NH Hotels Earned €1.52 Million over Losses in 2003

NH Hotels netted €1.52 million worth of gross benefits in the first quarter of 2004 against €3.62 million in losses that the company endured in the same period of time last year, NH Hotels CEO Gabriele Burgio announced.

Mr. Burgio revealed these figures during the course of the Ordinary Meeting of the NH Board of Shareholders, whose members agreed to pour €29.9 million of the revenues reaped in 2003 into offsetting stockholders with €0.25 per share beginning on June 1.

NH’s earnings were up 6.1 percent to €219.51 million, thanks in part to the sale of vacant lots in Sotogrande that tallied €27.45 million, up a blistering 498.2 percent from the first quarter of 2003.

The downside, though, went to hotel reservations that shrank 5.1 percent from €202.36 million in 2003 to a meager €192.05 million in the first three months of the ongoing year. Part of the blame is on the sellout of some hotels, like the Princess Sofia and the NH Crystal Cancun, conducted last year.

According to Mr. Burgio, the success of the Sotogrande transaction reflects the commitments made by the company a couple of years ago and brought off in the first quarter of 2004. This process will come around in June when the next sale of vacant lots is scheduled to take place.

In Mr. Burgio’s opinion, these fair outcomes are partly owed to the good going of the MERCOSUR bloc on the one hand –it raked in an awesome 236 percent increase in gross benefits- and a trend toward positive changes in Germany on the other hand, where hotel bookings rose 9.6 percent, occupancy rates hovered around 2.2 percent and revenues climbed 3.8 percent.