SHARE BASED PAYMENTS

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2022

Share-Based Payment Arrangement [Abstract]

Our shareholders approved the Hersha Hospitality Trust 2012 Equity Incentive Plan, as amended, for the purpose of attracting and retaining executive officers, employees, trustees and other persons and entities that provide services to the Company.

On May 26, 2022, the Compensation Committee approved the 2022 LTIP in which 60% are issuable based on the Company's achievement of a certain level of (1) absolute total shareholder return (37.5% of the award), (2) relative total shareholder return as compared to the Company’s peer group (37.5% of the award), and (3) relative growth in revenue per available room ("RevPar") compared to the Company’s peer group (25.0% of the award) and the remaining 40% of the awards provide for time based vesting. On May 26, 2022, the Compensation Committee awarded 194,427 LTIP Units related to the time based portion of the plan. These Units will vest over a three year period from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2024. The LTIP Units awarded was determined by dividing the dollar amount of award earned by $9.04, the per share volume weighted average trading price of the Company’s common shares on the NYSE for the 20 trading days prior to December 31, 2021.

The 60% market-based portion of the 2022 LTIP has a three-year performance period which commenced on January 1, 2022 and ends December 31, 2024. As of September 30, 2022, no shares or LTIP Units have been issued to the executive officers in settlement of 2022 LTIP market-based awards.

A summary of our share based compensation activity from January 1, 2022 to September 30, 2022 is as follows:


	LTIP Unit Awards			Restricted Share Awards			Share Awards
	Number of Units	Weighted Average Grant Date Fair Value		Number of Restricted Shares	Weighted Average Grant Date Fair Value		Number of Shares	Weighted Average Grant Date Fair Value
Unvested Balance as of December 31, 2021	1,658,995	$	10.73	170,740	$	10.52	—
Granted	194,427	11.25		103,760	10.13		71,832	10.57
Vested	—	N/A		(126,019)	10.82		(71,832)	10.57
Forfeited	—	N/A		(150)	N/A		—	N/A
Unvested Balance as of September 30, 2022	1,853,422	$	10.78	148,331	$	9.99	—

The following table summarizes share based compensation expense for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022 and 2021 and unearned compensation as of September 30, 2022 and December 31, 2021:


	Share Based Compensation Expense								Unearned Compensation
	For the Three Months Ended				For the Nine Months Ended				As of
	September 30, 2022		September 30, 2021		September 30, 2022		September 30, 2021		September 30, 2022		December 31, 2021
Issued Awards
LTIP Unit Awards	$	1,960	$	1,460	$	5,878	$	4,718	$	7,654	$	11,344
Restricted Share Awards	228		404		767		826		959		834
Share Awards	152		—		916		367		—		—
Unissued Awards
Market Based	428		395		1,047		1,106		3,228		2,230

Total	$	2,768	$	2,259	$	8,608	$	7,017	$	11,841	$	14,408

The weighted-average period of which the unrecognized compensation expense will be recorded is approximately 0.9 years for LTIP Unit Awards and 0.6 years for Restricted Share Awards.

The remaining unvested target units are expected to vest as follows:


	2022	2023	2024	2025
LTIP Unit Awards	680,854	1,107,757	64,811	—
Restricted Share Awards	—	117,351	27,980	3,000
	680,854	1,225,108	92,791	3,000