Six Flags (SIX) and Cedar Fair (FUN) are joining forces in a roughly $2 billion all-stock deal to form a powerhouse in the regional theme-park industry. Six Flags shareholders will receive 0.58 share of common stock in the new company for each share they own and Cedar Fair unit holders will receive one share for each unit they own. The company is structured as a master limited partnership.
“And it also is not really M&A. It seems like a desperate grab to try to solve problems that [Choice] has,” Stephen Holmes, chairman of the board of Wyndham said during Wyndham Hotels & Resorts’ third-quarter earnings call.
If the proposed policy is passed, Los Angeles will be the first city in America to house the homeless and paying guests together in hotels. A poll indicated that 71% of Americans said they would be deterred from visiting Los Angeles for leisure or vacation if hotels were mandated to implement the policy.
During the first nine months of 2023, more than 22% of flights to or from U.S. airports were delayed. That’s up from roughly 17% during the same period in 2019.
Choice Hotels made public a $7.8 billion offer for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, saying Wyndham had disengaged in private discussions over a deal to combine two of the largest owners of budget hotels. Choice said it is offering to buy Wyndham for $90.00 a share, including $49.50 a share in cash, while the rest would come from stock. The offer marks a 30% premium over Wyndham’s closing stock price of $69.10 on Monday.
The hospitality technology industry is growing rapidly through guest-facing tech. This industry has the potential to become a $6-billion category, highlighting the significance of apps from mobile check-in and keyless room entry to personalized recommendations based on guest data.
Kituwah, the business entity of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, brings a capital commitment of $320 million to expand the Sports Illustrated Resorts brand.
New York hotels charged $260 a night on average in August, roughly 17% more than the same month in 2019. That was New York’s highest rate for the month of August since 2008.
Caesars Entertainment paid roughly half of a $30 million ransom that hackers demanded after a cyberattack late this summer, another example of a major casino operator suffering from an attack as MGM Resorts grapples with the fallout of a recent incident.
Private equity firm KSL said it intends to buy Hersha Hospitality Trust, the owner of 25 U.S. lifestyle and luxury hotels, in an all-cash transaction worth about $1.4 billion. The move would take private Hersha at an approximately 60% premium to the real-estate investment trust’s closing stock price on Friday. Its value was 14 times Hersha’s estimated year-to-date EBITDA of $99 million for 2023.
