Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the annual meeting of the unitholders of American Hotel Income Properties REIT LP, being held this year via conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the formal part of the meeting, there will be an opportunity for unitholders to ask questions. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star, then zero. I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Michael Murphy. Please go ahead, Mr. Murphy.
Thank you, operator. Ladies and gentlemen, the annual meeting of American Hotel Income Properties REIT LP will now come to order. I will refer to the LP as the REIT throughout this meeting. My name is Michael Murphy. I'm the chair of the REIT's general partner, American Hotel Income Properties REIT GP Inc, and I will act as chairman of this meeting in accordance with the amended and restated limited partnership agreement of the REIT. The proxies for unitholders for the meeting are held by me or Charles van der Lee , in my absence. We and certain other representatives are present in person today. Our attendance in person satisfies the requirements of the amended and restated limited partnership agreement of the REIT.
We have made it possible for unitholders and guests to participate in this meeting by teleconference, although they may not be considered to be in attendance at the meeting itself, nor will they be entitled to vote. I will ask Mr. Brian Canfield to act as secretary for this meeting. With the consent of the meeting, I will ask Yaniv Guez of Computershare Investor Services Inc. to act as scrutineer of the meeting. The secretary has tabled for inspection by any unitholder or proxyholder, a confirmation that the notice calling this annual meeting was made available to unitholders in accordance with the amended and restated limited partnership agreement by which the REIT is governed and then, and applicable law.
With the consent of the meeting, the reading of the notice of the meeting will be dispensed with, and I will ask the secretary to append this confirmation to the minutes of this meeting as a schedule. Done. Has the scrutineer submitted the report on attendance to the secretary?
Yes, Mr. Chair. I have adopt the scrutineer's report. Why don't I read it out? The interim report is as follows: three shareholders in person, representing 65,544 units. 375 shareholders by proxy, representing a total of 17,049,188 units. That's for a total of 378 unitholders, holding in aggregate 17,114,732 units. That represents 21.71%.
I adopt the scrutineer's report and declare accordingly that a quorum is present. As there is a quorum present and as adequate notice of this meeting has been given, I now declare this annual meeting to be regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business. Before continuing with the formal part of the meeting, I'd like to introduce you to other representatives of the REIT with me today. Jonathan Korol, who's our Chief Executive Officer, Travis Beatty, our Chief Financial Officer, Charles van der Lee, our Vice Chair, John O'Neill, a co-founder of the REIT, Stephen Evans, also a co-founder of the REIT. You've already met Brian Canfield, our counsel, who is acting as secretary for the meeting.
We will first deal with the formal business to fulfill the legal requirements of this meeting, following which our Chief Executive Officer will present a report and answer any questions you may have. As a matter of procedure, I ask that unitholders wishing to speak during this meeting please identify themselves by name and indicate that they are a unitholder or if a proxyholder, their name and the name of the unitholder they represent by proxy. As was stated at the notice of the meeting in Management Information Circular, unitholders were required to pre-register in order to ask questions during the meeting by phone. Only those who registered and joined the call using the dial-in number and unique pin they were provided, will be eligible for questions.
Questions will only be addressed during the question period at the end of the meeting when the chief executive officer's report on the business of the REIT. I'd like to confirm that the voting on all resolutions today will be by show of hands by registered holders and duly appointed proxy holders present in person at the meeting, unless a ballot is required or called for, as described in the information circular. For this meeting, there will be no voting by those participating via the teleconference. I now ask the secretary to read a proposed motion to approve the minutes of the annual and special meeting of the REIT held in 2022.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Be it resolved that the minutes of the annual and special meeting held on May 11, 2022, be to approved without reading the same.
Who will move the motion?
Moved.
Who will second the motion?
I second the motion.
Is there any discussion on this motion? There being none, all in favor of the motion, please signify by raising your right hand. Any against? I declare this resolution to be carried. The financial statements of the REIT for the year ended December 31, 2022, and the report of the auditors thereon, were made available to the unitholders prior to this meeting. If there are any questions which any unitholder would like to ask in respect of the financial statements in the report, I'd be glad to answer them and call on others to do so during the question period at the end of the meeting. It is now in order to proceed with the nomination and election of directors of the general partner of the REIT.
The board has determined that the number of directors appropriate for the current size of the REIT is nine, has resolved to fix the number of directors at nine for the purposes of election of directors at this meeting. As has been explained in the information circular for this meeting, although the election of the directors of the general partner would usually fall within the authority of the shareholders of the general partner to approve, a voting trust agreement was entered into with a third-party trustee at the time of the REIT's initial public offering. It effectively allows unitholders to vote for the election of directors by providing a direction to this trustee to ensure the election of directors is carried out in accordance with the wishes of the unitholders.
We've received no nominations for election as a director for the ensuing year from outside parties, in accordance with the REIT's limited partnership agreement. I now ask the secretary to read the names of the persons nominated as directors, as listed in the REIT's information circular.
Mr. Chair, the names of the persons nominated as directors of the REIT for the ensuing year are as follows: Matthew Cervino, Stephen Evans , Richard Frank, Mahmood Khimji, Tamara Lawson, Michael Murphy, John O'Neill, Charles van der Lee, and Josef Vejvoda. I confirm that the REIT has received the written consent of each of these nominees to act as director of the general partner.
Since the number of nominees is the same as the number of vacancies to be filled, I now ask for someone to move a resolution that the third-party trustee I've already mentioned, be directed to elect those persons nominated for election as directors of the general partner, to hold office until the next annual meeting. Who will move the motion?
Moved.
Who will second the motion?
I second the motion.
Is there any discussion on this motion? All in favor of this motion, please signify by raising your right hand. Any against? I declare this resolution duly carried. The next item of business before the meeting relates to the appointment of auditors of the REIT. I now ask for someone to move a resolution that KPMG LLP, Chartered Professional Accountants, be appointed as the auditors for the REIT for the ensuing year, and that the directors of the general partner be authorized to fix the remuneration to be paid to the auditors. Who will move the motion?
Moved.
Who will second?
I second the motion.
Is there any discussion? All those in favor of this motion, please signify by raising your right hand. Any against? I'll declare this motion duly carried. Is there any other further business to be brought before the meeting? If not, I would call for a motion to conclude the formal portion of the meeting. Who will move the motion?
Moved.
Who will second the motion?
I second the motion.
All those in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. None against? I declare this motion duly carried, and the formal portion of this meeting to be concluded. I'd like to now call upon Jonathan Korol, our Chief Executive Officer, to review the business of the REIT.
Thanks, Michael. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our annual and special meeting of unitholders. As with all of our investor discussions, I need to point out that my remarks today will include forward-looking information as defined by applicable Canadian securities laws. Comments that are not a statement of fact, including projections of future performance, are considered forward-looking information and are based on various assumptions, which we believe are reasonable based on currently available information, but may not prove to be true and involve various risks and uncertainties, and should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. The risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual financial and operating results to differ significantly from our forward-looking statements are detailed in our MD&A and our other Canadian securities filings, available on SEDAR and our website at ahipreit.com.
It's my privilege to address all of you today. Looking back at 2022, AHIP's portfolio of 71 select service hotels continued to benefit from extraordinary consumer demand. For the year, same-store revenue grew 19% due to steady demand acceleration across the 22 U.S. states in which we operate. On a recovery to 2019 basis, we saw sequential RevPAR improvement throughout every quarter in 2022, and were able to match 2019 RevPAR levels in the fourth quarter, driven by strong average daily rate or ADR growth, which ended the year 13% above 2021 levels. The ability to control and manage daily rates is a key advantage of the lodging sector and has enabled AHIP to continue to push average daily rates, mitigating the effects of rising costs due to inflationary pressures.
Throughout 2022, we were impacted by inflation, labor shortages, and supply chain disruptions. Combination of these factors resulted in a challenging operating environment and applied pressure on operating margins. To address these issues, our asset management team, together with our external hotel manager, have continued their efforts to hire more in-house labor, reduce turnover, and improve overall productivity. We made steady progress on our leverage reduction goals in 2022, as demonstrated by our debt to gross book value being reduced by 150 basis points to 52.6%. Over the last two years, we've reduced this metric by 570 basis points, and we continue to move closer to our target leverage level of 40%-50% debt to gross book value.
We also continue to greatly benefit from the fixed rate nature of our debt obligations, given the higher interest rate environment. Our financial position allows us to be patient and well-positioned to manage any potential economic volatility, with no debt maturities until late 2023, and 93% of our debt obligations at fixed rates. During 2022, we also high-graded our portfolio by executing on the dispositions of seven non-core assets. These dispositions resulted in improvements company-wide operational and leverage metrics, and allowed us to avoid future property improvement plans or PIP investments that will not meet returns available elsewhere in our portfolio. While our plan remains to grow the company, we will always explore opportunities to dispose of assets where the return projections lag the average return expectations for the remainder of our portfolio.
As a result of the 2021 investment by BentallGreenOak and Highgate, we are aligned with two well-capitalized strategic partners who support the pursuit of attractive acquisition opportunities. We didn't complete any acquisitions during 2022, we continue to evaluate growth opportunities that would expand our hotel portfolio and geographic footprint. We are, however, cautious, given our current valuation, which is discounted to public peers, private market values, and replacement costs, making growth via equity issuance in the near term, less attractive. In 2022, we returned to pre-pandemic spending levels from a capital standpoint, as we invested heavily in renovating our portfolio in order to strengthen our market position. We base our capital decisions on potential returns, given the current headwinds in the capital markets, we believe reinvesting in our portfolio represents the most attractive allocation of capital.
2022 also saw the reinstatement of our monthly U.S. dollar distribution at an annualized level of $0.18 per unit. This began In Q1, and at that time, we were the first North American lodging REIT to reinstate regular distributions, which demonstrated our collective confidence in the financial resiliency of our portfolio. Our ability to provide our unitholders with a meaningful cash yield on their investment remains a top priority for us. Our inaugural Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report was released during the second quarter of 2022, and earlier this week, we released our second annual report. This report has been designed to help our stakeholders understand our commitment and efforts regarding environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and governance.
We will continue to report on present and future commitments with respect to ESG initiatives, all of which will be overseen by our Board of Directors, Nominating Governance and Sustainability Committee. We are welcoming two new board members this year. John O'Neill has been in the hospitality industry for more than 35 years and served as AHIP's Chief Executive Officer from October 2018 until his retirement in October 2020. During his time as CEO, John oversaw AHIP's strategic transformation from economy lodging to premium-branded select service. John has a deep understanding of the U.S. hotel industry and thorough knowledge of AHIP's hotel portfolio, we are pleased to welcome him to the AHIP Board. As previously announced, I would also like to welcome Josef Vejvoda to AHIP's Board of Directors. Mr.
Vejvoda currently acts as a special advisor to K2 and has over 25 years of extensive capital markets experience and has held senior management roles in a number of the country's largest financial institutions, including Merrill Lynch Canada, National Bank Financial, and TD Securities. Mr. Vejvoda has served on numerous public company boards and has contributed to the realization of significant increases in shareholder value. We are thrilled to have an executive with Mr. Vejvoda 's pedigree and depth of experience further strengthening our board. As announced earlier this year, Rob O'Neill will be retiring from his position as a director on our board, and on behalf of the board and the entire AHIP team, I would like to thank Rob for his dedication and contribution to the company over the last 10 years.
Rob is the co-founder of AHIP and served as the Chief Executive Officer from February 2013 through September 2018, and has been in the lodging and hospitality industry for over 40 years. Rob is recognized as the leading authority in the hotel industry, and under his leadership, AHIP successfully IPO'd in 2013. We wish him the very best. To conclude, I remain encouraged by the demand acceleration that is continuing across our portfolio. The supply-demand dynamics have swung in our favor as US hotel construction is forecasted to remain below historical averages over the next few years due to a confluence of factors that include increased financing costs and labor market issues. These fundamental factors, combined with our focus to ease the effects of the labor challenges that have plagued the industry, will result in improving margins and drive strong cash flow generation.
In my opinion, this, in turn, should help narrow the valuation gap I alluded to earlier. Our stated mandate remains to drive attractive yields for our investors while maximizing long-term value. We continue to evaluate all opportunities to help do so. I'd like to close by thanking AHIP's corporate team, our hotel manager, and all hotel staff for their efforts this past year. I would also like to thank our fellow unitholders for their ongoing support. Look forward to growing our relationships in the year ahead.
Thank you, Jonathan. I'd like to now open the meeting to questions from unitholders, as previously stated. If you could please identify yourself by name, and if you are a proxyholder, please indicate the unitholder who you represent. I have been informed by the chorus operator that no one joining the call has pre-registered to ask any questions. Are there any questions from the registered unitholders in the boardroom today? There being none, I believe that that concludes the agenda for the meeting. I thank you all for your attendance.
This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.