HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee and MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin—The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index ended December at 2,364, a 7.5-percent increase for the month. The Index ended 2010 with a 47.5-percent increase over 2009, when it finished at 1,603.
As of January 1, 2011, the composition of the index is changing, with the addition of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (PEB) replacing FelCor Lodging Trust (FCH). Following Pebblebrook’s December 2009 IPO and July 2010 secondary, the company now has an equity market capitalization of over $800 million, relative to FelCor of approximately $685 million.
Robert W. Baird & Co. (Baird) and STR partnered to create the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index—the first widely available U.S. hotel stock index in the hotel industry. The index combines Baird’s financial markets expertise, the data processing of STR and the industry’s leading news website, HotelNewsNow.com.
“It’s good to see investors thinking that hotel stocks are a good buy and the subsequent improvement in the performance of the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index,” said Randy Smith, CEO at STR. “With the consistent year-over-year improvement in all three key performance metrics, we expect Wall Street’s interest in lodging stocks to continue to be strong during 2011.”
“2011 was a very strong year for hotel stocks, as the strength of the recovery took many investors by surprise,” said David Loeb, Senior Research Analyst at Baird. “The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index finished the year up 47.5 percent and only 0.6 percent off its high, including a 7.5 percent rise in December, significantly outperforming the broader stock market and the RMZ, the broader REIT index. With investors looking ahead to 2011 and 2012, the outlook for lodging fundamentals continues to be strong as new supply is limited, transaction activity is picking up, and overall economic fundamentals continue to improve.”
About the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index
The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index was set to equal 1000 on 1 January 2000, as its starting point. The Index reached its peak of 3178 on 5 July 2007. The Index’s lowest point occurred on 6 March 2009, when it dropped to 573.
The Index is available exclusively on www.hotelstockindex.com and www.HotelNewsNow.com. The Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index is a co-branded index created by Robert W. Baird & Co. (Baird) and Smith Travel Research, Inc. (STR). The market-cap weighted Index is comprised of 15 of the largest market capitalization hotel companies publicly traded on a U.S. exchange and attempts to characterize the performance of hotel stocks. The Index is maintained by Baird and is hosted on HotelNewsNow.com. The Index is not actively managed and a direct investment cannot be made in it.
The current companies that comprise the Baird/STR Hotel Stock Index: Ashford Hospitality Trust, Choice Hotels International, DiamondRock Hospitality, , Hersha Hospitality Trust, Hospitality Properties Trust, Host Hotels & Resorts, Hyatt Hotels, InterContinental Hotels Group, LaSalle Hotel Properties, Marriott International, Orient-Express Hotels, Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Sunstone Hotel Investors and Wyndham Worldwide.
About Baird
Baird is an employee-owned, international wealth management, capital markets, private equity and asset management firm with offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. Established in 1919, Baird has more than 2,500 associates serving the needs of individual, corporate, institutional and municipal clients. Baird oversees and manages client assets of nearly $75 billion. Committed to being a great place to work, Baird ranked number 11 on FORTUNE’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2010 – its seventh consecutive year on the list. Baird’s principal operating subsidiaries are Robert W. Baird & Co. in the United States and Robert W. Baird Group Ltd. in Europe. Baird also has an operating subsidiary in Asia supporting Baird’s private equity operations. For more information, please visit Baird’s Web site at www.rwbaird.com.
About STR
STR (www.str.com) provides clients—including hotel operators, developers, financiers, analysts and suppliers to the hotel industry—access to hotel research with regular and custom reports covering North America, Mexico and Caribbean. STR provides a single source of global hotel data covering daily and monthly performance data, forecasts, annual profitability, pipeline and census information. STR founded the STR family of companies and is proudly associated with STR Global, RRC Associates, STR Analytics, and HotelNewsNow.com. STR also founded the Hotel Data Conference (www.Hoteldataconference.com), which will be held 3-4 August 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Media Contacts:
Jeff Higley
VP, Digital Media & Communications
jeff@str.com
+1 (615) 824-8664 ext. 3318
Rachael Spann Urie
Communications Coordinator
rurie@str.com
+1 (615) 824-8664 ext. 3305
Angela Pittman Taylor
Baird Public Relations
apittmantaylor@rwbaird.com
+1 (414) 765-7250
