WYNDHAM WORLDWIDE $49.78 - New York symbol WYN

WYNDHAM WORLDWIDE $49.78 (New York symbol WYN; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (973- 753-6000; www.wyndhamworldwide.com; Shares outstanding: 145.9 million; Market cap: $7.3 billion; Dividend yield: 1.8%) is one of the world’s largest hospitality companies, with 7,205 franchised hotels worldwide. Aside from Wyndham and Ramada, it owns a variety of other brands, including Days Inn, Super 8, Wingate, Baymont Inn & Suites, Microtel Inns & Suites, Hawthorn Suites, Howard Johnson, Travelodge and AmeriHost Inn.

In addition to hotels, Wyndham manages vacation resorts, rental properties, luxury clubs and time-shares. The company now has 100,000 vacation rental properties worldwide. This wide range of operations gives it more consistent cash flow than most of its competitors, which mainly focus on hotels.

Vacation travel keeps rising

In the three months ended March 31, 2012, Wyndham’s revenue rose 8.8%, to $1.04 billion from $952.0 million. The company gets most of its revenue from vacation rather than business travel, and vacation bookings rose in the latest quarter. That helped push up Wyndham’s occupancy rate by 6.2%.

Before one-time items, earnings rose 36.4%, to $0.60 a share from $0.44. Wyndham continues to buy back its shares. In the latest quarter, it repurchased 3.6 million shares for $150 million. In all of 2011, the company bought back 28.7 million shares for $902 million.

Wyndham’s stock rose to an all-time high after it released its latest quarterly results. The company’s outlook is positive, but the shares now trade at a high 22 times the company’s latest 12 months of earnings.

Wyndham Worldwide is a hold.

A professional investment analyst for more than 30 years, Pat has developed a stock-selection technique that has proven reliable in both bull and bear markets. His proprietary ValuVesting System™ focuses on stocks that provide exceptional quality at relatively low prices. Many savvy investors and industry leaders consider it the most powerful stock-picking method ever created.