Hyatt Hotels 3rd-quarter net income jumps

CHICAGO (AP) — Hyatt Hotels Corp. said Wednesday its third-quarter earnings jumped 64 percent mostly on comparison to a year-ago quarter weighed down by one-time costs.

Hyatt said per-room revenue in the quarter was strong in North America, but grew less than 1 percent overseas due to a stronger dollar. It's seeing some weakness in group bookings in North America and slowing growth in some international markets.

The company earned $23 million, or 14 cents per share, compared with $14 million, or 8 cents per share, a year ago. Taking out special one-time items, including costs related to a business restructuring, the company said it would have earned $30 million, or 18 cents per share, up 11 percent compared with a year-earlier profit of $27 million, or 16 cents per share.

Revenue rose 9 percent to $977 million.

Analysts polled by FactSet expected a profit of 17 per share on revenue of $1 billion, on average. Analysts tend to strip out one-time items from their estimates.

The company said revenue per available room, an indication of rates, was hurt by the timing of September holidays compared with the same quarter last year. The metric for Hyatt's owned and leased hotels open at least a year rose 4.6 percent in the third quarter.

In morning trading, Hyatt shares slipped $1.61, or 4.2 percent, to $36.45.