Thistle Hotels today said it was cautiously optimistic about the future after an upturn in business in the first two months of the year.
The group said 1999 had begun with a modest recovery from the difficult trading of last year particularly the final quarter.
Charles Mackay, acting chairman at Thistle Hotels, said: “Provided the general economic situation does not deteriorate further and although the market remains difficult to predict, we are cautiously optimistic that we will improve our performance.”
The comment came as the group reported record profits for 1998, despite the slowdown in the second half of the year.
Pretax profits for the year to December 27 were £86.6m, up from £80.6m in 1997.
The profit jump of 10% was in line with City forecasts and came on turnover of £322.5m, up fractionally £319.7m.
At the end of last year Thistle returned £92.6m to shareholders through redeemable preference shares.
Today it restated its intention to return another £92.4m to shareholders in April through a special dividend of around 15p a share.
The payback is being funded by bank borrowing.
During 1998 the group sold 34 small hotels for a total of £74.5m.
The cash raised will go towards Thistle’s refurbishment of hotels and upgrade of it computer systems.
The sell-offs leave the group with 60 hotels in the UK – 24 of which are in London.
As well as the special dividend scheduled for April the Thistle board recommended a final dividend of 3p a share taking the total for the year to 4.5p up from 4.2p last year.
EGi News 03/03/99
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