Host Joins REITs Raising Cash (HST)

Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc. (NYSE: HST) has completed a secondary offering that raised some needed cash for the company.  The hotel-REIT priced a secondary offering of 66,000,000 shares of common stock at a price of $6.60 per share.  This is actually a substantial discount to the $7.10 close on Thursday, but it will also raise some $435 million before accounting for fees and commissions.

Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and J.P. Morgan acted as joint book-running managers for the secondary offering.  Co-managers were listed as ABN AMRO, Barclays Capital, BNY Mellon Capital Markets, Calyon Securities, Citi, Raymond James, Scotia Capital, UBS, and Wachovia Securities. The underwriters will be granted a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 9,750,000 shares of common stock

Host intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes and the repayment of indebtedness.  As far as how this sizes up, the company’s market cap is listed as just under $4 billion without considering the effects of this secondary offering.

Interestingly enough, shares are up over 6% at $7.55 right at the open and its 52-week trading range is $3.08 to $18.81.

JON C. OGG