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spk07: Good day and welcome to the Wyndham Hotels and Resorts fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star and 1 on your touch-tone phone. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. Lastly, if you should require operator assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to turn the call over to Matt Capuzzi, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
spk09: Matt Capuzzi Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. With me today are Jeff Belotti, our CEO, and Michelle Allen, our CFO. Before we get started, I want to remind you that our remarks today will contain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risk factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. These risk factors are discussed in detail in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and any subsequent reports filed with the SEC. We will also be referring to a number of non-GAAP measures. Corresponding GAAP measures and a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to GAAP metrics are provided in our earnings release, which is available on our investor relations website at investor.windomhotels.com. We are providing certain measures discussing future impact on a non-GAAP basis only, because without unreasonable efforts, we are unable to provide the comparable GAAP metric. In addition, last evening, we posted an investor presentation containing supplemental information on our investor relations website. We may continue to provide supplemental information on our website in the future. Accordingly, we encourage investors to monitor our website in addition to our press releases, filing submitted with the SEC, and any public conference calls or webcasts. With that, I will turn the call over to Jeff.
spk04: Thanks, Matt, and thanks again, everyone, for joining us today. Before I talk about the fourth quarter, I'd like to thank our 9,000 global team members who helped us successfully navigate the tremendous challenges of 2020, along with all of our owners who continue to support and work with our teams in the field as we collectively look to a brighter 2021. The power of Wyndham's economy culture was never more on display than it was last year, and we are tremendously proud of how our teams and franchisees performed. Approximately 97% of our nearly 9,000 hotels remain open today. Our fourth quarter continued to demonstrate that our drive-to non-urban franchise business model can deliver in any environment, and we made sequential progress on multiple fronts. Our adjusted EBITDA and cash flows were both ahead of our expectations. Our brands in the U.S. continued to gain market share, and our room openings and new hotel contract signings continued to accelerate. We also completed the strategic termination plan we previewed with you on our second quarter call removing over 20,000 non-compliant brand-attracting rooms from our system, along with removing an unprofitable management guarantee deal signed back in 2012. Removing these rooms from our system will not only strengthen our long-term royalty rate and the quality and performance of our brands, it will open up development tracks in important markets where we now have teams in place to sell direct franchise agreements for full royalty-free deals. REVPAR and Q4 finished down 31% domestically, down 44% internationally, and down 35% globally on a constant currency basis. In China, fourth quarter REVPAR was down only 10% year over year, an improvement of 20 points from the third quarter. At down 31%, Q4's domestic REVPAR improved sequentially from Q3's down 32%, driven by occupancy, as average daily rate continued to hold steady. This trend continued in January with RevPAR improving seven points sequentially from down 31% in Q4 to down 24% for the first month of 2021. Cancellation rates have returned to prior year levels as overall confidence in the safety of drive-to leisure destinations has continued to improve while work from hotel bookings continue to increase and our average length of stay system-wide continues to grow. Demand from our essential everyday business travelers who travel for a living and who are not working from home has also continued to improve. Driving weekday bookings and weekday ADR, especially in our economy hotels, which ran average daily weekday rates, which were over 500 basis points higher year over year than their weekend rates, which are typically our higher ADR nights. Demand from construction crews and utility workers who comprise so much of our infrastructure segment improved 300 basis points from Q3, while demand from the trucking, rail, and manufacturing workers in our logistics segment remained stable. These traveling everyday workers, combined with the strength of leisure travel in our sales and marketing efforts, boosted market share for our economy and mid-scale brands by 210 and 520 basis points, respectively, in the fourth quarter. This performance was aided by targeted digital marketing through our new Wyndham Hotels and Resorts app that drove an 18% year-on-year increase in bookings for the quarter. In fact, all of our brands in the U.S. gained market share this year, with La Quinta, again, one of our strongest performing brands, gaining 570 basis points of REVPAR index for Q4 and 490 basis points of REVPAR index for the full year against its STR comp sets. You'll recall in the third quarter, we opened 20% more rooms domestically than we opened in the second. That momentum continued into our seasonally busiest fourth quarter as we opened over 70% more domestic rooms and over 30% more international rooms than we did in the third quarter. Conversion activity continued to accelerate and drove the majority of our over 14,000 room openings in the quarter. Second half conversion openings increased over 60% versus the first half of the year. Our most demanded conversion brands this year domestically have been Days Inn, Super 8, and Travelodge in the economy segment. and Baymont, Ramada, and Trademark in the mid-scale segment. Geographically in the United States, new openings were strongest in Texas, in Florida, and in North Carolina. And internationally, our openings were strongest in our direct franchising business across mainland China and Southeast Asia. Our teams were also very successful in again debuting multiple brands in multiple new overseas markets during Q4, including our first Lakita in New Zealand, our first Trademark in St. Martins, our first Super 8 in the United Arab Emirates, our first Ramada in Nepal, and our first Howard Johnson in Cambodia. Our overall domestic pipeline increased 120 basis points sequentially to 67,000 rooms and 20 basis points globally to 185,000 rooms. Notably, our conversion pipeline increased over 600 basis points globally, growing faster domestically than it did internationally. Here in the US, we signed 108 new hotel agreements in the quarter, nearly 75% higher than in Q3. And remarkably, our teams executed only one less deal in the fourth quarter of 2020 than they did in the fourth quarter of 2019. Internationally, we signed 91 new contracts, which was down from the 116 we executed in the fourth quarter of 2019, as restrictions continue to hamper many of our team's ability to travel cross-border in Europe Latin America, and parts of Southeast Asia. We opened 52 new construction hotels in Q4, including seven new La Quintas, and we signed 94 new construction deals in the fourth quarter, which compares to 97 new construction deals signed in the fourth quarter of last year. In the U.S., our new construction signings increased over 15% versus prior year, driven by our highly efficient microtel moda and La Quinta del Sol prototypes, combined with growing demand for our new Hawthorne Suites extended stay prototype, which is often dual branded with Lakita. With 256 hotels currently under construction and expected to open over the next two years, we've been encouraged to see continued demand for our select service new construction prototypes, which continue to be added to our pipeline. Despite the continued global travel restrictions, coupled with a continued lack of transaction volume and deal flow, we were very pleased with the sequential progress made throughout the year and our development team's ability to sign over 500 new direct hotel agreements, achieving over 90% of its full-year 2019 executions. Deletions in Q4 reflect the completion of the strategic termination plan we announced in May, coupled with an unforeseen deletion of 5,300 rooms triggered by the sale of certain hotels by Caesars Entertainment, with whom we have an important and longstanding win-and-rewards marketing relationship. The removal of these hotels from our distribution platforms, which were co-branded under our trademark collection, will have an immaterial impact on our royalty rate and adjusted EBITDA going forward, given the exclusive agreement reserved for certain strategic marketing partners of Wyndham Rewards. When excluding these unusual termination events in 2020, our global retention rate was 95%. Moving forward, we expect our retention rates to normalize, and we continue to target the 95% global retention rate achieved in 2019, with a long-term goal of moving our domestic retention rate from 95% to 96%. With 2020 now in the rear view mirror, our focus for 2021 is threefold. First, to return to positive net rooms growth. We've been investing in multiple strategies, tools, and technologies to increase not only our franchise sales footprint and capabilities, but also our win rates. Second, to carry on with the meaningful sales, operations, marketing, and digital investments we talked to you about on last quarter's call that are contributing so importantly to our guests' evolving travel habits and our franchisees' market share premiums and profitability. And third, to remain intensely focused on the guest experience while continuing to elevate the reputation and the quality of our brands, which globally experienced a 10% improvement in Net Promoter Scores in 2020. All three of these areas of focus contribute to our goal of strengthening Wyndham's franchisee value proposition, which ultimately drives net room growth both domestically and internationally. With 19 million hotel rooms tracked globally by STR, 5 million of those rooms are here in the U.S., and 14 million are overseas, where there are more unbranded hotels than there are branded hotels. And where we now have franchise sales teams in place, to sell directly to owners instead of through master licensees, which was historically how we would enter a new international market. With these teams now in place around the world, our opportunities are significant, as is our ability to continue to add our brands to new markets overseas as we sell the extraordinary value proposition a By Windham brand presents to hotel owners working their way back to pre-COVID profitability levels. According to STR research, brands drive a higher occupancy compared to non-branded hotels. Brands deliver more direct bookings through loyalty members who stay longer and spend more. And brands generate significant distribution and operating cost savings through lower procurement, technology, and labor costs. In 2019, occupancies for branded hotels in our core segments were 300 basis points higher than non-branded hotels, and costs were 500 basis points lower. And perhaps most importantly, branded hotels have experienced and will continue to experience lower failure rates and higher net asset values for their owners. Our teams are out in their markets around the world selling this powerful by Wyndham brand proposition every day to every owner we could talk to. It's a value proposition of the market share premiums that the most recognized economy and mid-scale brands in the industry can drive. A value proposition of how Wyndham rewards the industry's number one loyalty program when combined with our sales, marketing, and state-of-the-art distribution platform, can normally deliver 70% of an owner's room nights here in the U.S. at the lowest cost of distribution, combined with the significant cash savings our pricing power can deliver to their bottom lines. As our owners often tell our sales and operations support teams, they do business with us because they know us, they like us, and they trust us. While all of the brand benefits just mentioned are a critical part of our value proposition, so too is the messaging of the care, the support, and the guidance our teams can provide our small business owners on their road to recovery. As we look ahead, we have a lot to be proud of in terms of how we've supported and will continue to support our franchisees, along with what we've achieved corporately as a relatively new team. Our inclusive economy culture built on personal accountability, on caring and social responsibility has continued to shine. For the third consecutive year, we've received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign's 2021 Corporate Equality Index, measuring LGBTQ workplace equality. And for the second consecutive year, we were recognized with an A minus rating by the Carbon Disclosure Project for our team's actions to mitigate climate risk and manage our environment, something that we, along with our global franchisees and ownership base, will continue to remain focused on in 2021. We are highly optimistic about what lies ahead. We're encouraged that the vaccines are working, and we believe that they will help to deliver a multi-year resurgence in leisure travel unlike any other in our industry's history, providing an opportunity to grow our brands globally like never before. And we believe Wyndham Hotels and Resorts is uniquely positioned to continue to drive superior results for our owners and significant value for our shareholders. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Michelle. Michelle?
spk02: Thanks, Jeff. Good morning, everyone. I'll begin my remarks today with a detailed review of our fourth quarter and full year results. I'll then review our balance sheet and cash flows and provide our best view of certain 2021 projections. We generated $296 million of revenue and $56 million of adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter. which brings our full-year revenues to $1.3 billion and full-year adjusted EBITDA to $327 million. Fourth quarter revenues, excluding cost reimbursement revenues, decreased $126 million, primarily reflecting a 35% decline in global REVPAR, as well as a $15 million decline in license fees. Adjusted EBITDA declined $97 million to $56 million in the fourth quarter, reflecting the revenue changes partially offset by a 15% reduction in cost. As expected, marketing fund expenses exceeded marketing fund revenues by $26 million. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was 7 cents. As Jeff mentioned, RevPAR and Q4 finished down 31% domestically and 35% globally in constant currency. Our select service portfolio of economy and mid-scale hotels in the U.S. which comprised nearly 80% of our pre-COVID global royalties in 2019, continued to outperform the higher-end chain scales. This core portfolio of economy and mid-scale brands saw rev par declines of 28%, with nearly two-thirds coming from occupancy. Occupancy increased to 48% in the month of October before seasonally adjusting to the lower occupancy months of November and December. The fourth quarter was a continuation of the improving sequential trends that we've experienced since our April lows with occupancy down only nine points year over year compared to down 13 points in Q3 and down 26 points back in Q2. In addition, that trend has continued into 2021 with January occupancy down only five points year over year. ADR has also been performing well in the select service space. Since the low point we experienced in mid-April, ADR for our domestic economy and mid-scale brands has steadily climbed from down 21% to down only 10% in January. Importantly, we continue to see significant enough price differentials between the chain scale segments to impact decision-making for our value-conscious everyday travelers. Our fourth quarter international constant currency rough part declined 44%, an improvement from down 50% in the third quarter, driven by China, where we have our largest presence. China's Revpar was down only 10% in the fourth quarter as occupancy levels improved to 50%. While January results do show a slight pullback in occupancy to 46% as a result of the localized virus outbreaks and travel restrictions, China is now beginning to lap the virus from last year and is showing Revpar growth of 80% in January despite this impact. On a two-year stacked basis, China REVPAR for January is down 14%, which is more comparable to the fourth quarter 2020 performance of down 10% and more reflective of the sequential occupancy change. Turning now to full-year results. Revenues, excluding cost reimbursement revenues, decreased $480 million, primarily due to a 40% decline in global REVPAR, as well as a $42 million decline in license fees. Adjusted EBITDA declined to $327 million in 2020 from $613 million in 2019, reflecting a $286 million decline, or $7.2 million per point of REVPAR, slightly better than the $7.3 million REVPAR sensitivity we last published in October. Our adjusted EBITDA margin, which excludes cost reimbursement revenues, declined from 43% to 34%, predominantly reflecting the excess marketing fund spend and lower license fees. Our franchising margin, calculated on the same basis as our peers, which excludes the effects of our marketing funds, was 80% in line with 2019, providing another example of the resiliency of our business model. Full year adjusted diluted earnings per share was $1.03. On the cash front, we ended the year with $493 million of cash on hand, a $242 million decline from September 30th, reflecting repayment of all remaining outstanding revolver borrowings. Free cash flow for the full year was $34 million, or $100 million, excluding special item cash outlays. We've achieved the entire $255 million cash savings we targeted back in April. This cost containment plan, combined with our strong balance sheet entering the crisis, positioned us well to support our franchisees with a number of industry-leading financial initiatives. Not only were we able to provide all of our franchisees with fee waivers and interest-free fee deferrals through the lowest occupancy months of the pandemic, we were also able to subsidize our marketing funds to drive room revenue for our hotel owners throughout the year. And we continue to invest in technology to optimize rates, drive direct bookings, and capture cost efficiencies at the hotel level, positioning our brands to gain market share throughout 2020. To date, we've collected nearly 80% of the fees we've deferred in support of our franchisees and expect the remainder to be generally repaid over the next 12 months. Franchisee collection rates continue to trend within 10% of prior year rates. We ended the year with over $1.2 billion of liquidity, including our undrawn $750 million revolving credit facility. Our first lien net debt balance at December 31st was approximately $1.1 billion, and our first lien net leverage ratio was 3.4 times, well below the five times limit had we not obtained a waiver for quarterly testing. We remind you that in 2021, during the second quarter, when the waiver expires, as well as in the third and fourth quarters, the ratio calculation will be subject to the annualization of EBITDA in each quarter. Yet even at the second quarter 2020 trough REVPAR and EBITDA levels, our first lien net leverage ratio would not have exceeded this five times limitation. Therefore, we believe we will not need to request an extension or a second waiver. We continue to target a net leverage ratio three to four times and expect to gradually return to this range primarily through adjusted EBITDA growth over the next few years. From a capital allocation perspective, we paid $53 million in dividends during 2020 and used another $50 million of cash for share repurchases before suspending our plan in March. Our board of directors continues to demonstrate its confidence in our business model and our ability to generate significant cash flow through its decision earlier this month to authorize a 100% increase in the quarterly cash dividend to 16 cents per share. Turning now to 2021. While we are optimistic about the decreasing reported weekly COVID cases, the increasing vaccination percentages, and the return of leisure travel demand, there are still many near-term uncertainties ahead. As such, we are not providing a full outlook for 2021 at this time. However, we would like to provide our current view on certain operating statistics and financial metrics. For the full year, we expect net room growth of 1 to 2%. As Jeff discussed, we've seen openings momentum in the second half, particularly on the conversion side of the business. We're also expecting to see our retention rates begin to normalize back to the 95% range. We're expecting openings volume will be more back half loaded as transaction volumes return. For REVPAR, we expect every point of change versus 2020 will drive a $2.5 million change in adjusted EBITDA. While this concept is similar to last year's sensitivity, the calculation is a bit different. The sensitivity now excludes license fees as well as the marketing funds, both of which should be modeled separately as incremental impacts as their year-over-year change will not move linear with REVPAR. You can find more information in the investor deck we posted to our website last night, including illustrative examples. Matt and I are also available to walk you through it in detail. We expect license fees to be $70 million, reflecting the minimum levels outlined in the underlying agreements and consistent with our 2020 performance. we are expecting our marketing funds to break even in 2021. This means that marketing expenses are not expected to exceed marketing revenues and there will be no impact to adjusted EBITDA. Consistent with 2019, we expect the timing of our marketing spend to work against us in the first quarter and then largely reverse in our favor during the remainder of the year due to the seasonality of our business. As a reminder, our accounting for the marketing funds is not comparable to our peers, in that we do not remove their negative effect from our results of operations or cash flows. Below adjusted EBITDA, we expect stock-based compensation expense of $27 to $29 million, depreciation and amortization expense, excluding acquisition-related amortization expense, of $60 to $62 million, interest expense of $113 to $115 million, and an adjusted tax rate of approximately 28%. We expect the diluted share count to average approximately 94.1 million shares for the year. From a cash flow perspective, we are expecting CapEx spend to be approximately 40 million and development advanced spend, which is a component of free cash flow, to be approximately 40 million. We do not expect any meaningful special item cash outlays in 2021. Therefore, we expect 2021 free cash flow conversion rates to begin to approach 50% as we head back toward our normalized range of 55 to 60%. In closing, we are pleased with our 2020 performance given the challenges the industry faced. We took difficult but prudent steps to manage our costs and strengthen our liquidity while providing our franchisees with the support and relief needed during their most challenging times. Our business continues to be exceptionally well positioned for the recovery that we believe lies ahead. With that, Jeff and I would be happy to take your questions.
spk07: And at this time, if you have a question or comment, please press star and 1 on your touch-tone phone. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. We do ask that you limit yourself to one question or one follow-up. Thank you. We'll take today's first question from David Katz with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
spk10: Hi. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for the detail. Just if we could step back from any sort of near term. Look, we're all trying to get our models dialed in in the near term and sort of get the quarters right. But taking a step back and looking at the business from 30,000 feet, You know, how do we think about the unit growth, the room deletions, and, you know, how that comes out the other end with, you know, a more refined and, you know, a faster growing or better growing, you know, engine of fees? And how would you help us sort of think about that, particularly as it relates to free cash flow?
spk04: Thanks, David, for the question. It absolutely helps us longer term in terms of what our teams succeeded at with some really strong master license partners overseas. But in agreement with them, our ability to remove 20,000 noncompliant brand-attracting rooms both in 2019 and 2020, many of these rooms dating back 15, 20 years and no longer current on their payment terms, I think does several things for us from a cash generation and a fee generation standpoint. Whether these master license rooms were in China or whether they were in the Middle East, as we said on the script, it is opening up right now for us new development tracks for our franchise sales and development teams to sell direct. I'll take a city like Riyadh in Saudi Arabia where we no longer have that master license agreement. Our teams are right now in that city trying to sell a Ramada, which we have the ability to do directly, and a Wyndham, and a Wyndham Grand. We have grown our international direct net room growth in 2018 and 2019 in the high single digits. We want to get back to that. We had net room growth internationally on a direct basis in 2020 in every market but China. And now with direct representing over 60% of our international loans at a three to four times higher royalty fee rate than what our master license agreements were at. And that 60% was less than 50% a while ago. It is going to be what continues to move our royalty rate internationally and globally, which you're beginning to see over time, and with higher quality product and newer products.
spk10: Got it. And as my follow-up, I know it's an important concept to just keep track of conversion activity, which is expected to be an important part of unit growth.
spk04: What are you seeing out there? We're seeing, just as we saw in the third quarter, a continued pickup sequentially. We picked up from Q3 to Q4 conversion rooms, both on the opens and executions in terms of what we added to our pipeline. Conversion openings in the second half of this year grew 60% to the first half. And conversion signings grew 70% from the first half to the second half. And we expect this conversion percentage to grow. You think about 2019, 70% of our gross ads were conversions. If we look back in 08 and 09 after the great financial crisis, that conversion percentage grew to 90% of openings. And we could see that happening. We're out hiring more conversion sellers, both domestically and internationally. We're deploying more of our new construction sellers, both in the U.S. and internationally, to our conversion brands. And we're seeing conversion opportunities internationally in the years ahead. You know, again, there's 100,000 non-branded economy in mid-scale companies. rooms out there globally. We have strong conversion franchise sales and development teams in place and would expect that to continue to pick up.
spk07: Thank you very much. Good luck. Thanks, Dave. And our next question is from Joe Gref with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
spk03: Good morning, everybody. Jeff, just and Michelle, regarding the 1 to 2 percent net rooms growth for this year, You know, assuming that you retain or approach that 95% retention rate, that implies somewhere in the low 50,000 of gross room ads. Just want to make sure my math is right on that. But of that 50-ish thousand plus of gross room ads, what's the breakout there between conversions and new construction and of the steps? that's in the new construction bucket, how much of that relates to construction that was pre-COVID versus before the onset of COVID?
spk04: Sure. I think your math is right, Joe. We opened 65,000 rooms. In 2019, we opened 70% of, in the second half of 20, what we did in 19. So if we could get to 80% of what we did in 19, that's exactly on your math. That's 50,000 opens. And assuming our teams get back to a 95% normalized retention rate, that gets us right to the midpoint. Obviously, we're committed to getting back to that 2% to 4% growth. In terms of what opens out of our pipeline and what percentage is new construction, as I just said, I think you're going to continue to see that tick up. It was about 60%, 65% in construction. in 2020 being conversions, that number could go obviously higher as we were just talking about. It did in 2008 and 2009. But we're also seeing in our pipeline an interest or a renewed interest in our new construction rooms and signings. It's early to break it out exactly, but I think you'll see conversions continue to pick up.
spk03: Great. And then, you know, longer term, your target is 2% to 4% at rooms growth. You know, how much of that accelerated growth relates to further retention globally versus gross room at accelerations? I'm presuming some of it is gross room acceleration. For you to accelerate the gross rooms at some point in the future, how much of an increase in advances and support from Wyndham do you need to support that 2% to 4%? I know you talked about $40 million advances for this year. How much higher would that go to be part of that 2% to 4% path?
spk02: Hi, Joe. It's Michelle. I think the 2% to 4% is really just getting back to our 2019 opening levels. And then any additional retention favorability we would see would be able to drive us up from the 2% to 4%, which is consistent with our pre-COVID levels. with our pre-COVID plan. I would also think that from a key money perspective, we are putting more capital to work in this particular environment because we think there's more opportunity to attract deals just because of where financing is. owners are going to be more attracted to deals where we can participate in capital stack. That's not always the case, but that is certainly the case right now. And we're hopeful that that will attract the right hotels in the right markets for the brands that we really want to grow. And more importantly, conversion opportunities in the near term to help fill the gap on the transaction volume side and then as well to get us back to the 2019 openings level.
spk03: Great. And then one final follow-up quick one here. Looking at your slide 30 in the investor presentation, the illustrative example, not the guidance scenario, but if you do end up in that $425, $450 million EBITDA range for this year, does that put you on a path where the second half of this year we could see some resumption of buyback activity?
spk02: So I would say, well, so, okay. So I will take this opportunity to say that is definitely not meant to be guidance, um, It is also a conservative view because we did know by putting a hypothetical EBITDA number out there, we would run the risk that it would be assumed to be some version of guidance. So the math is not going to work as perfectly as you guys would want it to because it definitely has some conservatism built into that. I would say the share buyback is going to move more in line with free cash flow generation, but that will obviously be tied to EBITDA generation. So depending upon how much excess cash the business is generating, that will be when we are ready to resume share repurchases. We continue to place a high level of emphasis on capital purchases. You can see that in the actions we've taken on the dividend side, and share repurchase will follow at the appropriate time.
spk07: Thank you. And our next question is from Patrick Sholes with Scruise Securities. Please go ahead.
spk00: Hi. Good morning, everyone. A couple questions. Good morning, morning. A couple questions for you. How should we think about the trajectory of G&A growth throughout the year? And related to that, do you see yourselves rehiring staff given the rebound in economy hotels or are headquarters and corporate staffing reductions, do you see more as permanent?
spk02: From a cash perspective,
spk04: I'm sorry. Well, I'll start, and then from a cash standpoint, I think corporately where we're needed, we've made some slight adjustments, but most of what, as we've said before, will stick. When you talk about economy hotels, just to be clear, those are all franchise agreements, and they're not our team members, and there are a lot of team members out there in our economy hotels that are out of work that Our owners, I know, are working very hard at bringing back to work. Go ahead, Michelle.
spk02: Yes, thank you. Patrick, I would say from a G&A perspective, modeling, we can come at it two ways. I think we'll probably be around $5 million favorable to 2019 levels per quarter. So that's about half of the $40 million that we expected to stick will come through the G&A line items. on a cash basis. There will be some non-cash items that mask that, and we can help you guys reconcile that. And then the other half of the $40 million will sit on the operating expense line item. So I think the GNA is going to be about probably a 15% reduction to the 2019 levels.
spk00: Okay. Thank you for the color on that. That's helpful. And getting into the weeds perhaps a little I know that historically you've held an annual conference usually in April timeframe and probably is not going to happen this year. Any special earnings or modeling nuances we should be aware of around that, assuming my assumptions are correct on that conference?
spk02: Yeah, Patrick, we're actually not going to be hosting a large annual in-person event in 2021. It typically would have happened in April, I believe, this year or potentially in September, and we're just not comfortable committing to that timing for 6,000-plus franchisees to come together in a non-virtual setting. We are going to create some opportunity to bring our franchisees together in some whistle-stop tours and get our brand leaders and DFOs out in a more organized fashion and to collect feedback from our franchisees. We do that on a one-on-one basis throughout the year. But we want to do it in bring a group together. And so we'll do that on a smaller scale. So no large conference this year from a modeling perspective.
spk00: OK. OK, thank you very much.
spk07: And our next question is from Steven Grambling with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
spk01: Hey, thanks for taking the question. One follow-up just on the cost side. Can you just remind us, I think you previously talked to some kind of permanent benefits to EBITDA from cost outs. Can you just maybe update us on what your latest thinking is there and the major buckets and if that's changed at all?
spk02: Yeah, sure. When we implemented our COVID plan, it was $255 million of cost savings for the full year 2020. We expected 40 million of that would flow through EBITDA on a more permanent basis in 2021 and beyond. And we're expecting to see that in the operating expense and G&A line items. The majority of it is salary and wages and facility costs as a result of our restructuring plans, including our international reorganization.
spk01: Great. And then I may have missed this, but can you talk a little bit more about the guardrails or the way that you were trying to think about the $40 million in development advances? Why is that the right number? How have developers responded to that? And then how are you thinking about kind of free cash flow conversion longer term versus the 50% that's guided?
spk02: Right. The $40 million is a budget right now. If there are lots of opportunities, we're happy to spend more than $40 million. From our perspective, it's all about the IRR on the deal. So we'll deploy that domestically, potentially even internationally to the right deals in the right markets, conversions, new constructions. There will be... From an IRR perspective, it will hit our hurdle rates, which is higher than our WAC and also includes some risk-adjusted premium for the specific deal and the specific market, particularly if we were talking about international deals. Some of those would have higher hurdle rates. And so if there's potential to spend more than $40, we would. From a free cash flow conversion rate, it'll put a little bit of pressure on the conversion. We don't expect to have an elevated spend into perpetuity, right? We think this is in direct response to what we're seeing in the marketplace today and responding, reacting to today's opportunities. Still, at the $40 million level, we would be able to get close to $55 to $60 million. on free cash flow conversion when demand begins to normalize. Got it.
spk01: That's helpful. Awesome. Jump back in the queue. Thanks.
spk07: Sure. Thanks, Steve. And our next question is from Ian Zuffino with Oppenheimer.
spk03: Please go ahead. Hi. Great. I just kind of wanted to circle back on 2020. As you look at it, you know, What brands were basically, you know, the biggest drivers or did the best, you know, from a Red Car Index, you know, perspective throughout your portfolio? You know, which brands were you the happiest with? Which brands, you know, need the most work? Maybe just in color there. Thanks.
spk04: Thanks, Ian. Yeah, as we called out in the script, La Quinta is, I would say, by far and away the brand that we've been – I mean, just thrilled with how well it's performed through this downturn with nearly 600 basis points of market share. And we saw that market share just grow each quarter. So much of it was rate-driven, which was great to see. Thrilled with, obviously, what's happening in the extended stay space with Hawthorne. which was actually up a lot higher, almost 2x what La Quinta was, but that's just the state of extended stay right now, and that brand's doing very well. As we remove brand-attracting Hawthorne Suites, as we open new construction Hawthorne Suites, new construction Hawthorne Suites and La Quinta hotels, I think we'll continue to see that share grow up. And, look, our Days Inn and Super 8 brands, you know, against their chain scales are at 100% performing really well. They've been big additions to our pipeline and our conversion activity. And on the new construction side, I'd say, you know, our team is thrilled with Microtel, which against its chain scale is, you know, at about 115% index and just continues to – not only gain in market share but gain in interest from developers that are looking to build and to sign new hotels. We added conversions in the pipeline, continue to pick up, and a big part of that were from the Microtel and La Quinta and Hawthorne Suites brand.
spk03: Okay, great. Thank you. And then, you know, maybe just another question would be on the dividend. I mean, glad to see the dividends going, you know, way up. Still below 19 levels. You know, what do we need to see to kind of get back to those levels?
spk02: Thanks. It is below 19 levels. And the $0.16 is the maximum allowed under the credit agreement now, and that doesn't expire until the beginning of the second quarter. I would say... 2020 was about 50% of 2019 EBITDA, and so restoring the dividend to that same level we thought was appropriate. And so as EBITDA returns and free cash flow returns, we would expect to see the dividend be further restored. We want it to be, obviously, sustainable.
spk06: Great. Thank you very much. Thanks, Ian.
spk02: Thank you, Ian.
spk07: And our next question comes from Danny Assad with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
spk08: Hey, good morning, Jeff and Michelle. My question is on the license fees. So, you know, I know we have the sensitivity that lays out the minimum of $70 million for 2021. Can you maybe help us understand what it would take to clear that minimum threshold this year and maybe clarify anything around the sensitivity for that line item?
spk02: Sure, I can do that. I think that the license fee right now is tied to the contractual minimum, which is about $1.6 billion in VOI sales. So in 2020, Wind and Destination's VOI declined about 60%. So we would need to see it increase well over 60% in 2021 to exceed that $1.6 billion. Prudently, we have projected right now the contractual minimum, and should they exceed that $1.6 billion, we will be happy to adjust our projections.
spk08: Thank you very much.
spk02: Thank you.
spk07: We'll take the next question from Michael Bellisario with Baird. Please go ahead.
spk05: Good morning, everyone. Hey, Mike. Good morning. Could you update us on your latest thinking on potential M&A opportunities and what you're seeing now that you have a clearer path on the balance sheet side of things today?
spk04: Well, there's certainly not a lot of activity that we're looking at right now. There's plenty of people that would like to engage in discussions with us, both domestically and internationally. But, you know, I would say for the foreseeable future, Mike, this year and next, we're going to be focused on just driving our organic net room growth.
spk07: Thank you very much. And we'll go next to Robert Mullen with Gordon Haskett. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thank you.
spk06: Jeff, can you just talk about performance in California? How big of a drag was California on in January REVPAR? And has demand rebounded since the stay-at-home orders were lifted?
spk04: Yeah, actually, California is one of our strongest performing markets. I believe California occupancy for us across the state was north of 60 percent. You know, markets like Sacramento and San Bernardino and San Diego You know, California, Nevada, Arizona, the West in January was surprisingly strong. We did not see any drag, I believe, Michelle, on our January occupancy, which certainly picked up from our December occupancy. And, you know, for the first few weeks in February, we're seeing about the same trend.
spk02: And I would say California is definitely behaving a little differently for us than maybe our peers because we have been benefiting a little bit from the displacement due to the wildfires. So that had helped our 2020 results.
spk06: Got it. And then, Michelle, on the $70 million license fee guide, are you excluding anything that was included in the $83 million that was recognized in 2020?
spk02: The $83 million that was recognized in 2020 included points pack revenue. So we're just bifurcating the two. So we're giving you the projection for the license fee separate than the points pack projection. So we're just kind of the line item on the P&L has both of them included. And the points pack is expected to be flat year over year. so flat year over year so there there could be upside to that 70 million am i interpreting that correctly to the 70 million or to the points pack uh for the points back added on to the 70 million or is the points back included in that 70 million the point in the 70 million guide the points pack is not in there the um points pack revenue would be included in the two and a half million dollar rev par sensitivity number we provided that would include all the other, all the other revenue line items.
spk06: Got it. That's helpful.
spk02: Thank you very much. Beyond just the license fee. Yep. Good. Thanks.
spk07: It appears we have no further questions. I'll turn the floor back to Jeff Bellotti for closing remarks.
spk04: All right. Well, thank you everybody for your continued interest in Wyndham Hotels and Resorts. Matt and Michelle and I look forward to talking to you in the weeks ahead. And most importantly, hopefully seeing you at some point in 2021. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody.
spk07: And this will conclude today's Wyndham Hotels and Resorts fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings conference call. You can disconnect at any time and have a wonderful day.
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