Service Properties Trust Q1 2026 Earnings Report

Service Properties Trust EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.04
• Consensus EPS: -$0.37
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.41
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Service Properties Trust Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $364.45 million
• Expected Revenue: $347.82 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$16.63 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Service Properties Trust Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2026
• Date: 5/6/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, May 7, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

Service Properties Trust (NASDAQ:SVC) (NASDAQ: SVC) is a real estate investment trust (REIT) specializing in the acquisition, ownership and leasing of service-oriented properties, with a primary focus on the lodging sector. The company structures long-term, triple-net leases with established hotel operators under franchise agreements with leading global brands. By partnering with recognized hotel companies, Service Properties Trust seeks to generate a stable income stream through rent payments, while offering operators the capital and balance-sheet flexibility to grow their portfolios.

Since its formation in 2010, Service Properties Trust has grown its portfolio through strategic sale-leaseback transactions, targeted property acquisitions and selective dispositions. Its holdings span a diverse mix of full-service, select-service and extended-stay hotels, all operated by established franchisees. The company’s net leased structure mitigates operating risk and provides visibility into cash flow, while its asset management team oversees property performance and lease administration.

Service Properties Trust’s portfolio is geographically diversified across the United States and Canada, with properties located in metropolitan centers, suburban markets and key travel corridors. This broad footprint enables the REIT to participate in varied demand drivers, including business travel, tourism and extended-stay needs. The company continually evaluates new markets and asset classes that complement its core lodging platform.

The company is led by a management team with extensive experience in real estate investment, hospitality finance and capital markets. Service Properties Trust’s board and executive officers draw on decades of industry expertise to source transactions, structure leases and optimize portfolio composition, positioning the REIT to pursue long-term, risk-adjusted growth.

Service Properties Trust Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Balance sheet materially strengthened — closed a $745M ABS and a $575M equity offering, used proceeds and cash to retire roughly $1.6B of debt, cut annualized interest expense by about $59M, and received a Moody’s upgrade.
• Positive Sentiment: Retained hotel portfolio outperformed — excluding 15 hotels marketed for sale, RevPAR grew 7.5% year-over-year and hotel EBITDA increased 2.1% to $26.2M, driven by renovated assets and premium resort exposure.
• Positive Sentiment: Net lease portfolio remains stable and defensive — 761 properties (~97% leased) with a 7.3-year WALE, $392M of annual base rent and 2.01x coverage, while acquisitions are focused on long-term necessity-based tenants with attractive cap rates.
• Positive Sentiment: Raised full‑year normalized FFO guidance — increased the 2026 normalized FFO range to $124M–$144M ($0.24–$0.27 per share) and reaffirmed hotel EBITDA, net lease NOI and Adjusted EBITDA outlooks, citing debt paydowns and seasonality assumptions.
• Negative Sentiment: Hotel disposition pricing softer and marketed assets are a near‑term drag — 15 Sonesta hotels generated $7.8M of Q1 losses, bids for the operationally challenged full‑service group came in below targets, and total expected proceeds have declined versus prior estimates despite LOIs and awarded bids.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, and welcome to the Service Properties Trust Q1 2026 earnings conference call. I would now like to turn the call over to Kevin Barry, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Kevin Barry, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Service Properties Trust]

Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. With me on the call are Chris Bilotto, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jesse Abair, Vice President, and Brian Donley, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer. In just a moment, they will provide details about our business and our performance for the Q1 of 2026, followed by a question and answer session with sell side analysts. I would like to note that the recording and retransmission of today's conference call is prohibited without the prior written consent of the company. Also note that today's conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other securities laws. These forward-looking statements are based on SVC's beliefs and expectations as of today, May 7th, 2026, and actual results may differ materially from those that we project.

[Kevin Barry, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Service Properties Trust]

The company undertakes no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to the forward-looking statements made in today's conference call. Additional information concerning factors that could cause those differences is contained in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be accessed from our website at svcreit.com or the SEC's website. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements. In addition, this call may contain non-GAAP financial measures, including normalized funds from operations or normalized FFO and Adjusted EBITDAre. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP figures to net income is available in SVC's earnings release presentation that we issued last night, which can be found on our website. Lastly, we will be providing guidance on this call, including estimated 2026 normalized FFO, hotel EBITDA, net operating income or NOI, and Adjusted EBITDAre.

[Kevin Barry, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Service Properties Trust]

We are not providing a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures as part of our guidance because certain information required for such reconciliation is not available without unreasonable efforts or at all. I will now turn the call over to Chris.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call today. Last night, we reported Q1 2026 results, which reflect measurable progress advancing SVC strategic initiatives. We materially strengthened our financial position with roughly $1.5 billion in capital markets activity, enhancing our overall leverage profile and debt maturity schedule. We continue to advance our capital recycling program and remain focused on active asset management across both our hotel and net lease properties. These initiatives serve as a catalyst toward driving performance for the company and improving cash flow. I will begin today's call with an update on our strategic priorities, followed by highlights from our hotel portfolio performance during the Q1. Jesse Abair will then discuss our net lease business, and Brian Donley will conclude with a review of our financial results, balance sheet and financial outlook.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

Starting with our strategic priorities. Since the start of the year, we executed a capital plan that significantly strengthened our balance sheet and strategic positioning. In March, we closed $745 million of accretive ABS financing, secured in part by 34 of our travel centers leased to TA, reinforcing the attractiveness of these assets. In April, we completed a $575 million underwritten equity offering that was intentionally sized to de-lever and improve our credit metrics. Importantly, RMR Group, our manager, invested $50 million alongside shareholders, underscoring strong alignment and confidence in our strategy. Taken together, along with cash on hand, we retired $1.6 billion in debt, resulting in annualized cash interest savings of $59 million.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

We enter the remainder of 2026 with a stronger financial foundation and greater flexibility to execute our repositioning strategy and operational plans within our hotel portfolio, focused on driving EBITDA improvement and value creation. Turning to hotel performance. During the Q1, RevPAR across our 93 hotels increased 6.7% year-over-year, primarily driven by broad-based occupancy gains across all service levels, with notable strength in the full-service segment. Hotel EBITDA across the portfolio decreased 9.2% year-over-year to $18.4 million, though this reduction was partially impacted by a $2.4 million decrease tied to the 15 properties currently being marketed for sale. As a reminder, our full year guidance contemplates the expected losses related to these marketed hotels. More importantly, the underlying performance of our 78 hotel retained portfolio was even stronger.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

Excluding the assets marketed for sale, RevPAR grew 7.5% year-over-year. Hotel EBITDA increased 2.1% to $26.2 million. This was achieved despite the known revenue displacement from our ongoing redevelopment of The Nautilus in South Beach. This outperformance is driven by our strategic concentration and higher STR chain scales, our footprint in premier resort destinations, including Kauai, San Juan and Hilton Head, and the uplift we are seeing from completed renovations. Our focus remains squarely on capturing the margin flow we believe this portfolio is capable of generating as it ramps up over the next few years. Following several years of significant capital investment to reposition these assets, SVC is well-positioned to drive revenue uplifts and outsize EBITDA growth. Over the last four years, approximately half of our retained hotels completed or are currently undergoing major renovations.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

To ensure we capture the performance improvements and margin flow through anticipated over the coming years, our asset managers are actively engaging with our operators to refine operational synergies and streamline property-level execution. While we acknowledge the broader macro headwinds, including geopolitical uncertainty, elevated fuel costs, and lagging international and government travel, we remain confident that this active asset management approach will uncover varying opportunities to improve efficiencies and deliver stronger results. Turning to hotel dispositions. During the quarter, we advanced our capital recycling initiatives, selling a 133 key focused service hotel for $7.1 million, and progressed the marketing of 15 Sonesta managed hotels, totaling approximately 3,000 keys. We removed one Sonesta Select property from the process to reassess its positioning. Retain an active and engaged roster of buyers for the remaining properties.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

Across the broader marketed hotels, pricing has come in softer than our initial outlook. This dynamic only reinforces our strategic commitment to exit these hotels and reallocate capital. Buyer demand for the eight focused service properties was strong, resulting in nearly 30 bids from more than 12 unique buyers. Pricing was generally consistent with the average per key valuation we achieved on focused service hotels over the past year. Specific to these eight hotels, we have signed letters of intent with four buyers for total proceeds of approximately $61.2 million, which we intend to use to repay debt. For the seven full-service hotels, bids for this operationally challenged sub-portfolio have fallen below initial targets. Despite this, we are prioritizing the exit of these properties with six of the seven hotels awarded to buyers for expected proceeds of $55.3 million.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

We anticipate an update on the final property in the coming quarter, which will increase our total proceeds. From a strategic standpoint, holding these assets is not aligned with our long-term goals. Together, these marketed hotels represented $7.8 million of losses in the Q1 while carrying material future capital requirements. Exiting them now, regardless of the softer pricing environment, eliminates a significant drag on our earnings and preserves capital. More importantly, it allows us to pivot our full attention and resources toward our retained core portfolio, driving growth in markets and properties where we have the greatest opportunity for margin expansion. In summary, SVC's portfolio transformation is well underway. Supported by our recently improved capital structure and the operational upside within our hotel assets, we are focused on our initiative supporting SVC's continued shift towards an increasingly net lease-oriented portfolio.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

Ultimately, we believe this combination of selling assets and operational improvement will drive durable cash flow and create attractive long-term value for our shareholders. I will now turn it over to Jesse.

[Jesse Abair, VP at Service Properties Trust]

Thanks, Chris, good morning. At quarter end, SVC's net lease portfolio contained 761 properties across 42 states with annual base rents of $392 million. The portfolio was approximately 97% leased with a weighted average lease term of 7.3 years. We have 185 tenants operating under 140 brands across 21 distinct industries. The aggregate coverage of our net lease portfolio's minimum rents was 2.01 times on a trailing 12-month basis as of March 31st, 2026, up slightly from last quarter. The improvement was driven in part by our TA travel centers, which reported coverage of 1.24 times, up from 1.2 times in Q4.

[Jesse Abair, VP at Service Properties Trust]

During the quarter, our asset management team executed 20 leases totaling 219,000 square feet, averaging over six years of term and a cash rent roll up of 8.5%. Looking ahead, portfolio lease expirations remain well laddered with less than 5% of annualized rents expiring through the end of 2027. NOI from our net lease portfolio declined $2.2 million year-over-year, primarily driven by credit loss reserves recorded for certain leases and related operational expenditures, which was partially offset by a $2 million positive impact from our acquisition activity. As we entered 2026, we shifted to a more measured pace of net lease acquisitions, targeting approximately $25 million of annual volume funded through capital recycling.

[Jesse Abair, VP at Service Properties Trust]

Since the beginning of the year, we've invested in four properties totaling $9 million, which were primarily funded with the proceeds from 13 net lease dispositions. Consistent with our investment focus on resilient necessity-based brands with limited e-commerce exposure, our acquisitions this quarter included quick service restaurants and an automotive services retailer. The transactions had a weighted average lease term of over 15 years, average rent coverage of 3.8 times, and an average going-in cash cap rate of 7.9%, and an average GAAP cap rate of 8.8%. As we move through the year, we will continue to actively look for ways to recycle capital by leveraging our new and established brand relationships while pursuing growth opportunities in the form of sale leasebacks and off-market deals.

[Jesse Abair, VP at Service Properties Trust]

Our proactive asset management efforts and disciplined capital recycling strategy should allow the net lease portfolio to continue to function as a stable foundation for SVC as it implements its broader transformation. With that, I'll turn the call over to Brian to discuss our financial results.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

Thank you, Jesse, and good morning. Starting with our consolidated financial results for the Q1 of 2026, Normalized FFO was $7.4 million or $0.04 per share, down $0.03 per share compared to the prior quarter.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

Normalized FFO this quarter as compared to the prior quarter, was primarily impacted by a $7.2 million, or $0.04 per share, decline in hotel results. Our hotel disposition activity accounted for $5.3 million of the decline and $1.9 million was a result of the performance of the 15 hotels we are selling, partially offset by earnings growth in our 78 retained hotels as of quarter end. NOI from our net lease portfolio declined $2.2 million, or $0.01 per share, over the prior year on credit losses reported during the quarter. Interest expense declined by $5 million, or $0.03 per share, during the period as a result of our capital markets activity. Turning to our hotel portfolio performance.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

For our 93 comparable hotels this quarter, RevPAR increased by 6.7% and gross operating profit margin percentage declined by 70 basis points to 20.4%. Below the GOP line, costs at our comparable hotels increased by $5.4 million from the prior year, driven by higher insurance expenses. Our comparable hotel portfolio generated adjusted hotel EBITDA of $18.4 million during the quarter, a decline of $1.9 million, or 9%, from the prior year. The 15 Sonesta exit hotels we're currently marketing for sale generated a RevPAR of $49, a decline of 3%, and produced losses of $7.8 million for the quarter, a decline of $2.4 million year-over-year.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

The 78 hotels in our retained portfolio generated a RevPAR of $113, an increase of 750 basis points year-over-year, and adjusted hotel EBITDA of $26.2 million during the quarter, an increase of 2% year-over-year. Hotel EBITDA declined $3.8 million for the seven hotels under renovation, including our South Beach hotel. The 86 hotels not under renovation improved hotel EBITDA by $1.5 million or 8% over the prior year. Turning to the balance sheet. We've been active in the capital markets and took steps to further strengthen our balance sheet, improve our debt maturity ladder, and our cash flows.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

During the Q1, we repaid $300 million of our February 2027, 4.95% unsecured senior notes with cash raised from asset sales. We completed our second ABS offering for $745 million at a blended interest rate of 5.96% and a maturity of March 2031. We securitized 158 net lease assets, including 34 travel centers, demonstrating the value of these assets and their attractiveness to investors. We used the proceeds from this offering to fully redeem all $700 million of our 8 and three-eighths senior unsecured guaranteed notes due June 2029, resulting in an annual cash interest savings of approximately $14 million.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

We also raised net proceeds of $542.3 million from our recent equity offering and redeemed all $450 million of our outstanding 5.5% senior guaranteed unsecured notes due 2027, and the remaining $100 million of outstanding 4.95% senior unsecured notes due in February 2027, resulting in additional annual cash savings of $29.7 million. Following these capital market transactions, we currently have $4.7 billion of debt outstanding with a weighted average interest rate of 5.65%. We have no unsecured debt maturities until 2028, and our 2027 and 2028 secured debt maturities have substantial refinance optionality, supported by strong net lease collateral.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

Further, SVC was recognized last week by Moody's, which upgraded its SVC corporate family rating, underscoring the clear progress we are making in strengthening our financial profile. Turning to our capital expenditure activity. During the Q1, we invested $21.5 million in capital improvements. Q1 activity was largely driven by the renovation of the Nautilus in Miami, as well as projects at the Royal Sonesta in Boston, Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas. Turning to our annual guidance. We are reaffirming our full year outlook for hotel EBITDA, net lease NOI, and consolidated Adjusted EBITDA. Q1 Normalized FFO results were in line with our expectations and reflect the anticipated seasonality of our hotel portfolio and the planned renovation displacement embedded in our initial guidance.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

We are increasing our Normalized FFO range as a result of our debt repayments to $124 million-$144 million, or $0.24-$0.27 per share. The per share amounts assume the weighted average share count of 526 million shares. This full year guidance assumes midpoint interest expense of $360 million and G&A expense of $40 million. This guidance does not reflect the impact of completing any of the 15 Sonesta hotel dispositions and continues to assume $25 million of capital recycling in our net lease portfolio. We continue to expect total CapEx for the year of $120 million-$140 million. To conclude, our Q1 results demonstrate continued momentum repositioning SVC and strengthening the company's cash flows, supported by our strategic capital market transactions.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

As we move forward, we remain focused on growing EBITDA and further optimizing SVC's portfolio to drive sustained value for our shareholders. That concludes our prepared remarks. We are ready to open the line for questions.

[Operator]

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster.

[Operator]

The first question today comes from Jack Armstrong with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

[Jack Armstrong, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. First one for me on the net lease operating expenses, you know, up roughly $2 million, both sequentially and year-over-year, which by our math drove the majority of the miss versus our estimates. Can you talk a little bit about the moving pieces there and how we should be thinking about the run rate for the rest of the year?

[Jesse Abair, VP at Service Properties Trust]

Sure, Jack. This is Jesse. I'll take it. As I mentioned, we, you know, we booked about $2 million in credit losses. A portion of that was expenditures related to those assets, and the bulk of that was property taxes. What happened there really is we have two franchisees that filed for bankruptcy. We're essentially covering their property taxes in the meantime. On a go-forward rate, this, in our opinion, is a one-time, a one-time hit. With respect to all these assets, they're all really good performers for us. The expectation would be ultimately that they would come out of bankruptcy and get transitioned either to new franchisees or back to corporate and get back to kind of a rent and OpEx paying state.

[Jack Armstrong, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Okay. Then just on rent coverage in the rest of the portfolio, can you talk a little bit about what drove the expansion in coverage for the TA portfolio? How do you expect that to develop over the remainder of the year? Then also walk us through any changes on your tenant watch list. We noticed you've got a couple that are well below one times coverage with both down significantly from Q4.

[Jesse Abair, VP at Service Properties Trust]

With respect to TA, our perception of that is kind of twofold. On the one hand, TA has historically benefited from kind of a pricing volatility, which certainly we're seeing as a function of the geopolitical situation in the Middle East. You know, typically there's kind of a lag between wholesale and retail pricing, TA has been able to take advantage of that. That coupled with what we saw from our freight operators, nationally, which was actually an increase in freight demand, a function of some regulatory changes that removed some excess capacity off the roads, which helped freight pricing. Industrial demand was up, I think largely a function of data center construction and related activities.

[Jesse Abair, VP at Service Properties Trust]

On the TA side, I think the expectation would be some of that is likely transitory, you know, related to the Middle East situation. Some of that from the freight demand side is hopefully gonna be more persistent. And in either event, you know, there's an opportunity there for that to provide something of a bridge for us, as TA themselves with the new leadership kind of enacts their business improvement plan and hopefully can put in some more structural changes to kind of drive a bit of growth going forward. On a tenant watch list, I mean, I would say that, you know, there are things We have a small exposure to drugstores and movie theaters. You know, we're watching those.

[Jesse Abair, VP at Service Properties Trust]

Then the bulk of it would be with respect to those 2 franchise, those 2 franchises that I mentioned earlier. Other than that, it's been pretty consistent performance across the portfolio.

[Jack Armstrong, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Okay. Then jumping over to the hospitality side of things, you know, pretty strong RevPAR in the quarter and even stronger in the Sonesta portfolio, but margins are still down 10 basis points. Can you talk about what happened there on the expense side and any expectations you may have for improvement over the course of the year?

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

Sure, Jack Armstrong. Good morning. This is Brian. One of the big impacts we had this quarter was rising insurance costs. We had some premium increases on the liability side that hurt margins. We had some deductibles that recorded for different incidents across the portfolio, which is more, you know, some of those recur here and there, but the premiums were the bigger driver. You know, labor wasn't really an outsized impact. I think overall labor costs were up 3% year-over-year. It's still something we're trying to, you know, monitor closely and work with our operators on the, core, staffing models of the hotels. You know, I think as we move forward, I mean, you know, Q1 is typically seasonally weaker.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

You know, Q2 will as we go into, you know, the stronger summer season, you know, will hopefully drive more margin through the portfolio and, you know, expense management and labor modeling is on the forefront to try to mitigate and improve our flow through.

[Jack Armstrong, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Okay. kind of with that in mind, you know, what's giving you confidence in the unchanged hotel EBITDA, you know, annual guidance there with, you know, booking trends into the rest of Q2?

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

Yeah, a lot of the things we talked about what impacted Q1, you know, we had factored in our guidance range. You know, there's still more to play out in the broader economy, you know, impacts from, you know, citywide events, including World Cup and things of that nature that, you know, I don't think anybody has clear visibility on what the total impact's going to be. You know, we, you know, we feel like there's, you know, pretty good trends continuing into the spring and into early summer. You know, our RevPAR growth into April was comparable to what we saw on Q1. I think, you know, those patterns have continued.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

We haven't seen any signs of sort of slowdown and, you know, there's still some things to play out as the summer rolls through across our portfolio. You know, we're gonna continue to see uplift from hotels that we completed last year. We're still building back group business and contract business from those hotels that were displaced last year. There's still more opportunities hopefully ahead.

[Jack Armstrong, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

No, really helpful. Last one for me, just at the corporate level. Could you maybe provide an update on the changes you're planning to make to the board as well as the new leadership at Sonesta, and how you expect both of those to impact your strategy as we go to the back half of the year? Also, if you're considering waiving your bylaw limiting individual holders to 5%.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

Yeah, I guess I'll take it in a couple parts. With respect to the question on the board, I think as communicated, in kind of some of our public announcements, you know, we will be working towards bringing on a new board member, more specifically, with lodging experience and kind of that process will continue to play out. Nothing to report, you know, with respect to that today, but something that continues to kind of advance. We think that'll be generally constructive, and kind of a positive for kind of the company and governance, accordingly.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

I think, more specifically, on the Sonesta piece with respect to the new management team, as we talked about historically, you had a new management team that came on board effective in April. I mean, we're, you know, just over 30 days into that now, and the team is, you know, off to a strong start, really kind of trying to identify and unpack changes at Holdco and then ultimately kind of how that'll inform the hotel performance. Look, I think generally speaking, I mean, we feel pretty optimistic about, you know, a lot of the things that we're collectively talking about, you know, between our company and theirs and some of the changes they're making. I mean, some of it is not new.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

You know, we've continued to target kind of revenue mix being a top priority in how we drive additional business through group and contracts. Some of that's gonna be changes that they make on their end, and some of that's gonna be deployment of new tools across all the operators, such as utilizing AI for better lead generation or better competitive set insights. There's just a mix of fundamentals that we would expect to occur on that side of the business. I think more specifically for Sonesta, as we think about the expense load and margins, you know, we're having a lot of dialogue about reevaluating the offerings across the properties and then kind of how that impacts the overall labor component, including contract labor, which we anticipate to see continued reductions.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

You know, one of the other things is, you know, with respect to kind of the global sales teams, there's an effort to expand that group to kind of provide more benefits for a lot of the work we've been doing on the renovations and kind of having being better positioned in the markets, and we think that'll ultimately continue to drive group and contract business. Then, you know, naturally, I think the last thing with respect to Sonesta is continuing to kind of give credence and time to the loyalty program and expanding that business.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

You know, certainly with all of these operators, you know, the benefit of the loyalty programs or kind of direct business through brand.com and other initiatives, of, you know, kind of reducing kind of more expensive acquisitions costs, tied to the OTA. Your last question on the 5%, for ownership stake in the shares. You know, I think, you know, if you look closely at the equity offering we did in April, we did provide waivers to certain groups that own more than 5%. You know, it's not something we're gonna change formally because it's put in place to protect certain tax attributes of the company as a REIT, but it's something that, you know, we consider on one-off cases. Really helpful all around. Thanks for the time.

[Operator]

Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. Your next question comes from Tyler Batory with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

[Tyler Batory, Executive Director and Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. A couple from me here. First, wanted to follow up on the asset sales on the hotel side of things and that process, the 15 you have in the market right now. Any help on the timeline for those? Then the seven full service hotels, can you give us some more, maybe some guideposts on potential pricing for those assets? I'm also just curious why the performance at those properties has been so challenged.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

Yeah. I think on the first question, look, given where we are, you know, other than one hotel, you know, we've kind of identified or have signed term sheets with buyers in support of that, and kind of there's a range. Some are groups we've worked with historically and others are kind of new relationships. The process varies. I would say more than half the portfolio, deposits will go hard with no real diligence. Then there's kind of a, on the low end, a 90-day period to close. Then kind of the balance is more traditional, you know, process whereby there's a diligence piece and then a period for close.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

We've talked about, you know, these sales transacting in the back half of the year, and I think that's still kind of the right bogey. I think hopefully over time, maybe we'll take down incremental pieces of them, you know, over the course of Q3 and Q4 versus necessarily being all backloaded at the end of the year. That's how I would think about it from a respective timing. I think for performance on the hotels, I mean, look, we're selling these hotels, you know, just because, you know, around conviction in the markets, and the capital that is needed. I think that the performance decrease is just a byproduct of where those sit in certain markets.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

Our performance is not inconsistent with the broader trends that are occurring in those markets. You're also gonna have some level of disruption as you go through a sale process. Again, all the reasons why we have more conviction on wanting to exit these and kind of reduce cash drag for the company.

[Tyler Batory, Executive Director and Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Okay. Appreciate that. Post equity raise, where are you in terms of your covenants? Just talk about some of the additional flexibility that you have post doing that equity transaction.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

Sure. As of Q1, Tyler, you know, we were able to pay down the debt with the equity offering, the $550 million of '27 notes, which gave us significant cushion on both our leverage ratio and our interest coverage. You know, we took down, you know, debt to assets, you know, the 60% test from 59% down to 53%. The interest coverage, you know, was at 1.75 times. There's a good amount of cushion there. You know, we were very strategic as far as the sizing of that equity offering to get us, you know, through the maturities, also make sure we have enough operating flexibility within these covenants to, you know, refinance future debt maturities.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

You know, the way we're looking at the next debt maturity, which is the zero coupons, you know, we'll have different options. You know, we'll, we'll potentially pay down some of the balance with asset proceeds that, you know, Chris talked about. Those, those notes are also backed by one of the travel center leases, giving us, you know, increased flexibility as far as what we might do with those. The covenant shouldn't necessarily be an issue going forward in the near future.

[Tyler Batory, Executive Director and Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Okay. Last question for me, maybe a little bit of a clarification too. In terms of the debt that you have upcoming, the 2027 senior secured notes, obviously there's an extension option there. Just talk about the conditions that allow you to extend that, and sounds like the base case, we should just assume that that's just gonna get pushed to 2028.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

Yeah, that's to be determined. I mean, we do have a one-year option. It becomes a cash pay instrument at that point if we do, and it has a increasing scale of coupon the longer those notes are out for that extension period. I think the more likely scenarios, we'll refi those out in some fashion. It's just a little early to talk about it, you know, given when, you know, September of 2027.

[Tyler Batory, Executive Director and Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Okay. That's all for me. Thank you.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from John Massocca with B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

[John Massocca, Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

Good morning. Maybe sticking with Tyler's line of questioning. If you think about the proceeds from upcoming hotel sales, would those have to be used towards paying down the zero coupon? Is that, you know, when you talk about using asset sale proceeds to pay down the zero coupon, would it be assets that are currently collateralizing that piece of debt?

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

I think, you know, we're gonna be thoughtful around that. The way those zero coupons work, we took discounted proceeds and essentially, you know, are paying the interest or amortizing it over time. If we pay them off early, you know, we're extinguishing that early. We're taking a hit on the discounted value. We have some options. We have a small variable funding note of $45 million. We could also pay out. That matures in early '27. We could sit on the cash and wait for, you know, closer maturities and figure out where we're at from a strategic standpoint and what we do in the refinancing market.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

You know, there's some pieces to be determined as we move through these asset sales and what we do with the cash.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

Yeah. It's not required, John.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

Yeah.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

We have that flexibility.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

Yeah.

[John Massocca, Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

Okay. I guess of the kind of pool of full-service assets you're looking to sell this year, how much of kind of the original estimate you put out was in the one asset that you pulled out of the selling bucket? You know, just kind of curious, right? You're going from $90 million-$110 million estimated at the end of last year to $55 million, and I'm just wondering how much of that is the removal of that one asset and how much of that is just a decline in what you're seeing in the market for the remaining assets.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

I think the combined awarded bids that we talked about was about $116 million. The removal of the one asset was give or take $5 million. We have another property where it's still in the market and we're expecting pricing kind of in Q2 in the near term, which will be another catalyst to increase overall proceeds.

[John Massocca, Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

Okay. There's still one additional asset that is not in that $55 million bucket.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

Correct. There's one large full service asset that's not in those numbers.

[John Massocca, Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

Okay. In terms of the extended stay and kind of, select service assets you're selling, are those under contract right now? I guess what is timing for those dispositions in your mind today?

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

Yeah. Everything is been awarded or under LOI. Most of those, you know, I think the earliest they could close would be over a 90-day period. You know, I think kind of a good bogey is, you know, kind of mid-Q2, mid-Q3 is kind of a fair timeline on the, on the early end. We'll just kinda see how it plays out, you know, between now and then.

[John Massocca, Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

Just to clarify, is pricing on those kind of going as expected?

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

Yeah. We know pricing came in light on those as well, but I think generally speaking, consistent with where we saw kind of the per key valuations for last year.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

You know, that's kind of where it stands.

[John Massocca, Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

Yeah. Then switching over to the net lease portfolio. I guess, how should we think about the near-term impact of the tenant credit issues on the financials, like next couple quarters as the bankruptcy process plays out? I mean, was there anything in 1 Q that was particularly one time in nature, either for accounting reasons or something else and could kind of bounce back immediately? When we talk about this, you know, not being typical of run rate, is that more so that'll play out as you get those assets kind of re-tenanted and back to fully paying rent?

[Jesse Abair, VP at Service Properties Trust]

Yeah. These are two franchisees that we've been kind of in talks with and in front of for a while. We knew this was gonna hit. It just so happened that the bankruptcy filings happened this quarter, we don't think this is thematic in any real sense. I think the way we anticipate playing out is they'll go through the process, they'll negotiate some kind of outcome. Like I said, these are all strong assets for us. These assets themselves got wrapped up into much broader portfolio bankruptcies. We expect that at the end of the day, we'll probably emerge with a better credit profile, you know, either with respect to the new franchisee or going back to corporate.

[Jesse Abair, VP at Service Properties Trust]

We'll get back to a rent-paying status and there's even the potential for some recovery of back rent and back OpEx. You know, that remains to be seen. Again, the point here is it just is a timing function. We don't think this is anything that will be persistent on a go-forward basis. Certainly nothing thematic in terms of the portfolio. I mean, these are both just so happen to be in our QSR space, which actually otherwise is performing really well for us.

[John Massocca, Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

I guess just given the nature of bankruptcy declaration, I mean, would you expect some of the metrics, either on the operating expense side or the top line re-rent side to bounce back as soon as 2Q? Or is that something that will bounce back once the bankruptcy process or re-tenanting process kind of plays out?

[Jesse Abair, VP at Service Properties Trust]

Yeah. I think it's just gonna depend on the vagaries of those bankruptcy proceedings, which are a little bit can be inconsistent from a timing standpoint. You know, could be Q2, could be Q3, but somewhere within that timeframe.

[John Massocca, Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

Okay. All right. Just maybe one last one. It seems like there's in guidance from the equity raise, there was about $17 million of interest expense savings, but only $14 million of kind of additional uplift on Normalized FFO. Just curious what was kind of driving the delta there.

[Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO at Service Properties Trust]

Yeah. It really comes down to the net lease credit losses we just talked about, Jack. That's really the delta. You know, I'm not gonna try to say we're gonna pick back up on the net lease piece. You know, we're turning towards, you know, the lower end on the net lease guidance, which offsets some of that interest expense. You know, that's really the driver.

[John Massocca, Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

Great. That makes sense. That's it for me. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Chris Bilotto, President and Chief Executive Officer, for any closing remarks.

[Chris Bilotto, President and CEO at Service Properties Trust]

Thank you for joining our call today. We look forward to meeting and seeing many of you at the upcoming industry conferences, including Nareit, in June.

[Operator]

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Brian Donley, Treasurer and CFO
• Chris Bilotto, President and CEO
• Jesse Abair, VP
• Kevin Barry, Senior Director of Investor Relations

Analysts

• Jack Armstrong, Analyst at Wells Fargo
• John Massocca, Analyst at B. Riley Securities
• Tyler Batory, Executive Director and Analyst at Oppenheimer