9th Sep 2015 16:08
LONDON (Alliance News) - Dalata Hotel Group PLC reported growth in profit in the first half of 2015 and a huge boost to revenue as it benefited from acquisitions it has made, and it said it raised EUR160.0 million through a share placing to finance further hotel purchases.
Dalata reported a pretax profit of EUR2.7 million in the six months ended June 30, up from EUR0.9 million in the first half of 2014, as revenue jumped to EUR97.7 million from EUR34.9 million.
It said that it benefited from the acquisition of nine Moran Bewley hotels in February, five other hotels in the period, and the three hotels it purchased in the second half of 2014.
In addition, it benefited from favourable market conditions with very strong growth in visitor arrivals in Ireland and a recovering domestic economy, which it said it expects to continue into the second half of the year as exchange rates and consumer confidence improve.
"It has been a very exciting and rewarding last 18 months for Dalata. We are now focused on exploiting the very strong operating platform that we have created by acquiring further properties and maximising the returns from the hotels that we have acquired over the last 12 months," Chief Executive Pat McCann said in a statement.
Separately, Dalata said that it would raise EUR160 million through the issue of 42.7 million shares at EUR3.75 each, to finance further hotel acquisitions, development capital expenditure on existing assets, as well as new build opportunities. 14.6 million shares would be issued through a firm placing and 28.1 million shares through a placing and open offer.
Later Wednesday, the company said it successfully had placed all of those shares. Under the firm placing, it raised a total of EUR54.8 million and the remaining EUR105.2 million was raised via the placing and open offer.
However, the fundraising remained conditional on shareholder approval at a meeting scheduled for October 5.
"This underlines our belief that there will continue to be opportunities to acquire well located assets at attractive valuations together with attractive investment opportunities to expand facilities at the hotels that we have already acquired. We also see an opportunity to develop new hotels in Dublin where there has been very limited supply of new hotels in the last eight years," McCann said.
Shares in Dalata closed up 7.3% to 310.0 pence on Wednesday.
By Karolina Kaminska; [email protected] @KarolinaAllNews
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