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- THE WEEK, Page 22BUSINESSHospitality Split
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- The Marriott hotel company separates its winners from its losers
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- Tips are not uncommon in the hotel business. But few are as
- generous as the one Marriott shareholders received last week. In
- a financial maneuver that is part of a growing trend, Marriott
- Corp. said it would spin off its thriving hotel-management
- division from its debt-laden real estate operations and would
- award stockholders special tax-free shares in the new company.
- A number of firms, most recently Sears, that had caught
- diversification fever during the 1980s are now scrambling to
- sell ill-fitting or troublesome units.
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- The move at Marriott was triggered largely by its
- management's bleak assessment of its money-losing real-estate
- business. Under the plan, Marriott will split into two separate,
- publicly traded entities by mid-1993. The healthier operations
- will be reorganized as Marriott International, a company that
- will concentrate on operating hotels, resorts and food services.
- Meanwhile, the successor firm, to be renamed Host Marriott, will
- retain ownership of the 141 lodging properties and 16 retirement
- communities, plus airport and toll-road concessions. Host
- Marriott, whose businesses generated 19% of the existing
- corporation's 1991 revenues of $9.1 billion, will also assume
- practically all the existing company's $2.9 billion debt load.
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