Choice Hotels International (NYSE:CHH) shares gained around 5% intra-day today after the company revealed its decision to withdraw its proposal for acquiring all outstanding shares of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts (NYSE:WH), also retracting its independent director nominations for Wyndham’s 2024 annual meeting. Concurrently, Choice announced the expansion of its stock repurchase program by an additional five million shares, elevating the total to approximately 6.8 million shares available for buyback.
This development follows a series of escalated offers and concessions made by Choice in an attempt to initiate negotiations with Wyndham, starting from April 2023. Despite these efforts, Choice cited Wyndham’s Board’s apparent lack of interest in merging as the reason for discontinuing its exchange offer.
In response to this turn of events, analysts at Jefferies upgraded Choice Hotels from Underperform to Buy, indicating a positive outlook following the cessation of the acquisition efforts.