Host Hotels & Resorts Inc is reported to cut its guidance for the rest of the year to reflect increasing weakness in its transient and group business. however it has improved second-quarter results on Wednesday.

Funds from operations rose to 56 cents per share for the three months ended June 13. In the year-ago period, Host reported FFO of 48 cents per share, including costs of 8 cents per share associated with debt refinancing.

Host Hotels President and Chief Executive, W. Edward Walter, in a conference call with analysts said In analyzing what was happening in our business over the last three periods, and especially the last 6 to 8 weeks, it has become clear that the various pressure points of the overall economy are combining to depress lodging demand. The company now forecasts funds from operations between 27 cents to 29 cents per share for the third quarter and $1.75 to $1.85 per share for the full year. The company previously forecast full-year FFO between $1.88 and $1.98 per share.

“Given where the industry stats have been tracking year to date, we are not surprised by Host’s overall revpar results and lowered outlook for the remainder of 2008, though we did expect revpar in the quarter to be slightly better,” said Lehman Brothers analyst Felicia Hendrix.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 7:25 pm and is filed under Hotel, Resort. Tags: Conference Call Felicia Hendrix Lehman Brothers W. Edward Walter . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.