InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG)

Shares in Holiday Inn owner InterContinental Hotels (IHG) are up 1.5% at £47 despite operating profit falling 22.3% to $162m in the year ending 31 December 2018. The drop in operating profit has been blamed on a $108m jump in costs associated with InterContinental’s efficiency programme and a $112m higher in-year System Fund deficit. Investors may be forgiving of the lower profits on ...

Dividends take centre stage in early trade on Tuesday as banking giant HSBC (HSBA) and mining group BHP Billiton (BHP) maintain payouts to investors, while hotels operator Intercontinental Hotels (IHG) ups its own shareholder hand out by 10%. HSBC continues to demonstrate what a profitable core business it has as it increasingly concentrates on Asia, posting a near 16% rise in pre-tax profit ...

Holiday Inn owner InterContinental Hotels (IHG) is tapping into the $60bn luxury segment with the acquisition of Six Senses, a leading operator of luxury hotels, resorts and spas. Shares in InterContinental are up just 0.6% at £44.87 after it arguably paid a full price for Six Senses. InterContinental paid private equity firm Pegasus Capital Advisors $300m in cash for all of Six ...

UK stocks head higher in tune with European markets on Wednesday, the FTSE 100 adding 0.3% to 7,157 to close in on recent highs, although traders have one eye on the pound after the consumer price index dropped below 2% for the first time in a year. Leading the gainers is packaging firm DS Smith (SMDS) with shares up 4% to 349p following strong results from rival Smurfitt Kappa (SKG) which is ...

It is raining dividends in the UK with nearly £100bn worth of income payouts set to swell the coffers of investors in 2018. That’s according to the latest UK Dividend Monitor report constructed by shareholder support specialist Link Asset Services, which has raised its full year estimate by £1.1bn to £99.5bn for the current calendar year. Recent stock market volatility has been a major ...

The promise of a juicy $500m special dividend at Holiday Inn owner InterContinental Hotels (IHG) is not enough to stop the shares falling 5.4% to £39.87 as growth has slowed in the third quarter to 30 September. Revenue per available room (RevPAR) growth has declined from 3.7% in its second quarter to 2.7%. InterContinental’s biggest driver of profits and sales is the Americas region. The ...

UK and European are ending the week on a mixed note after the Dow Jones Industrial index dropped 300 points overnight on global growth fears. The FTSE 100 managed to nudge up 0.2% to 7,042. At one point last night the US benchmark was down more than 470 points while the CBOE Vix Index or ‘fear gauge’ jumped 15% as investors took a view that volatility in US stocks is set to rise. A ...

Speculation has been brewing over what will happen to Whitbread (WTB) following the agreed sale of Costa Coffee to Coca-Cola for £3.9bn. Coca-Cola is buying Costa to develop the coffee chain and make cold-brew and ready-to-drink coffee products under a strong global brand. Canaccord Genuity analyst Nigel Parson believes this potentially signals ‘the beginning of the end’ for ...

The benefits of the recent heatwave attracting visitors to London could soon be reflected in results from several quoted hotel operators with sites in the Capital. Revenue per available room (RevPAR) increased by a record 9% to £156.15 in July, according to data from industry specialist STR. That beat levels seen in the 2012 Olympics and was also helped by several popular events bringing ...

Firms operating in different industries have their own yardsticks for performance, beyond the usual metrics like pre-tax profit, revenue and cash flow. These key performance indicators or KPIs for short can help you spot positive or negative trends before they show up in the P&L or balance sheet. And having a handle on the key KPIs for specific sectors can help you decipher updates from ...

Improving profitability of FTSE 100 giants is a theme running through the UK stock market in early trade on Tuesday. Blue-chip heavyweights HSBC (HSBA) and BHP Billiton (BLT), the huge mining company, both post substantially improved profits. Full year results from banking group HSBC (read parts one and two) demonstrate further progress in its recovery drive, the group today reporting that it ...

A prospective investor should judge a company and its management on the ability to deliver shareholder value. But what do we mean by this term? You might be tempted to look at growth in metrics such as pre-tax profit or earnings per share. A more refined measure, often employed by investment analysts and fund managers, is provided by return on capital employed (ROCE). Investors can use this ...

A record close in the US overnight, as US lawmakers paved the way for a tax-cut package, helps to drive the FTSE 100 higher this morning. In early trading the index is up 0.3% at 7,545.42. Tanzanian gold miner Acacia Mining (ACA) gains 1.7% to 215.6p. After announcing progress in its dispute with the authorities in Tanzania yesterday, the group provides a third quarter update. The company ...

Britain’s Restaurant (RTN) reports a 30% drop in half year underlying pre-tax profit on Thursday, as slowing consumer spending weighs on sales. Yet shares in the Frankie & Benny's and Garfunkel's owner rally close on 5% at 333.1p with investors relieved to hear of a bulging pipeline of growth opportunities and progress with a Frankie & Benny's value proposition despite the dividend ...

Holiday Inn-owner InterContinental Hotels (IHG) has blamed a late Easter for a second quarter slowdown in room revenues. The US is the hardest hit, with a 0.4% decline in revenue per available room (RevPAR) between April and 30 June), although the slowing theme showed up in Europe also. US RevPAR in the first three months was 1.9%, so the deceleration is marked. Even more so considering the 80 ...

Bookmaker Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) shares are down 4% despite revealing a healthy set of fist half to 30 June results. Revenue is up 9% to £827m with operating profit up 22% to £180m both on a year on year basis. The company is losing its influential chief executive Breon Corcoran soon, he says ‘we continue to make substantial investments to position Paddy Power Betfair as a structural winner ...

In what do you invest when the economic outlook is weak? Investment bank UBS thinks it has the answer. The UK economic picture is becoming more uncertain with business output falling to a four-year low, according to the latest BDO Output Index (10 Jul). UBS cautions ‘macro momentum, earnings momentum and, arguably, the political backdrop are all deteriorating relative to Europe’. It ...

Asian powerhouse India’s macroeconomic health is the strongest it has been in a decade. The nation could be both a fantastic top down and bottom up investment story. Growth is accelerating driven by demographics and urbanisation, while corporate quality is high with many world class management teams treating minority shareholders properly. Furthermore, inflation is falling and the government ...

The FTSE 100 is marking new record highs in the region of 7,600 as latest UK construction data shows the industry expanding at the fastest rate since 2015. In the last 12 months the index of Britain's leading 100 companies has shrugged off Brexit and the election of Donald Trump to advance 22.4% as sterling weakness has seen greater value ascribed to its member's overseas earnings. Which are ...

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