Summit Hotel revenue leaps

Austin-based owner of 90 hotels says revenues jumped 50 percent.

Austin-based Summit Hotel Properties saw revenue jump 50 percent in the first quarter, the company reported Monday.

The real estate investment trust operates 90 hotels with more than 11,000 guest rooms across 22 states.

Summit said revenue hit $89.5 million in the first three months of 2014, up from $59.7 million during the same period a year earlier.

The company said last week it would pay a quarterly dividend of 11.25 cents per share on its common stock.

“In the first quarter, we continued to make solid progress on all of our key operating and strategic objectives,” Dan Hansen, Summit’s president and CEO, said in a written statement. “Our portfolio recorded strong gains in (revenue per available room), driven by growth in both average daily rates and occupancy.”

The average daily rate at Summit’s various hotels was $110.01 during the first quarter, an increase of 4.6 percent, while average occupan-

cy grew by 3.6 percent. Both figures are above the industrywide increases of 3.8 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively, seen in the first quarter, the company said.

During the first quar- ter, Summit acquired four hotels at a total cost of $125.7 million. The properties — one each in Houston and Santa Barbara, Calif., and two in San Francisco — have a combined 591 rooms.

Since January 2013, Summit said it has added 23 hotels to its portfolio.

“We are pleased with our acquisition activity in the first quarter of the year, including the three hotels in California, which continues our expansion on the West Coast,” Hansen said. “Looking to the balance of the year, we continue to see a solid pipeline of potential transactions to further grow our port- folio.”

Two smaller hotels in Fort Smith, Ark., with a combined 146 rooms were sold in the first quarter, bringing in $3.1 million total.

The hotelier said it has spent $16.8 million on renovations to its properties this year, upgrading guest rooms and com- mon areas such as lobbies, meeting rooms and fitness centers.

“We completed 11 projects in the first quarter,” Hansen said, “and our team continues to execute these improvement programs in order to drive revenue growth, operating margins and value across our portfo- lio.”

For all of 2014, Summit said it expects to spend somewhere between $35 million and $45 million on renovations.

Summit’s stock closed at $9.48 Monday, up 24 cents from Friday.