(Alliance News) - easyHotel PLC on Friday reported a swing to an annual loss, due to a non-cash impairment to the group's Ipswich hotel, and costs arising from the change in its ownership structure.
For the financial year to the end of September, the London-based budget hotels operator reported a pretax loss of GBP3.6 million, compared to a profit of GBP870,000 the year before.
The GBP3.0 million impairment of the Ipswich hotel was a result of significant cost overruns, easyHotel said. The company also reported GBP1.4 million in costs related to the GBP138.7 million takeover offer made by Citrus UK Bidco Ltd in August for easyHotel.
In October, Citrus UK's offer had met the acceptance condition for the offer, with valid acceptances from easyHotel shareholders representing 69% of the firm's issued share capital.
However, founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou had "insisted" the firm remain a listed company, and said his 28% stake would allow him to block any attempt to take easyHotel private.
Revenue in the recent year grew by 56% to GBP17.6 million from GBP11.3 million, driven by a strong performance from easyHotel's owned hotels.
Like-for-like owned hotel revenue per available room was up by 4.6%, outperforming the market; however like-for-like franchised hotels RevPAR was down by 1.7%.
Total average occupancy across all hotels was 77.7%, down from 82.4% the year before, while the average daily rate was GBP50.20 in financial 2019, down from GBP50.49 in the prior year.
easyHotel declared no final dividend for the year, saying this was in order to focus the group's investment on growing its estate. As a result, its total payout for the year was 0.08 pence per share, down 64% from 0.22p the year before.
"easyHotel has demonstrated the strength and resilience of its super-budget model, continuing to outperform a challenging market on a like-for-like basis over the course of the year," said Interim Chief Executive Officer Scott Christie.
"Looking to the year ahead, whilst the uncertain political and economic landscape will continue to impact consumer sentiment, we remain confident that the easyHotel brand will continue to outperform the sector as consumers seek out the best value for money," Christie added.
Shares in easyHotel were untraded on Friday morning, last quoted at 90.00 pence in London.
By Dayo Laniyan; dayolaniyan@alliancenews.com
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