Following the lead of many of its peers, Wyndham Worldwide (WYN) announced that it would spin off its timeshare business into a standalone entity. The new timeshare company will become the largest timeshare company in the world (at least by revenues – $3.4b) and include both Wyndham Vacation Ownership and RCI, a timeshare exchange program. The hotel company generated… Read More »
What is a Reverse Morris Trust? You may have heard the terms Reverse Morris Trust or Morris Trust used in regards to a spinoff transaction. These terms describe two related types of transactions in which a company is able to sell assets without triggering a tax liability for either the company or shareholders. Naturally, this can be quite… Read More »
Hilton Worldwide Holdings(HLT) announced this morning that it has filed Form 10 registration statements for two previously announced spinoffs of its real estate and timeshare businesses. CEO Christopher J. Nassetta said the spins will be completed later this year. Following the transactions, Nassetta will continue to lead Hilton, which will be an asset-lite fee-based business. On a pro forma… Read More »
With all of the world focused on Starwood’s (HOT) buyout and the exciting bidding war between Anbang and Marriott International (MAR) it was easy to forget about the planned spinoff of Vistana, its timeshare business. It always seemed to get lumped into the bids, but as a reminder, the company will merge into the Interval Leisure Group (IILG)… Read More »
A few short hits for a December Friday: By now, everyone has read about the proposed ‘mega merger of equals’ between Dow Chemical (DOW) and DuPont (DD) and the subsequent breakup into three separate companies (agriculture, specialty products and materials). One question worth pondering is how does it actually avoid the tax man? It sure seems like a… Read More »
Last month, we reported speculation that Starwood Hotels(HOT) would be acquired by one of three Chinese hoteliers or Hyatt Hotels(H). An acquisition was indeed in the offing, but by a company unmentioned in those previous reports- Marriott International(MAR). Marriott announced yesterday that it would be acquiring Starwood for $12.2 billion. Not to worry, spinoff fans. Starwood’s spinoff of… Read More »
It looks a bidding war has emerged for Starwood Hotels (HOT), with three Chinese players and Hyatt Hotels (H) all chasing the well respected hospitality brand. Kudos to those i-bankers for drumming up the interest, especially given the fact that the Chinese government rarely lets its corporate citizens get into bidding wars. While M&A is always exciting to… Read More »
Last week, Starwood Hotels(HOT) announced it would be spinning off its timeshare business. One week later, CEO Frits van Paasschen “resigned by mutual agreement with the Board of Directors as President, Chief Executive Officer and a Director.” The company has appointed director Adam Aron as interim CEO and has stated that they wanted to see more growth than… Read More »
While releasing strong Q4 results, Starwood Hotels (HOT) also announced plans to spinoff its timeshare business, Starwood Vacation Ownership. The timeshare unit reported revenues of $640m in 2014, representing a little over 10% of the overall company’s total. According to the press release, the company ‘has successfully sold more than $6 billion of vacation ownership intervals to over… Read More »
Barry Sternlicht of Starwood Capital has a long history of real estate success. Nearly two decades ago, he built Starwood Hotels(HOT) from scratch into one of the world’s largest hotel companies. More recently, as Chairman and CEO of Starwood Propert Trust(STWD) he has assembled the country’s largest commercial mortgage REIT. The firm has financed some of the most… Read More »