Wyndham Is Spinning Off Its Timeshare Business Like Marriott, Starwood and Hilton Before It

Parsippany, New Jersey-based Wyndham Worldwide is following in the footsteps of its hotel peers Marriott, Starwood, and Hilton, as it announced the planned spin off of its Wyndham Vacation Ownership unit, which will be combined with the company's Wyndham Destination Network unit, which owns RCI. The result would be two publicly trade companies, one a pure-play hotel company and the other combining vacation rentals and timeshares. The latter public company would be the world's largest timeshare company, as it already is today. The two new public companies to be formed after the spinoff would enter into long-term licensing agreements so that Wyndham can continue what CEO Stephen P. Holmes described during the company's first quarter 2017 earnings call in April as his "blue thread" strategy. That's a reference to maintaining an interwoven loyalty program. Holmes said, "The customer staying in our hotels is a timeshare customer. It's the average consumer that's out there that buys timeshare. And we think with a stronger loyalty connection to the brand that driving those consumers to learn more about our timeshare product is going to be a natural progression as we build out the interconnection between the two business." Later, when answering a question about a potential spin off, Holmes said: "Sure. If we were to make that decision, and I don't know if I said this on the last quarter call or not, having the interconnection to the hotel group and having the loyalty programs interconnected is a lot easier to do when you're one company. So, you certainly would