NH Hotel : demonstrates the potential of its business...

• After two-and-a-half years of investments in repositioning its assets, enhancing the guest experience and transforming the management model, NH Hotel Group is ready for growth and is heading into the second half of its five-year business plan with a streamlined portfolio and higher revenue guidance

• In 2016, the company continues to outpace its competitors, thanks to the strengthening of its premium offering, implementation of advanced revenue management tools and its sales and marketing strategy

During NH Hotel Group's Annual General Meeting, which took place in Madrid today, Federico J. González Tejera, the Company's Chief Executive Officer, gave the Group's shareholders an account of the key milestones achieved to date under the Group's five-year business plan and outlined the key steps for 2016.

During his presentation, Federico González highlighted the solid revenue and EBITDA growth registered in 2015, that enabled the Group to post a profit for the first time since 2011; he also highlighted the effort being made to continue to boost the flow ratio of revenues to EBITDA -conversion ratio (41% in 2015)- and the strategic focus on cash flow generation while the chain continues to invest in repositioning.

At the half-way mark of its five-year plan, NH Hotel Group has already repositioned 186 hotels (representing 64% of Group EBITDA) and plans to finish the refurbishment of an additional 27 properties by the end of this year. The Company's CEO said that by year-end 2016, most of the €237 million of capital expenditure allocated to portfolio upgrade work will have been executed and 83% of the planned refurbishments (full and partial) will be completed.

With more hotels in perfect shape and a portfolio gradually gaining weight in the premium segment -where it operates under the NH Collection and nhow brands-, which between them will account for 23% of the total by 2018, the Company is witnessing a significant improvement in its guests' experience feedback. NH Hotel Group is currently the Spanish hotel chain with the most worldwide hotels certified as excellent by the travel portal TripAdvisor. Nearly 30% of its properties rank in the top 10 in each destination when travellers perform a search using this engine.

This improvement in guest feedback, which is being shaped by (i) an unique end-to-end operational promise for each of the Group's brands; (ii) hotel refurbishment in each market; (iii) a renewal of the room basics (exclusive mattresses, premium showers, next-generation LED TVs, new amenities and professional hairdryers); (iv) redefinition of the gastronomic offering, now broader and healthier; and (v) a more efficient price management strategy underpinned by sharper predictive technology, is driving sustainable growth in revenue per available room (RevPar), which rose by 11% year-on-year in 2015. It is worth highlighting the fact that this favourable momentum is being observed across all of the Company's markets: NH is outperforming its benchmark set of competitors in every destination quarter after quarter.

NH Hotel Group's chief executive also emphasised the effort underway to roll out the NH Collection brand, the Group's brand in the upper-upscale segment, internationally and the positive impact this initiative is having on its overall image and average daily rate (ADR). In total, the Company had 50 NH Collection hotels in operation at the end of 2015; this figure has since risen to 58 and will top more than 70 by the time the strategic business plan is fully executed in 2018. In parallel, new nhow properties are due to come on stream in the coming years, with three projects under execution in core destinations for this brand such as London, Amsterdam and Santiago de Chile.

Expansion in core markets continues to reinforce the Group's presence in Europe and increasing its portfolio in Latin America (16 hotels/2,660 rooms signed; 26 openings/2,781 rooms in 2015); furthermore, the Chinese joint venture with the HNA Group is up and running and is expected to add between 120 and 150 hotels under management agreements by 2020.

González Tejera pointed out that the portfolio optimization plan is tracking ahead of expectations, the Group having exited 40 non-core hotels since the start of the business plan, enabling a sharp reduction in the number of negative EBITDA hotels and a gradual improvement in the rent coverage ratio. He also said that the Group had already secured 50% of the asset sales objective for this year.

Lastly, NH Hotel Group's CEO highlighted about the positive outlook for 2016, referring to EBITDA guidance of €190 million and a year-end leverage target of four times, which would put the Group close to its target of 3x to 3.5x by 2017-2018.

About NH Hotel Group
NH Hotel Group (www.nh-hotels.com) is Europe's third-ranked business hotel chain. It operates close to 400 hotels with almost 60,000 rooms in 30 markets across Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia, including top city destinations such as Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Bogota, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Mexico City, Milan, Munich, New York, Rome and Vienna.