

Hi. A good morning, Mark and Dan. Excuse me. Question, then I'll have a follow-up question here. You did briefly talk about quarterly cadence for 1Q, but I'm wondering if you could touch on, if possible, quarterly cadence expectations for the other quarters, you know, and also specifically within that expectations, by quarter for tour growth and VPG? Thank you.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Sure. Thanks, Patrick. Yeah, let me kind of frame it up a little bit, and then I'll have Dan kind of jump into some of the details here. I think, you know, first I'd say that we made really good progress in 2025, both operational and from a financial perspective. You know, when you think about the investments we made in our lead flow, that gives us a lot of confidence about, you know, our tour flow coming in this year. You know, controlled our cost, especially saw that in the second half of the third quarter and fourth quarter. Grew both contract sales and EBITDA, and grew both our tours and VPGs and our real estate margins.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Which really led to this, you know, leading industry cash flow generation, over $756 million. Is, you know, we've been talking about, we continue to buy back shares, and we had a record $600 million last year. As I take just a step back here, as you look at how we're tracking against our targeted algorithm of consistent top-line growth with EBITDA growing a bit faster and strong free cash flow, I think we're on a really good path. I'd say in 2025, we were a bit below that algorithm with strong contract sales growth, but EBITDA growing more slowly due to the investments we put in the business.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

As we look into 2026, our guidance today really reflects us tracking better and closer to that algorithm with EBITDA that we expect to grow slightly ahead of sales for the year. That really is about the tour flow generation. With that, we expect strong cash flow generation. I think we're tracking really well towards unlocking our earnings and cash flow power of the business and getting us set up on the right path toward that long-term algorithm we've been working on. Dan, if you want to hit on some specifics on the VPG and EBITDA for the year.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

No, absolutely, Patrick. I know we talked about it a little bit in our pre-prepared remarks, when you think about Q1 specifically, we're looking at high single-digit growth on the tour flow side, mitigated by high single-digit decline on the VPG side, which is as expected and very consistent with what we saw in Q4, given the tough comps. As we look on the cost side, there are some pressures. I mentioned the license fee pressure as well as the financing business optimization. The one thing I'd also point out is from a provision perspective, we look to return to that mid-teens level for the full year of 2026. If you look at year-over-year, Q1 was favorable to that last year, there's a little pressure on that side.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Those components really yield to that slightly down EBITDA in Q1. When you think about it sequentially throughout the year, we're really going to capitalize on all the package pipeline work that we did last year. You'll recall we saw some outsized package performance, in particular in Q2 and Q3 last year. Those will be playing out this year, and we see strong tour flow growth, coupled with easier comps as we progress out the year. Clearly, Q1 being the toughest comp with the first full quarter launch of HGV Max to the Bluegreen owner base. As we progress throughout the year, those headwinds, in particular, the license fee with the Diamond being fully ramped, starts to fall away in Q3. The optimization in the financing business should be fully annualized by the time we hit mid-year.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

It helps sequential growth for EBITDA from quarter to quarter to quarter to quarter throughout the year. That's how we see it playing out. There's a lot of details in there, so if you have any follow-up, happy to address those.

[Patrick Scholes, Senior Analyst at Truist Securities]

Okay. Okay, thank you. Actually, my follow-up question is to you, Dan. Just with that uptick in the fourth Q loan loss provision, you called out it having to do with upgrades to legacy existing Bluegreen owners, can you, dare I say, talk a little bit more about the sausage making into that? There's definitely a little bit of confusion out there. You know, why such a step up? You know, can you just help clear the air, a little more color and detail around that? Thank you.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Yeah, no, absolutely. Very important question, and it's one of those scenarios where purchase accounting still is coming into play since that acquisition is relatively recent. First, though, what I would like to say is the portfolio in general is performing extremely well. I talked about it in my prepared remarks about us making meaningful changes from the underwriting process. A little bit of an oversimplification, but a key aspect of that was eliminating a program that Bluegreen had in place. We accomplished this about mid-year in 2025, where we're now requiring additional capital down, a little additional deposits down from the consumer as they upgrade. In particular, previously, Bluegreen allowed for a no-cash upgrade option. What we've seen is material upticks in the deposits, especially in the Bluegreen side, that have yielded strong performance on those originated loans.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

That performance is improving. We talked about the 31-60 day delinquency rates on the HGV and the Diamond side. They're holding steady year-over-year, even sequentially, and the Bluegreen's actually improved by 20 basis points, which is good to see, and we expect that improvement to continue, especially with the change in the underwriting. Now, from just a geography purchase accounting item and how you saw an uptick in Q4, how it works from an accounting perspective is when someone in the acquired portfolio upgrades into an originated portfolio, the release of the reserve associated with that original loan actually goes through financing to the extent there's not already a reserve in place. You fully reserve the new loan into the real estate business, and that goes into the percentage count.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

You're effectively reserving a full balance on the new loan, even though you're only recognizing incremental contract sales, which yielded an optic uptick to that provision rate. Just to avoid any confusion, we're very happy where our portfolio sits and fully expect to be in that mid-teens range in 2026. We'll see that tick down in Q1 and remain lower throughout the year in 2026. Obviously, assuming no material deterioration in the macro environment.

[Patrick Scholes, Senior Analyst at Truist Securities]

Okay, thank you. I asked for some sausage making, and you certainly delivered there. Definitely some transcript reading for me later today on all that. Thank you. I'm all set.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Sorry about that, thanks.

[Operator]

The next question is from Ben Chaiken, from Mizuho. Please go ahead.

[Ben Chaiken, Analyst at Mizuho]

Hey, thanks for taking my question. I think maybe stepping back a little bit, excess inventory has been a headwind on the rental side for you guys, but also the entire industry broadly, driven by the, you know, the, the developer maintenance fees. If I caught you correctly, I think you mentioned there were. Maybe I'm conflating two comments you made, but I think you were referencing some organic and inorganic ways to bring down that inventory again, if I caught you. One of your peers recently took some strategic action. Would it make sense to streamline some of your assets and locations? Why or why not? Then, again, did I hear you correctly? Thanks.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Yeah, no, I think you heard us correctly. We're, you know, we go through a very thorough, you know, financial brand and market analysis on the properties that we have in our portfolio. You know, we picked up a lot of really good inventory in the acquisitions and a lot of great markets. Ultimately, you know, we're looking to try to optimize the portfolio for both our members and our shareholders. You know, and as we've discussed in the past, you know, some of the inventory that, you know, we acquired, just doesn't align with our long-term vision for the portfolio. You know, I think as we get closer to making a final decision on, you know, our plans, we'll provide a lot more detail.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

I think you've heard it, you know, from our competitors and you're hearing it from us. This is really nothing related to legacy HGV. That product is in great shape, and we feel like we've put the best new product in the market within our sector over the last decade. So that's in great shape. It's just really, you know, when you acquire two companies like that, there are properties that just won't meet the portfolio requirements. We're looking at it, and we'll give you an update as soon as we have a final plan.

[Ben Chaiken, Analyst at Mizuho]

Got it. Recognizing you may not want to bite on this one, but any way you could maybe ballpark a range of number of assets?

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

No, I think we're still in the middle of the analysis. Look, we've been working on this for a while, but I'd prefer to wait and give you know, the bigger picture and a more concise program that we're looking to move on.

[Ben Chaiken, Analyst at Mizuho]

Okay. Then just as a quick follow-up, just any thought process on or maybe more color on your philosophy around buyback. Is $150 a quarter kind of the right number? Why not more, just given kind of the amount of free cash flow generated and your valuation? Thanks.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

I know that's definitely a fair question. It, it clearly is, you know, our primary directive when it comes to... Well, primary choice of use of capital these days, as the stock is a compelling value at these levels. We anticipate continuing at $150 million per quarter. What I would say from our mindset is we're not, of the mindset that we want to increase our leverage ratio to repurchase shares. We're very comfortable with the leverage that we're operating at today, which is actually downticked from where we were prior quarter and year-over-year. At the same time, levering up the company to buy back shares, given the robust level of the share repurchase program that we currently have in place, is not what we're looking to do.

[Dan Mathewes, CFO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

That's why we're very comfortable at the $150 million level per quarter.

[Ben Chaiken, Analyst at Mizuho]

Thanks. Appreciate it.

[Operator]

The next question is from Stephen Grambling, from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Stephen Grambling, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Hey, thanks. I may have missed this in some of the opening remarks. Apologies. I think this is the first year where, you know, NOG turned slightly negative. That was kind of like a hallmark, I think, of the story relative to some of the peers. Maybe if you could just shed some light on some of the underlying dynamics there. Obviously, in the, on the last comment about maybe club management, does that have any impact on owner growth that we should be anticipating, and do you expect it to maybe stabilize at some point going forward?

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Yeah, no, Steph, this is Mark. First, I'd say that, you know, I think when you look at our business right now, and it got a lot mature with these acquisitions, right? And with the Diamond acquisition, you know, that was a, their strategy was a roll-up strategy, and they acquired 11 companies over time, and some of those companies go way back, and, you know, as far as, you know, 40, 45 years back. You, you have a situation where some of these, some of these owners, some of these members have been in the system for a long time, and, we continue to work with them to, exit them out appropriately, based on, you know, on a one-on-one by one, you know, analysis of the.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

We have some pressure on that side. I'd say, you know, the good news is, when you look at Max since we rolled out, we've got 266,000 new Max members in less than four years, and of that, 175,000 are new buyers, meaning they bought within the last four years. We continue to bring new members in the system and we've talked about it, I think, on the last call. You know, a new member, the lifetime value is 6x what a member that's been in the system for 15 years.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

When you look at our Max membership base, 50% of that base is the tenure of ownership or membership with us is five years or less, and nearly 70% are 10 years or less. We continue to build lifetime value into the business and more recurring revenue. You know, it's just part of the equation, it's part of the business. You know, for HGV, when we were standalone before the acquisitions, you know, we were a younger company. I'd say, only in the business for around 30 years versus we acquired some of these companies that have owners that have been in the system longer. Look, our focus continues to be on driving new buyers on an absolute basis.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

We believe we've been driving more new buyers on an absolute basis into our system than anybody in our sector, and we'll continue to stay focused on that.

[Stephen Grambling, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

That's great. Thanks. I'll jump back to the queue.

[Operator]

The next question is from David Katz from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

[David Katz, Equity Research Analyst at Jefferies]

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I appreciate it. I wanted to just talk about the sales force a bit. You know, such an important driver in this business. Where are you, would you say, in terms of, you know, having the force where you want it? You know, are there any sort of strategic changes or personnel changes or anything like that, you know, compensation structures, etc.? You know, give us a kind of lay of the land there, please.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

Yeah. First of all, you know, a big shout-out to our sales force because they do an amazing job. If you think about 2024, we broke through a barrier, a $3 billion barrier in contract sales, and that wasn't good enough. They grew at 10% last year, right? I don't know of any other company that's ever hit $3 billion, nor grew at 10% at that level. Got a great sales force. Dusty Tonkin leads our team there. We've got great leadership with Mike Riley under him, and a great team out there. We feel really good about our teams. You know, it's, you know, are we exactly where we want to be? Absolutely not. You always want to be improving.

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

One of the things that you have to think about for us, and we're still, you know, continuing to evolve, is, you know, we went from a business in back in 2019, where, you know, 85% of our business was generated out of 7 markets. Now we're in 40 markets. We historically were very focused on large markets, and I think we continue to dominate in those large markets. We also are now have developed a lot of mid and small markets. Those are markets where we continue to build our teams and our capabilities. I'm very pleased with the progress we're making. We've got a great team, and they continue to drive results.

[David Katz, Equity Research Analyst at Jefferies]

Thank you.

[Operator]

As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one. There are no further questions at this time. Before we end, I will turn the call back over to Mark Wang for any closing remarks. Mr. Wang?

[Mark Wang, CEO at Hilton Grand Vacations]

All right. Well, thank you for joining the call today. Another thank you to our team members for the strong year of execution, and most importantly, for taking care of our members and guests. I'm extremely proud of what you've accomplished. We look forward to updating you on our Q1 call. Thank you.

[Operator]

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Participants

Executives

• Dan Mathewes, CFO
• Mark Melnyk, Senior VP of Investor Relations
• Mark Wang, CEO

Analysts

• Ben Chaiken, Analyst at Mizuho
• David Katz, Equity Research Analyst at Jefferies
• Patrick Scholes, Senior Analyst at Truist Securities
• Stephen Grambling, Analyst at Morgan Stanley