Skift Take
If an alternative asset investor like Blackstone gets interested, things could get even more interesting. Same if European hotel giant IHG made a bid of its own.
Early Check-In
Editor’s Note: Skift Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill brings readers exclusive reporting and insights into hotel deals and development, and how those trends are making an impact across the travel industry.
The talk of last week in Hotel World was Choice Hotels' hostile buyout offer for Wyndham, an offer Wyndham quickly rejected.
So what comes next? "We're pretty determined to re-engage," Choice CEO Pat Pacious told a Bloomberg News podcast.
But that's just one piece of the story. Analysts have been weighing other outcomes.
Wyndham says one sticking point is risk of antitrust review. Barclays analysts, led by Brandt Montour, said in a report that this might not be an issue. "Marriott was able to consummate its purchase of Starwood even though they together had close to 50% of U.S. Upper Upscale hotels back in 2016," they wrote. Pacious said on the Bloomberg podcast that he saw "execution risk" as a minor concern. "It's not based in the facts. We've been well advised around what it will take to get a deal like this done." That attitude seems a bit over-confident in an election year where the Biden Administration has signaled a more assertive stance on deal reviews. "If regulators focus on the rou