Sri Lanka Spence Hotel Dec net profit Rs210mn

Feb 03, 2010 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's Aitken Spence Hotel Holdings made a December quarter net profit of 210 million rupees with total revenues up 20 percent to 1.98 billion rupees from a year ago. According to accounts filed with the stock exchange, the net profit in the quarter, although nominally down 41 percent from a year ago, was actually higher without counting a capital gain made the previous year.

Analysts said that in the December quarter last year the hotel firm made a capital gain of 219 million rupees on the sale of its 95 percent stake in BIR Hotel Management, the holding company of Adaaran Club Bathala in the Maldives.

At a recurring level, Aitken Spence Hotel Holdings’ third quarter net profit this year was up 52 percent, they said.

Earnings per share for the quarter fell 42 percent to 5.38 rupees from a year ago.

In the nine months to December 31, 2009, net profit fell 60 percent to 105 million rupees while total revenue fell nine percent to 4.9 billion rupees from the year before.

A note to the accounts said six months of the period under review relates to the off-season of the tourism industry both in Sri Lanka and overseas.

The firm, a sub