Updating your Cyclical-Growth Payers: Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Inc.

Article Excerpt

WYNDHAM HOTELS & RESORTS INC. $86 is a buy. The company (New York symbol WH; Cyclical-Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 77.0 million; Market cap: $6.6 billion; Dividend yield: 1.9%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Above Average; www.wyndhamhotels.com) is the world’s largest hotel franchiser, with 9,300 hotels in more than 95 countries. Wyndham is now solely focused on collecting fees for branding and franchising. In 2023, it got out of the less-profitable business of managing properties on behalf of owners. The company last raised your quarterly dividend by 7.9% with the March 2025 payment, to $0.41 a share from $0.38. The new annual rate of $1.64 yields 1.9%. As of March 31, 2025, Wyndham’s global development pipeline included 2,140 hotels and 254,000 rooms, 5% higher than a year earlier. Revenue in the first quarter of 2025 rose 3.6%, to $316 million from $305 million. Earnings before one-time items improved 4.7%, to $67 million from $64 million. On a per-share basis, earnings increased by 10.3%, to $0.86 from $0.78, due to…