Financial Information

PART II

Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters, and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.

Market Information and Dividends

The table below presents the price range of our Class A Common Stock (our “common stock”) and the per share cash dividends we declared for each fiscal quarter during the last two years.

At February 7, 2017, 383,561,428 shares of our common stock were outstanding and were held by 37,941 shareholders of record. We issued 134.4 million unrestricted shares of common stock in the Starwood Combination. Our common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market (“NASDAQ”) and the Chicago Stock Exchange. The fiscal year-end closing price for our stock was $82.68 on December 30, 2016, and $67.04 on December 31, 2015. All prices are reported on the consolidated transaction reporting system.

Fourth Quarter 2016 Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

⁽¹⁾   On February 11, 2016, we announced that our Board of Directors had increased the authorization to repurchase our common stock by 25 million shares as part of an ongoing share repurchase program. At year-end 2016, 31.4 million shares remained available for repurchase under previous authorizations. We repurchase shares in the open market and in privately negotiated transactions.