Richard Solomons, Chief Executive of InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, said:
“2012 was another year of significant progress for IHG with our preferred brands driving RevPAR up 5.2%, led by the US up 6.3%. Together with 2.7% net rooms growth, which is fuelled increasingly by our expansion in developing markets, this drove up fee revenues by an impressive 6.8%. This growing scale allowed us to reinvest in the business while achieving better than anticipated margin progression.
The financing environment remained tough through 2012 in many of our key markets, but we still signed on average one hotel a day into our pipeline. This reflects the excellent relationship we enjoy with our owners and further strengthens our foundation for high quality growth. We extended our portfolio of preferred brands, launching in the first quarter of 2012 the innovative HUALUXE Hotels & Resorts and EVEN Hotels.
The $1bn return of capital, announced in August, underlines the benefit of our asset light strategy in delivering strong free cash flow, and our commitment to return value to shareholders.
IHG’s proven strategy and resilient business model position us for further good performance in 2013, despite the challenging economic environment. The 16% increase in our dividend demonstrates the confidence we have in our ability to deliver sustained high quality growth, as we prepare to celebrate our 10th anniversary as a standalone business.”
