Millenium & Copthorne maintain 2013 interim dividend at 2.08

DividendMax Ltd.

Millenium & Copthorne maintain 2013 interim dividend at 2.08

Revenue is down £4.8m in the first half of 2013 year-on-year. This is due to a combination of factors affecting performance in the first two quarters of this year:

- Trends in Asia remain subdued, because of economic uncertainty, greater hotel capacity and increasing costs, particularly in Singapore, where an increased supply of competitor hotel rooms has impacted trading;

- Local factors affecting Rest of Asia destinations, including loss of customers in Manila and Seoul;

- The Group's refurbishment programme, which has seen a net 181,000 room nights removed from the inventory during the six-month period;

- US is benefiting from improvements at ONE UN and Minneapolis. However refurbishment programme will reduce regional capacity and revenue in the short-term; and

- European trading is steady.

RevPAR is up by 4.1% to £67.27 in the first half of 2013 due to increases in both occupancy to 70.5% (2012: 69.8%) and average room rate to £95.45 (2012: £92.54).

Profit before tax has fallen by 29.7% to £55.5m (2012: £79.0m) in the first half of 2013, reflecting lower operating profit and the absence of £9.1m share of profit from First Sponsor recognised in the first half of 2012 relating to the Chengdu Cityspring project. 

Interim dividend declared at 2.08p per share.

Revenue in the second quarter of 2013 has increased by 0.8% year-on-year to £199.9m (2012: £198.4m).  Despite better trading performance in London and New York regions, the Group still faces challenging trading conditions in Singapore and Seoul.

Profit before tax in the second quarter of 2013 has declined by £14.5m year-on-year.

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