Interval Leisure Group is in advanced talks to buy Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide's vacation-ownership business, The Wall Street Journal is reporting.
A deal would reportedly value the business at between $1 billion and $1.5 billion, and would negate Starwood’s earlier-announced plan to spin off the timeshare unit. A deal could be announced as soon as next week.
Miami-based Interval Leisure currently has a market value of just over $1 billion. The company operates the Hyatt Residence Club, in addition to other vacation-rental properties.
Starwood said in February that it planned to spin off its vacation-ownership business into a separate company.
In April, Starwood hired investment bank Lazard to, as The Wall Street Journal put it then, "explore a full range of strategic and financial alternatives to increase shareholder value." This includes the possibility that the company is sold.
Starwood’s timeshare division reported vacation ownership revenue of about $640 million in 2014. It has sold more than $6 billion of timeshares to more than 220,000 people over its 30-year history.
Starwood’s total revenue last year was $5.98 billion.
