InterContinental Hotels First Half Profit Climbs, To Pay Special Dividend

(RTTNews) - InterContinental Hotels Group Plc (IHG, IHG.L) Tuesday reported a higher first-half profit, reflecting continued progress in the Americas region. The firm boosted its interim dividend and announced a special dividend.

Further, the company said early indications show that current trading trends are broadly in line with the first half of the year.

Richard Solomons, chief executive of the company stated, "We continue to strengthen our foundation for future growth, signing more than 200 hotels into our pipeline, a notable increase on H1 2012 reflecting our owners' confidence in both IHG and the industry demand drivers."

For the recent half year, revenue per available room or RevPAR, a performance metric in the hotel industry, grew 3.7 percent, with 1.9 percent improvement in rate.

In the Americas, RevPAR increased 4.5 percent. In Europe RevPAR edged up 0.4 percent, in Asia, Middle East & Africa or AMEA, the increase was 6.2 percent; while in Greater China, RevPAR decreased 0.1 percent.

Fee revenue rose 4 percent to $562 million, led by the Americas.

In the first half, the company's profit before tax climbed to $462 million from $279 million in the previous year.

Excluding exceptional items, pre-tax profit was $302 million, compared to $256 million a year earlier. The company said it has restated its prior-year results.

On a per share basis, earnings improved to 126.4 cents from 91.9 cents per share in the preceding year. Adjusted earnings per share were 77.3 cents, while the firm posted 61.7 cents per share a year ago.

Revenues for the period grew 6.6 percent to $936 million from $878 million in the preceding year. In Americas, revenues climbed 14.3 percent to $457 million, while revenues from Europe remained unchanged at $206 million.

The board has proposed an interim dividend per share of 23 cents, up 9.5 percent from last year. The Group also announced a special dividend of 133 cents per share, payable on October 4, on shares in issue on August 23, 2013.

IHG.L is currently trading at 1,963 pence, up 55 pence or 2.88 percent, on a volume of 452,407 shares.