JULIUS BAUMANN
Aviation and Tourism Editor
QUEENSGATE Hotels & Leisure CEO Andrew Hubbard stands by the group’s forecast of headline earnings of 1,63c a share in the 12 months to August this year.
The group yesterday posted headline earning a share of 0,78c in the six months to February, up 430% from the previous comparable period and Hubbard was confident the group was well placed to meet the forecast at the halfway stage.
The growth in headline earnings a share came despite an increase of shares in issue from 500-million at the end of February last year to 1,510-billion this February. The new shares were used to acquire 100% of Queensgate Leisure in September last year, ahead of the group’s transfer from AltX to the main board of the JSE as a focused leisure group as well as the acquisition of Queensgate Business Development in November.
The group’s business development business far eclipsed the hospitality side in the six months, with business development reporting an operating profit of R20,2m on revenue of R38,9m. Hospitality posted an operating profit of R1,68m on revenue of R37,06m.
Hubbard said that the results were hurt by the performance of Queensgate’s two new hotels, The Rockwell in central Cape Town and The Alphen in Constantia.
“The Rockwell opened just as the economy took its biggest hit, so occupancies were not where they should have been. As for The Alphen, occupancies were satisfactory but we did not achieve the room rate we expected.”
Queensgate plans to go to market later this year to raise a further R65m for its new projects. The group plans to issue a further 200-million shares to investors.
Hubbard was not concerned that investors would be put off by the share issue which would
“We have a good story to tell. We are not selling investors on the current numbers but on what lies ahead in terms of new projects and their earning potential. That is the reason we took the unusual step of publishing earnings forecasts to educate the market about the company they, until now, knew little about,” said Hubbard.
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Source: Business Day
Publisher: I-Net Bridge
Source: I-Net Bridge
