© Reuters. Choice Hotels (CHH) ends bid for Wyndham amid ‘continuing disinterest’ from its board
(Updated – March 11, 2024 8:21 AM EDT)
Choice Hotels International (NYSE:) announced Monday it is canceling its bid to acquire all the outstanding shares of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts (NYSE:).
Along with ending the offer, Choice is pulling back its nomination of independent director candidates for election at Wyndham’s 2024 annual meeting.
Moreover, Choice’s Board of Directors has also decided to expand its share repurchase program by an additional five million shares, increasing the total to about 6.8 million shares available for buyback.
The failed exchange offer, initiated in April 2023 as part of Choice’s strategy to engage Wyndham in negotiations, saw several increased proposals and extra concessions from Choice.
However, the hotel franchisor said Wyndham’s board showed “obvious continuing disinterest in a combination,” prompting the company not to extend its exchange offer.
The proposal expired on March 8, 2024, with WH Acquisition Corporation, a fully owned subsidiary of Choice Hotels, not acquiring any Wyndham shares through the offer.
Jefferies analysts double-upgraded CHH from Underperform to Buy following the company’s decision to end the hostile bid.
“The shares now revert to strong lodging fundamentals as the deal risk is mitigated and should recapture at least historical mid-range normalized valuation of ~16X 2024E EBITDA vs. 13.4X currently, vs. SMID and Large-cap lodging at 14.0X and 17.4X,” analysts said.
“We expect a baseline of 3% revenue growth and 8% EPS growth in our updated model,” they wrote.
Jefferies also raised the target price on CHH from $96 to $156, implying roughly 29% from Friday’s closing price.
