Chatham Lodging Trust (NYSE:CLDT) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript May 6, 2024 10:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Chris Daly - DG Public Relations
Jeffrey Fisher - Chairman, President, CEO
Dennis Craven - EVP & COO
Jeremy Wegner - CFO & SVP

Conference Call Participants

Ari Klein - BMO Capital Markets
Bryan Maher - B Riley Securities

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to Chatham Lodging Trust First Quarter 2024 Financial Results. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded.

And at this time, I'll turn the conference over to Chris Daly, President of DG Public Relations. Chris, you may now begin.

Chris Daly

Thank you, Rob. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Chatham Lodging Trust First Quarter 2024 Result Conference Call.

Please note that many of our comments today are considered forward-looking statements as defined by Federal Securities Laws. These statements are subjects to risks and uncertainties, both known and unknown, as described in our most recent Form 10-K and other SEC filings. All information in this call is as of May 6, 2024 unless otherwise noted, and the company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the company's expectations. You can find copies of our SEC filings and earnings release, which contain reconciliations to non-GAAP financial messages referenced on this call on our website at www.chathamlodgingtrust.com.

Now to provide you with some insight into Chatham's 2024 first quarter results, allow me to introduce Jeff Fisher, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer; Dennis Craven, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer; and Jeremy Wegner, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Let me turn the session over to Jeff Fisher. Jeff?

Jeffrey Fisher

Thanks, Chris, and I certainly appreciate everyone joining us this Monday morning for our call. As you know, we beat first quarter consensus estimates as we combined RevPAR growth of 2% together with an almost 20% increase in our other operating profit line and property tax refunds on a couple of our California hotels. We generated free cashflow of $8.3 million in the quarter up 10% over the 2023 first quarter.

From an asset management perspective, we're laser focused on driving free cash flow any way we can, whether that's by increasing revenue or market share, increasing flow through, or enhancing ancillary operating profits. And in the first quarter, we drove other departmental profits up almost 20% as we increased parking rates in certain markets and enhanced our retail market operation product offerings and pricing. The year-over-year increase added a penny of FFO to our first quarter performance. The RevPAR increase of 2% was split evenly between occupancy and ADR, and was substantially greater than industry performance above Hilton's North American performance and right in line with Marriott's performance.