SUNSTONE HOTEL INVESTORS ANNOUNCES THE DISPOSITION OF HILTON NEW ORLEANS ST. CHARLES
- Sale price of $47 million represents attractive multiples: 10.1x on 2024 Hotel Adjusted EBITDAre and 8.7% cap rate
- Strategic avoidance of upcoming defensive capital expenditures through property sale
- Efficient capital recycling through share repurchases at discounted valuations
- Significant share repurchase program: 25.8 million shares (12% of outstanding) bought back since 2022
- Maintained market presence in New Orleans through JW Marriott ownership
- Loss of revenue stream from Hilton New Orleans St. Charles property
- Hotel required significant near-term capital expenditures to maintain competitive position
- Reduced portfolio diversification with one less property
Insights
Sunstone's strategic hotel sale and share buybacks create shareholder value through effective capital recycling and avoiding renovation costs.
Sunstone's disposition of the Hilton New Orleans St. Charles for
By divesting before undertaking a costly renovation cycle, Sunstone has effectively maximized the property's exit value while avoiding significant defensive capital expenditures that might not have generated adequate returns. Meanwhile, they maintain exposure to the New Orleans market through their presumably higher-quality JW Marriott property.
The capital recycling strategy is particularly compelling. Rather than reinvesting in new acquisitions, Sunstone has repurchased 6.8 million shares YTD at
This share repurchase activity at what management clearly views as a discount to NAV creates immediate value for remaining shareholders through increased ownership percentages in the remaining portfolio. The strategy demonstrates management's confidence in their existing asset base and recognition of the arbitrage opportunity between public and private market valuations.
Management's commentary about maintaining flexibility to pivot between capital allocation strategies shows prudent awareness of market dynamics, though their current preference for share repurchases speaks volumes about perceived valuation disconnects in the market.
Recycles Sale Proceeds into Accretive Share Repurchases
In anticipation of the sale of the Hotel, the Company took advantage of market conditions to fully recycle the proceeds from the disposition into additional share repurchases. Year to date as of June 6, 2025, the Company has repurchased 6.8 million shares of its common stock at an average purchase price of
Bryan Giglia, Chief Executive Officer, stated, "We are pleased to announce the disposition of the Hilton New Orleans St. Charles. We were able to divest the hotel at attractive pricing, eliminate near-term defensive capital expenditures and recycle the proceeds into a higher yielding investment through the repurchase of our stock at a compelling discount.
About Sunstone Hotel Investors
Sunstone Hotel Investors, Inc. is a lodging real estate investment trust ("REIT"). Sunstone's strategy is to create long-term stakeholder value through the acquisition, active ownership, and disposition of well-located hotel and resort real estate. For further information, please visit Sunstone's website at www.sunstonehotels.com.
For Additional Information
Aaron Reyes
Chief Financial Officer
Sunstone Hotel Investors, Inc.
(949) 382-3018
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws and regulations. These forward-looking statements are identified by their use of terms and phrases such as "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "predict," "project," "should," "will" and other similar terms and phrases, including opinions, references to assumptions and forecasts of future results. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to differ materially from those anticipated at the time the forward-looking statements are made. These risks include, but are not limited to: we own upper upscale and luxury hotels located in urban and resort destinations in an industry that is highly competitive; events beyond our control, including economic slowdowns or recessions, uncertainty in connection with certain international economic and political relationships, including political disputes and the imposition of tariffs affecting commodity costs, pandemics, natural disasters, civil unrest and terrorism; inflation may adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations; system security risks, data protection breaches, cyber-attacks and systems integration issues, including those impacting the Company's suppliers, hotel managers or franchisors; a significant portion of our hotels are geographically concentrated so we may be disproportionately harmed by economic conditions, competition, new hotel supply, real and personal property tax rates or natural disasters in these areas of the country; we face possible risks associated with the physical and transitional effects of climate change; uninsured or underinsured losses could harm our financial condition; the operating results of some of our hotels are significantly reliant upon group and transient business generated by large corporate customers, and the loss of such customers for any reason could harm our operating results; the increased use of virtual meetings and other similar technologies could lessen the need for business-related travel, and, therefore, demand for rooms in our hotels may be adversely affected; our hotels require ongoing capital investment and we may incur significant capital expenditures in connection with acquisitions, repositionings and other improvements, some of which are mandated by applicable laws or regulations or agreements with third parties, and the costs of such renovations, repositionings or improvements, including commodity cost increases resulting from inflation or the implementation of international tariffs, and delays due to supply chain disruptions, may exceed our expectations or cause other problems; delays in the acquisition, renovation or repositioning of hotel properties may have adverse effects on our results of operations and returns to our stockholders; accounting for the acquisition of a hotel property or other entity involves assumptions and estimations to determine fair value that could differ materially from the actual results achieved in future periods; volatility in the debt and equity markets may adversely affect our ability to acquire, renovate, refinance or sell our hotels; we may pursue joint venture investments that could be adversely affected by our lack of sole decision-making authority, our reliance on a co-venturer's financial condition and disputes between us and our co-venturer; we may be subject to unknown or contingent liabilities related to recently sold or acquired hotels, as well as hotels we may sell or acquire in the future; we may seek to acquire a portfolio of hotels or a company, which could present more risks to our business and financial results than the acquisition of a single hotel; the sale of a hotel or portfolio of hotels is typically subject to contingencies, risks and uncertainties, any of which may cause us to be unsuccessful in completing the disposition; the illiquidity of real estate investments and the lack of alternative uses of hotel properties could significantly limit our ability to respond to adverse changes in the performance of our hotels; we may issue or invest in hotel loans, including subordinated or mezzanine loans, which could involve greater risks of loss than senior loans secured by income-producing real properties; if we make or invest in mortgage loans with the intent of gaining ownership of the hotel secured by or pledged to the loan, our ability to perfect an ownership interest in the hotel is subject to the sponsor's willingness to forfeit the property in lieu of the debt; one of our hotels is subject to a ground lease with an unaffiliated party, the termination of which by the lessor for any reason, including due to our default on the lease, could cause us to lose the ability to operate the hotel altogether and may adversely affect our results of operations; because we are a REIT, we depend on third-parties to operate our hotels; we are subject to risks associated with our operators' employment of hotel personnel; most of our hotels operate under a brand owned by Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton, Four Seasons or Montage, and should any of these brands experience a negative event, or receive negative publicity, our operating results may be harmed; our franchisors and brand managers may adopt new policies or change existing policies which could result in increased costs that could negatively impact our hotels; future adverse litigation judgments or settlements resulting from legal proceedings could have an adverse effect on our financial condition; claims by persons regarding our properties could affect the attractiveness of our hotels or cause us to incur additional expenses; the hotel business is seasonal and seasonal variations in business volume at our hotels will cause quarterly fluctuations in our revenue and operating results; changes in the debt and equity markets may adversely affect the value of our hotels; certain of our hotels have in the past become impaired and additional hotels may become impaired in the future; laws and governmental regulations may restrict the ways in which we use our hotel properties and increase the cost of compliance with such regulations, and noncompliance with such regulations could subject us to penalties, loss of value of our properties or civil damages; corporate responsibility, specifically related to environmental sustainability, social responsibility and corporate governance, or ESG, factors and commitments, may impose additional costs and expose us to new risks that could adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows; our franchisors and brand managers may require us to make capital expenditures pursuant to property improvement plans or to comply with brand standards; termination of any of our franchise, management or operating lease agreements could cause us to lose business; the growth of alternative reservation channels could adversely affect our business and profitability; the failure of tenants in our hotels to make rent payments or otherwise comply with the material terms of our retail and restaurant leases may adversely affect our results of operations; we rely on our corporate and hotel senior management teams, the loss of whom may cause us to incur costs and harm our business; we could be harmed by inadvertent errors, misconduct or fraud that is difficult to detect; if we fail to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures, we may not be able to accurately report our financial results or identify and prevent fraud; we have outstanding debt which may restrict our financial flexibility; our debt agreements contain various covenants, restrictions, requirements and other limitations, and should we default, we may be required to pay additional fees, provide additional security or repay the debt; defaulting on existing debt may limit our ability to access additional debt financing in the future; certain of our unsecured term loans are subject to variable interest rates, which creates uncertainty in the amount of interest expense we will incur in the future and may negatively impact our operating results; we may not be able to refinance our debt on favorable terms or at all; our stock repurchase program may not enhance long-term stockholder value, could cause volatility in the price of our common and preferred stock and could diminish our cash reserves; and other risks and uncertainties associated with the Company's business described in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Although the Company believes the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that the expectations will be attained or that any deviation will not be material. All forward-looking information provided herein is as of the date of this release, 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.
This release should be read together with the consolidated financial statements and notes thereto included in our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q. Copies of these reports are available on our website at www.sunstonehotels.com and through the SEC's Electronic Data Gathering Analysis and Retrieval System ("EDGAR") at www.sec.gov.
Non-GAAP Financial Measures
We present the following non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful to investors as key supplemental measures of our operating performance: hotel earnings before interest expense, taxes, depreciation and amortization for real estate, adjusted as discussed below, or Hotel Adjusted EBITDAre; and Hotel Net Operating Income. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance in accordance with GAAP. In addition, our calculation of these measures may not be comparable to other companies that do not define such terms exactly the same as the Company. These non-GAAP measures are used in addition to and in conjunction with results presented in accordance with GAAP. They should not be considered as alternatives to net income (loss), cash flow from operations, or any other operating performance measure prescribed by GAAP. These non-GAAP financial measures reflect additional ways of viewing our operations that we believe, when viewed with our GAAP results and the reconciliations to the corresponding GAAP financial measures, provide a more complete understanding of factors and trends affecting our business than could be obtained absent this disclosure. We strongly encourage investors to review our financial information in its entirety and not to rely on a single financial measure.
We present EBITDAre in accordance with guidelines established by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts ("Nareit"), as defined in its September 2017 white paper "Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization for Real Estate." We believe EBITDAre is a useful performance measure to help investors evaluate and compare the results of our operations from period to period in comparison to our peers. Nareit defines EBITDAre as net income (calculated in accordance with GAAP) plus interest expense, income tax expense, depreciation and amortization, gains or losses on the disposition of depreciated property (including gains or losses on change in control), impairment write-downs of depreciated property and of investments in unconsolidated affiliates caused by a decrease in the value of depreciated property in the affiliate, and adjustments to reflect the entity's share of EBITDAre of unconsolidated affiliates.
We make additional adjustments to EBITDAre when evaluating our performance because we believe that the exclusion of certain additional items described below provides useful information to investors regarding our operating performance, and that the presentation of Hotel Adjusted EBITDAre, when combined with the primary GAAP presentation of net income, is beneficial to an investor's complete understanding of our operating performance. In addition, we use both EBITDAre and Adjusted EBITDAre as measures in determining the value of hotel acquisitions and dispositions.
We adjust EBITDAre for the following items, which may occur in any period, and refer to this measure as Adjusted EBITDAre:
- Amortization of deferred stock compensation: we exclude the noncash expense incurred with the amortization of deferred stock compensation as this expense is based on historical stock prices at the date of grant to our corporate employees and does not reflect the underlying performance of our hotels.
- Amortization of contract intangibles: we exclude the noncash amortization of any favorable or unfavorable contract intangibles recorded in conjunction with our hotel acquisitions. We exclude the noncash amortization of contract intangibles because it is based on historical cost accounting and is of lesser significance in evaluating our actual performance for the current period.
- Amortization of right-of-use assets and obligations; we exclude the amortization of our right-of-use assets and related lease obligations, as these expenses are based on historical cost accounting and do not reflect the actual rent amounts due to the respective lessors or the underlying performance of our hotels.
- Gains or losses from debt transactions: we exclude the effect of finance charges and premiums associated with the extinguishment of debt, including the acceleration of deferred financing costs from the original issuance of the debt being redeemed or retired because, like interest expense, their removal helps investors evaluate and compare the results of our operations from period to period by removing the impact of our capital structure.
- Other adjustments: we exclude other adjustments that we believe are outside the ordinary course of business because we do not believe these costs reflect our actual performance for the period and/or the ongoing operations of our hotels. Such items may include: lawsuit settlement costs; the write-off of development costs associated with abandoned projects; property-level restructuring, severance, and management transition costs; pre-opening costs associated with extensive renovation projects such as the work being performed at Andaz Miami Beach; debt resolution costs; lease terminations; property insurance restoration proceeds or uninsured losses; and other nonrecurring identified adjustments.
Hotel Adjusted EBITDAre and Hotel Net Operating Income Reconciliations
Plus: | Plus: | Equals: | Less: | Equals: | ||||||||||||||
Hotel | Hotel Net | |||||||||||||||||
Total | Net | Adjusted | FF&E | Operating | ||||||||||||||
Revenues | Income | Depreciation | EBITDAre | Reserve | Income | |||||||||||||
Full Year 2024 | $ | 14,135 | $ | 2,236 | $ | 2,402 | $ | 4,638 | $ | (565) | $ | 4,073 | ||||||
EBITDAre Multiple/Cap Rate (1) | 10.1x | 8.7 | % | |||||||||||||||
(1) | EBITDAre Multiple calculated as gross sale price divided by Hotel Adjusted EBITDAre. Cap Rate calculated as Hotel Net Operating Income divided by gross sale price. |
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sunstone-hotel-investors-announces-the-disposition-of-hilton-new-orleans-st-charles-302476007.html
SOURCE Sunstone Hotel Investors, Inc.
FAQ
How much did Sunstone Hotel Investors sell the Hilton New Orleans St. Charles for?
What is SHO's share repurchase activity in 2025?
How many shares has Sunstone Hotel Investors (SHO) repurchased since 2022?
What was the cap rate for the Hilton New Orleans St. Charles sale?
Does Sunstone Hotel Investors still have presence in New Orleans after this sale?
