It has been a stock offering investment bankers have been drooling over for decades. Hyatt Hotels has a prominent brand name and a multibillion-dollar market value. On Aug. 5 the privately held company filed with federal regulators to begin the process of selling shares to the public. Yet the question on many hotel industry insiders' minds is: Why now, when the travel industry is in the middle of one of its worst slumps in decades?

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