Dalata sees no Brexit impact as revenues rise

Listed hotels group Dalata has said trading for the final four months of 2016 has been marginally ahead of expectations.

The group, which operates Ireland's two largest hotel brands, the Clayton and Maldron hotels, also forecast earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (ebitda) for the full-year will be at the upper end of analysts' expectations

Dalata is Ireland’s largest hotel operator with a portfolio of 40 three-star and four-star hotels offering over 7,500 rooms.

It said revenue per available room (RevPar) at its Dublin hotels was up 20.8 per cent for the 11 months to the end of November. "As we had anticipated, the growth in the Dublin market was lower in the second half of the year but is still very healthy. To date we have seen no impact of Brexit on any of our hotels in Ireland or the UK."

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Dalata said there would be over 4,700 Clayton rooms and over 2,700 Maldron rooms across Ireland and the UK by the third quarter of 2018.

Outperform

In a note to investors Davy said the statement implied earnings of close to 35 per cent, equivalent to ebitda of €84.4 million. This compares to Davy’s forecast of €82.8 million “Encouragingly, Dalata continues to outperform the broader market in terms of RevPar growth, pointing once again to the quality of the group’s operations,” it said.

Dalata said it continued to make strong progress on its development pipeline “which will add over 950 rooms to our owned and leased portfolio”.

Construction is under way on a Maldron hotel in Belfast, which is due for completion in the second quarter of 2018, while a Clayton Hotel Charlemont in Dublin is due to be complete in the middle of 2018.

Construction will begin in January next year on the Maldron Hotel Kevin Street in Dublin, with the hotel due to open in the second quarter of 2018. Full planning permission has been received for a 140-room extension at the Clayton Hotel Dublin Airport.

In November the group announced the first hotel as part of its planned roll-out of new hotels in the UK. Construction is under way at a new 226-room Maldron Hotel Newcastle, which is due to open in the summer of 2018.