Hilton Worldwide Holdings based in McLean, Virginia has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) of $1.25 billion in the U.S. The hotel lodging company, owned by Blackstone Group, will be the largest hotelier IPO offer since Hyatt went public in 2009 with a $1.09 billion IPO.
Blackstone paid $26 billion for Hilton Worldwide in a 2007 takeover near the height of the market for commercial real estate. In 2012 revenue from 4,000 global hotels was $9.3 billion with net profit of $327 million. Blackstone is refinancing $13.5 billion in debt prior to the IPO.
In the past few months hotel stocks have rebounded with Starwood and Marriott close to high values of 2007.
What does an IPO mean for the Hilton HHonors member?
Probably not much if you are not planning to invest with Hilton in the stock market.
Blackstone will still be the majority shareholder for Hilton.
The one change I look forward to with Hilton Worldwide trading as a public company is the public access to quarterly financial reports. I like to look at quarterly financial reports to see how many hotels are in each hotel brand and the geographic proportions of the hotel’s portfolio located around the regions of the globe. This is data that I have found far more difficult to track over the past five years with Hilton than with the other major hotel chains. Quarterly reports should make the hotel numbers more transparent and other information like average daily rates and room occupancy are common data points in these reports.
News Source: Bloomberg – Blackstone’s Hilton files for $1.25 billion IPO in U.S.
And if you are interested in the financial side of Hilton’s debt since 2007, there is a Wall Street Journal September 10, 2013:
Blackstone Revisits Its Debt Plan for Hilton Expected $3.5 Billion Mortgage-Backed Securities Deal Will Test the Market, Which Has Become More Volatile Lately
Ric Garrido, writer and owner of Loyalty Traveler, shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests. Check out my page of collated current hotel promotions.
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