Topic: Growth Stocks

Aggressive portfolio: Rising vacation travel pushes up Wyndham’s earnings

Wyndham Worldwide Corp., symbol WYN on New York, is the third-largest hotel company in the world with 7,190 franchised hotels. It operates under a number of brands, including Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, Ramada, Days Inn, Super 8, Wingate by Wyndham, Baymont Inn & Suites, Microtel Inns & Suites, Hawthorn Suites, Howard Johnson, Travelodge, Knights Inn and Ameri-host Inn.

We analyze Wyndham in Stock Pickers Digest, our newsletter for stocks that are appropriate for your aggressive portfolio.

In addition to hotels, Wyndham manages a number of vacation resorts, rental properties, luxury clubs and time-shares. The aggressive portfolio stock now has 97,000 vacation rental properties worldwide.

In the three months ended March 31, 2011, Wyndham’s revenue rose 7.4%, to $952.0 million from $886.0 million a year earlier. Wyndham gets most of its revenue from vacation rather than business travel, and vacation bookings are rising as the economy recovers from the recession. Wyndham’s occupancy rate rose 6.8% in the latest quarter.

Earnings rose 23.4%, to $79.0 million, or $0.44 a share. A year earlier, Wyndham earned $64.0 million, or $0.34 a share. The company paid $255 million to buy back 8.2 million of its shares in the latest quarter. The board of directors recently approved a $500-million increase to its share-purchase program.

You can get our clear buy/sell/hold advice on Wyndham and dozens of other stocks that may be appropriate for your aggressive portfolio in Stock Pickers Digest. What’s more, you can get the latest issue absolutely free. Click here to learn how.

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