
A quick look at earnings (full report here)
- Wyndham Worldwide Corp (WYN), franchiser of Days Inn and Super 8 hotels, posted higher first-quarter net income on Wednesday and raised its earnings and revenue outlook for the year. Net income rose to $50 million, or 27 cents per share, from $45 million, or 25 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding items, Wyndham posted a profit of 34 cents per share.
- Revenue fell 1.7 percent to $886 million, while expenses fell nearly 7 percent.
- The company now expects annual revenue between $3.6 billion and $3.9 billion, up from its previous outlook of $3.5 billion to $3.9 billion. It sees adjusted earnings of $1.56 and $1.71 per share.
Considering RevPAR fell by 6.8% these are actually quite good results, but essentially it's a game of cutting costs by a larger amount than revenue fell.
The company continued to buy back shares, and increased its dividend:
- ...the Company repurchased approximately 757,000 shares of its common stock at an average price of $24.20
- ...the Company tripled its quarterly dividend, paying its first dividend at the $0.12 per share level on March 15, 2010
Long Wyndham Worldwide in fund; no personal position