Ashford Hospitality Trust Inc

Thank you for standing by. My name is Greg and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to today's Ashford Hospitality Trust second quarter 2025 results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Once again, star one. And if you'd like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Derek Eubanks, Chief Financial Officer. Derek.

Good morning and welcome to today's conference call to review results for Ashford Hospitality Trust for the second quarter of 2025 and to update you on recent developments. On the call today will also be Stephen Z. Gray, President and Chief Executive Officer and Chris Nixon, Executive Vice President and Head of Asset Management. The results, as well as notice of the accessibility of this conference call on a listen only basis over the internet were distributed yesterday afternoon in a press release. At this time, let me remind you that certain statements and assumptions in this conference call contain or based upon forward looking information and are being made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the federal securities regulations. Such forward looking statements are subject to numerous assumptions, uncertainties and known or unknown risks which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These factors are more fully discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward looking statements included in this conference call are only made as of the date of this call and the company is not obligated to publicly update or revise them. Statements made during this call do not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. Securities will be offered only by means of a registration statement and perspectives which can be found at .SEC.gov. In addition, certain terms used in this call are non-GAAP financial measures, reconciliations of which are provided in the company's earnings release and accompanying tables or schedules which have been filed on Form 8K with the SEC on July 31st, 2025, and may also be accessed through the company's website at .ahtreet.com. Each listener is encouraged to review those reconciliations provided in the earnings release together with all other information provided in the release. Also, unless otherwise stated, all reported results discussed in this call compare the second quarter into June 30, 2025 with the second quarter into June 30, 2024. I will now turn the call over to Stephen Zegre. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today's call. After my introductory comments, Derek will review our second quarter financial results and then Chris will provide an operational update on our portfolio. Our second quarter performance was highlighted by comparable total revenue growth of .3% and comparable Hotel Ibiza growth of 2.6%. With macroeconomic headwinds driving REVPAR declines and pressuring margins industry-wide in the quarter, we're very pleased with our operating performance, which reflects the impact of the strategic decisions our team has made over the past several quarters and the strength of our high quality, geographically diverse portfolio. In late 2024, we announced the transformative initiative aimed at driving $50 million in run rate Ibiza improvement that we refer to as Grow .H.T. Realizing outsized improvement in property level performance is critical to achieving that goal. With comparable total revenue growth outpacing comparable REVPAR growth in the second quarter by three and a half percentage points and our 2.6 percentage point increase in comparable Hotel Ibiza for the quarter, we're reaping the benefits of the tremendous efforts that our asset management team and property managers have made to drive revenue growth while aggressively managing operating expenses. In addition to strong property level performance, we've also benefited from a number of corporate cost saving measures that our advisor, Ashford Inc., has implemented for Ashford Trust. Several Grow .H.T. initiatives remain underway, but we've seen meaningful impact from these efforts through the second quarter. Following a number of asset sales, total reported revenue year to date declined more than $41 million versus 2024, yet year to date adjusted Ibiza RE for the company is now less than $3 million. We have also continued to make improvements to our capital structure. In April, we extended our MS-17 mortgage loan secured by 17 hotels. The extension provides for an initial maturity in March of 2026 and two one-year extension options, subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, for the final maturity date in March 2028. The loan has a current balance of $410 million and continues to bear interest at a floating rate of SOFR plus 3.39%. Just yesterday, we extended our Highland Mortgage Loan secured by 18 hotels. The extension provides for an initial maturity in January of 2026 and an additional six-month extension option, subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, with a final maturity date in July 2026. The loan has a current balance of $734 million and bears interest at a floating rate of SOFR plus 4.13%. As previously discussed, our non-traded preferred stock offering closed at the end of March. This capital raise allowed us to access substantial capital totaling $212 million in gross proceeds. We have launched our follow-on offering of non-traded preferred stock and expect this to be an important source of capital for continued property level deleveraging and future growth. Lastly, we've continued to make progress on strategic dispositions. We expect to close on the previously announced sale of the Hilton Houston NASA Clear Lake in the coming weeks and anticipate selling at least three additional assets in the near term. The primary objective of these sales will be to reduce leverage and improve overall cash flow after debt service. We believe these coordinated efforts are opening a new chapter for Ashford Trust and the collective impact with evident in our results for the second quarter. Looking ahead to the second half of the year, while we expect demand headwinds to continue to subside and would further benefit from anticipated interest rate cuts, we remain focused on controlling what we can control and driving outside performance. We also plan to continue making improvements to our capital structure and exploring opportunistic dispositions to better position the company moving forward. I will now turn the call over to Derek to review our second quarter financial performance.