Hilton IPO

[jsfletch]

Just saw a blurb on CNBC that Hilton has hired "banks" for IPO. Any idea what this means? Is Blackstone spinning off Hilton?

 

[Talent312]

From "The Wall Street Journal"
By MIKE SPECTOR, CRAIG KARMIN and TELIS DEMOS.

Hilton Worldwide Inc. has enlisted banks to help ready a return to public markets, said people familiar with the matter, as the giant hotel conglomerate's private-equity owner looks to take advantage of a rebounding commercial real-estate market to start cashing out on the hotel industry's largest-ever debt-fueled takeover.

Hilton, taken private by Blackstone Group LP in 2007 for more than $18 billion and another $7 billion in assumed debt, in recent weeks tapped Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley as the main underwriters for the widely expected initial public offering, the people said. The hotel chain could at some point enlist additional banks to come aboard before filing plans for the IPO with regulators later this year, some of the people said.

Hilton could launch an IPO some time during the first few months of next year, one of the people said.... Blackstone worked to restructure Hilton's debt load, and the hotel chain is now performing better as the commercial-property market rebounds, with both occupancy and room rates improving....

 

[cardinal93]

is this good or bad for us time share owners?

 

[GregT]

Just saw a blurb on CNBC that Hilton has hired "banks" for IPO. Any idea what this means? Is Blackstone spinning off Hilton?

Hiring banks simply means that Investment Bankers (Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, BofA, etc) have been retained to help the company market the sale of common shares to the public (most likely, the sale of existing shares owned by Blackstone).

Blackstone will probably retain a healthy ownership position, but will liquidate some of their ownership.

Depending on where they are in the process, Hilton will probably complete the public offering in the coming months (early next year per the press release) and then become a publicly traded company once more.

Personally, I think this is terrific because we will learn lots of new stuff about the HGVC system from poring through the public securities filings. I've never used the banana emoticon before, but that's how excited I am about seeing the innards of their business.

Will keep an eye out for the filings and will watch with interest to see how it goes. I think it's a non-event for timeshare owners, and will be interesting to see how the timeshare business is positioned.

Thanks for pointing this out.

Best,

Greg

 

[Talent312]

I may buy a few shares, just so I can walk around Hilton hotels with my nose in the air and snooty attitude cuz 'I'll own a little part.... some of the dust maybe.

Of course, that puts me in league with the TS sales department... a definite conflict of interest... and an ethical dilemma.
.

 

[jsb15]

Wonder if we'll get preferred access to the IPO shares like owner insiders?