Coroin reports increase in profit as Olympic Games boosts demand

Coroin Ltd, owner of three London luxury hotels at the heart of a legal battle between shareholders Paddy McKillen and the billionaire Barclay brothers, has reported an increase in profit for 2012.

As the Olympic Games boosted demand, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation rose about 11 per cent to £57 million last year, according to a September 25th filing by the company.

Revenue increased 5 per cent to £145 million.

“The medium-term outlook for London is positive,” the company’s directors wrote in the filing to Companies House.

“Management recognises the continued pressure of the increase in the supply of luxury accommodation in London.”

Coroin, which owns Claridge's, the Berkeley and the Connaught, is upgrading rooms to generate more income.

Revenue per available room, an industry gauge of profitability, rose 4 per cent, according to the filing.

It was £447 a night in 2011, Coroin said in an October 2012 filing.

Paula Fitzherbert and Christina Norton, spokeswomen for the hotels, did not immediately return calls seeking comment on the results.

Legal dispute
Ownership of the closely held London-based company had been the subject of a legal dispute.

Mr McKillen lost an appeal in a lawsuit against the brothers in July. A London judge ruled that the Barclays’ companies had acted properly in taking control of Coroin.

The brothers’ companies bought £800 million of Coroin’s debt from Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency in 2011.

Coroin entered into a five-year debt facility worth £547 million in December after raising a further £145 million in a rights offer with existing shareholders that same month, the company said in a statement at the time. – (Bloomberg)