Financial Information
Development and Financing Risks
While we are predominantly a manager and franchisor of hotel properties, our hotel owners depend on capital to buy, develop, and improve hotels, and our hotel owners may be unable to access capital when necessary. In order to fund new hotel investments, as well as refurbish and improve existing hotels, both the Company and current and potential hotel owners must periodically spend money. The availability of funds for new investments and improvement of existing hotels by our current and potential hotel owners depends in large measure on capital markets and liquidity factors, over which we can exert little control. The difficulty of obtaining financing on attractive terms can, at times, be constrained by the capital markets for hotel and real estate investments. In addition, owners of existing hotels that we franchise or manage may have difficulty meeting required debt service payments or refinancing loans at maturity.
Our growth strategy depends upon third-party owners/operators, and future arrangements with these third parties may be less favorable. Our growth strategy for development of additional lodging facilities entails entering into and maintaining various arrangements with property owners. The terms of our management agreements, franchise agreements, and leases for each of our lodging facilities are influenced by contract terms offered by our competitors, among other things. We cannot assure you that any of our current arrangements will continue or that we will be able to enter into future collaborations, renew agreements, or enter into new agreements in the future on terms that are as favorable to us as those that exist today.
Our ability to grow our management and franchise systems is subject to the range of risks associated with real estate investments. Our ability to sustain continued growth through management or franchise agreements for new hotels and the conversion of existing facilities to managed or franchised Marriott brands is affected, and may potentially be limited, by a variety of factors influencing real estate development generally. These include site availability, financing, planning, zoning and other local approvals, and other limitations that may be imposed by market and submarket factors, such as projected room occupancy, changes in growth in demand compared to projected supply, territorial restrictions in our management and franchise agreements, costs of construction, and anticipated room rate structure.
Our development activities expose us to project cost, completion, and resale risks. We develop new hotel and residential properties, and previously developed timeshare interval and fractional ownership properties, both directly and through partnerships, joint ventures, and other business structures with third parties. As demonstrated by the 2009 and 2011 impairment charges for our former Timeshare business, our ongoing involvement in the development of properties presents a number of risks, including that: (1) continued weakness in the capital markets may limit our ability, or that of third parties with whom we do business, to raise capital for completion of projects that have commenced or for development of future properties; (2) properties that we develop could become less attractive due to decreases in demand for hotel and residential properties, market absorption or oversupply, with the result that we may not be able to sell such properties for a profit or at the prices or selling pace we anticipate, potentially requiring additional changes in our pricing strategy that could result in further charges; (3) construction delays, cost overruns, lender financial defaults, or so called “Acts of God” such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, or fires may increase overall project costs or result in project cancellations; and (4) we may be unable to recover development costs we incur for any projects that we do not pursue to completion.
Development activities that involve our co-investment with third parties may result in disputes that could increase project costs, impair project operations, or increase project completion risks. Partnerships, joint ventures, and other business structures involving our co-investment with third parties generally include some form of shared control over the operations of the business and create added risks, including the possibility that other investors in such ventures could become bankrupt or otherwise lack the financial resources to meet their obligations, or could have or develop business interests, policies, or objectives that are inconsistent with ours. Although we actively seek to minimize such risks before investing in partnerships, joint ventures, or similar structures, actions by another investor may present additional risks of project delay, increased project costs, or operational difficulties following project completion. Such disputes may also be more likely in difficult business environments.
Risks associated with development and sale of residential properties associated with our lodging properties or brands may reduce our profits. In certain hotel and timeshare projects we participate, directly or through noncontrolling interests and/or licensing agreements, in the development and sale of residential properties associated with our brands, including residences and condominiums under our The Ritz-Carlton, EDITION, JW Marriott, Autograph Collection, and Marriott brand names and trademarks. Such projects pose further risks beyond those generally associated with our lodging businesses, which may reduce our profits or compromise our brand equity, including the following: (1) the continued weakness in residential real estate and demand generally may continue to reduce our profits and could make it more difficult to convince future hotel development partners of the value added by our brands; (2) increases in interest rates, reductions in mortgage availability, or increases in the costs of residential ownership could prevent potential customers from buying residential products or reduce the prices they are willing to pay; and (3) residential construction may be subject to warranty and liability claims, and the costs of resolving such claims may be significant.
Some hotel openings in our existing development pipeline and approved projects may be delayed or not result in new hotels, which could adversely affect our growth prospects. At year-end 2013 we reported approximately 1,165 hotels in our development pipeline, which includes hotels under construction and under signed contracts, as well as over 170 hotels approved for development but not yet under signed contracts. The eventual opening of the hotels in our development pipeline and, in particular, the hotels approved for development that are not yet under contract, is subject to numerous risks, including in some cases the owner’s or developer’s ability to obtain adequate financing or governmental or regulatory approvals. Accordingly, we cannot assure you that our development pipeline, and in particular hotels approved for development, will result in new hotels that enter our system, or that those hotels will open when we anticipate.
Planned transactions that we announce may be delayed, not occur at all, or involve unanticipated costs. From time to time we announce transactions that we expect will close at a future date, such as the recently announced acquisition of Protea Hotel Group’s brands and management business and disposition of our EDITION hotels in Miami Beach and New York upon completion of construction. If the conditions to consummating these transactions are neither satisfied nor waived by the time we expect, the closings could be delayed or not occur at all. In addition, the EDITION contracts are for a fixed purchase price based upon the estimated total development costs for the hotels and we will not recover any development costs in excess of the agreed purchase price, so we will bear those development costs to the extent that they are higher than we anticipated when we agreed to the transaction.