Ryman Hospitality Properties Inc. (REIT) (RHP) fair value

ACCE thesis

Ryman Hospitality Properties owns a portfolio of large-scale convention hotels, including the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, Gaylord Palms in Orlando, and Gaylord Rockies in Denver, plus the Grand Ole Opry and the Ryman Auditorium, and it leases these to its operating partner, Marriott, under long-term contracts. That structure, with a REIT collecting rent off a small set of hard-to-replicate campuses, gives the company scale in group and convention business that few other lodging owners can match. The near-term driver is the continued recovery and expansion of group demand, with revenue growing 13.6% in the most recent period and operating margin of 23.3% suggesting the campuses are converting that demand into profit. At an 8.7 billion dollar market cap and a forward P/E of 25.8 against a trailing 30.7, the market is paying a premium for that earnings trajectory, so the question for the deeper look is whether growth can keep closing the gap. The 22.6% return on equity and the absence of index membership, which means it is a smaller-cap name the market may be underweighting, are worth testing against the concentration risk of a handful of properties.