Wyndham Hotel Group is moving closer to becoming
a separate, publicly traded company, apart from its current parent, Wyndham
Worldwide. During Wyndham Worldwide's earnings call, CEO Steve Holmes said the
spinoff is on track for the second quarter of 2018.
Wyndham announced its intention to split off the
hotel group in August. The name of the new company has not been established,
but the group's CEO, Geoff Ballotti, is expected to helm the new firm. Joining Wyndham
Worldwide's earnings call, he said the hotel company "will continue to be
laser-focused on quality, technology and loyalty. We will be committed to
investing in our businesses and to pursuing acquisitions when it makes
strategic and financial sense to do so and returning excess cash to
shareholders."
The group closed its acquisition of midscale
brand AmericInn this month. It also launched soft
brand Trademark Hotels in the midscale segment in
June and already has 50 hotels live on its distribution platform under the new
flag, according to Ballotti. At the same time, the group has exited 80,000 "substandard
domestic rooms" during the past three years, Ballotti said, improving the
overall quality of the group's portfolio.
On the technology side, Wyndham Hotel Group is in
the early stages of rolling out an updated, cloud-based central reservations
system and has installed 4,300 cloud-based property management systems across
its portfolio to facilitate the switch.
Q3
Earnings
Wyndham Hotel Group occupancy was 61 percent
during the third quarter, up from 59.9 percent the prior year. Average daily
rate increased 1.3 percent year over year to $72.75. Revenue totaled $368
million, up 1.1 percent from 2016. As of Sept. 30, the hotel group's portfolio
consisted of 8,100 properties or 708,500 rooms. Its pipeline was 146,900 rooms
across 1,190 hotels. Fifty-seven percent of the pipeline is slated for
international markets.
RELATED: Wyndham Hotel
Group Q2 earnings