Earnings Call Excerpt
Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc. (HST)
Q1 2009 Earnings Call
April 23, 2009 6:30 pm ET
Executives
Gregory J. Larson – Executive Vice President
W. Edward Walter – President and Chief Executive Officer
Larry K. Harvey – Chief Financial Officer
Presentation
Operator
Good day and welcome to this Host Hotels and Resorts, Incorporated first quarter 2009 earnings conference call. Today’s call is being recorded. At this time for opening remarks and introductions I would like to turn the call over to the Executive Vice President, Mr. Greg Larson. Please go ahead sir.
Gregory J. Larson
Thank you. Welcome to the Host Hotels and Resorts first quarter earnings call. Before we begin I’d like to remind everyone that many of the comments made today are considered to be forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. As described in our filings with the SEC, these statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause future results to differ from those expressed, and we are not obligated to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements. Additionally on today’s call we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial information such as FFO, adjusted EBITDA and comparable hotel results. You can find this information together with reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP information in today’s earnings press release, in our 8-K filed with the SEC and on our website at hosthotels.com.
This afternoon Ed Walter, our President and Chief Executive Officer, will provide a brief overview of our first quarter results and then will describe the current operating environment as well as the company’s outlook for 2009. Larry Harvey, our Chief Financial Officer, will then provide greater detail on our first quarter results including regional and market performance. Due to the equity issuance announced this afternoon, we will be unable to take questions on this call.
And now here’s Ed.
W. Edward Walter
Thanks Greg. Good evening everyone. We apologize for the short notice and late hour of this earnings call, but let’s start with our results for the quarter. Unfortunately as expected the first quarter proved to be a [inaudible] earning environment for the lodging industry.
First quarter RevPAR for our comparable hotels decreased by 19.8% driven by a decrease in average room rate of 8.6% and a decline in occupancy of 8.5 percentage points. For the quarter our average rate was $181 and our average occupancy was 60.8%.
Food and beverage revenues at our comparable hotels decreased more than 20% for the quarter. Overall comparable revenues decreased approximately 19.7% for the quarter. Aggressive cost cutting in light of the weak operating environment limited the decline in comparable hotel adjusted operating profit margins to 400 basis points and resulted in adjusted EBITDA of $174 million in the first quarter.
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