Braemar Hotels & Resorts Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Braymar Hotels and Resorts, Inc. First Quarter 2021 Results Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Ms. Jordan Jennings, Manager of Investor Relations for Braymar Hotels and Resorts. Thank you. You may begin.

Good morning, and welcome to today's call to review results for Braemar Hotels and Resorts for the first quarter of 2021 and to update you on recent developments. On the call today will be Richard Stockton, President and Chief Executive Officer, Derek Eubanks, Chief Financial Officer, and Jeremy Walter, Chief Operating Officer. Your results as well as notice of the accessibility of this conference call on a listen-only basis over the Internet were distributed yesterday in a press release. At this time, let me remind you that certain statements and assumptions in this conference call contain or are 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 a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. Securities will be offered only by means of a registration statement and prospectus which can be found at www.sec.gov. In addition, certain terms used in this call are non-GAAP financial measures reconciliations of which are provided and accompanying earnings relief and accompanying tables or schedules, which have been filed on form 8K with SEC on May 5th, 2021 and may also be accessed through the company's website at www.bhreit.com. Each listener is encouraged to review those reconciliations provided in earnings relief together with all other information provided in the relief. I will now turn the call over to Richard Stockton. Please go ahead, Richard.

Good morning. Welcome to our first quarter earnings conference call. I will begin by providing an overview of our business and an update on our portfolio, which includes our hotels again achieving positive hotel EBITDA for the third quarter in a row. After that, Derek will provide a review of our financial results, and Jeremy will provide an update on our asset management activity. Afterward, we will open the call for Q&A. Four key themes for today's call are the outperformance of our luxury resort portfolio, resulting in $20 million in hotel EBITDA for our entire portfolio and an average daily rate of $433 for the quarter, which is the highest quarterly ADR in our history. Our portfolio is well positioned to outperform with very strong forward bookings as we look at the second quarter. We were cash flow positive at the corporate level for the quarter and Our balance sheet is in good shape with no near-term debt maturities. I'm pleased to report that during the first quarter, we continued to achieve positive hotel EBITDA across our portfolio. We reported hotel EBITDA of $20.5 million during the quarter, driven by strong occupancy levels at our resort properties and a 25.3% increase in ADR over the prior year quarter, which resulted in the highest quarterly ADR in our history. While leisure demand is ramping up quickly, particularly on weekends, any significant uptake in a REVPAR performance is likely to rely on the recovery of corporate transient demand and ultimately group demand. Overall, our resorts continue to perform well and forward bookings are strong throughout our portfolio. For the month of April, our preliminary REVPAR was $177 with occupancy of 43.9% and an ADR of $403. Our current bookings for May and June also look strong, with current occupancy on the books of 32% for May and 27% for June. Many of our hotels are in drive-thru leisure markets and have been well-positioned to benefit from the resurgence of pent-up leisure demand in recent months. In total, eight of our 13 hotels are considered resort destinations. These hotels include the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota, Bar De Sona, Hotel Yonville, Ritz-Carlton Lake Tahoe, Pier House Resort, Park Hyatt Beaver Creek, Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines, and Ritz-Carlton St. Thomas. We are pleased to report that this thesis continues to play out just as we expected as these hotels had a combined hotel EBITDA of $25.7 million for the quarter. While it is still early in the recovery, It is clear from the early feedback we are hearing that guests are enthusiastic about traveling again. Additionally, we were cash flow positive at the corporate level for the quarter. While our balance sheet was in good shape as we entered 2021, this puts us in a much better position financially, and I could not be more proud of the incredible work and dedication of the entire team. Our unique portfolio focused on the luxury segment with many properties and drive-to leisure markets. positions us to perform well in the near term, as well as for the ultimate recovery in our industry. Looking forward, we continue to believe that Braemar presents a compelling opportunity in the lodging REIT space. We are a differentiated story, with the majority of our assets in very desirable resort locations, the highest quality portfolio in the public markets, a portfolio that is generating positive hotel EBITDA and cash flow, and what we believe is a solid liquidity position and balance sheet, with attractive debt financing in place. I will now turn the call over to Derek. Thanks, Richard.