Hotel chain to sell off European properties
Intercontinental Hotels will put European hotels worth £600 million on the market after yesterday confirming the sale of its Paris hotel for £214 million.
The company said a future sell-off of European properties will leave it with £1 billion worth of assets in strategic cities such as London, New York and Hong Kong.
Finance director Richard Solomons, quoted in the Financial Times, said a sale would be made “when the time is right.”
“It’s about looking at hotel trading and the real estate market and when we see them coming together we will make a move,” he is reported to have said.
Reporting a rise in operating profit of 33% to £153 million in the first half of the year, IHG said 82 hotels had been sold in the six months with a further 10 in Australia and the Intercontinental in Paris being offloaded after the period ended.
Meanwhile, the company said it was too early to say what financial impact Hurricane Katrina will have on the group. It has been forced to close 25 hotel in the Gulf Coast region but with 3,600 worldwide hotels, chief executive Andrew Cosslett said “there’s not going to be a massive impact.”
Report by Steve Jones
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