CALDEIRÃO DE BOLSA

07 Aug 2007 07:59 GMT


2nd UPDATE: Millennium & Copthorne CEO Resigns; 2Q Profit +43%
(This updates an article published at 0653 GMT with additional company comment and detail.)


By Michael Carolan and Margot Patrick
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Millennium & Copthorne Hotels PLC (MLC.LN) Tuesday said Chief Executive Peter Papadimitropoulos has resigned after just five months in the job, leaving the company without a CEO for the second time in a year.

Papadimitropoulos had started the job in March, after a lengthy search to replace former CEO Tony Potter, who left the company a year ago for family reasons. Millennium & Copthorne said Papadimitropoulos' departure is with immediate effect and "by mutual consent."

Wong Hong Ren, an executive director of M&C, will act as interim group chief executive.

At 0735 GMT, M&C shares were up 6 pence, or 1%, at 589 pence, in a broadly higher London market.

The announcement came as M&C reported a 43% rise in pretax profit for the three months to June 30, to GBP35.4 million from GBP24.6 million. The company - which operates about 100 hotels in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Asia and New Zealand - said second-quarter revenue was GBP169.3 million, from GBP162.8 million in the second quarter of 2006.

Net profit for the six months to June 30 was GBP52.7 million, more than double the year-ago GBP23.7 million.

"Overall, the half-year results were strong, particularly in London, New York and Singapore, where we have experienced buoyant market conditions," Chairman Kwek Leng Beng said in a statement. "The outlook for the year as a whole remains positive and our expectations are unchanged."

The company said it plans to pay an interim dividend of 2.08 pence a share, the same as last year.

The results were driven by continued growth in the company's revenue per available room, or RevPAR. Stripping out currency movements, RevPAR grew 9.3% in the second quarter and 8.9% in the first half. Last year, RevPAR grew by 6.8% in the second quarter and 8.4% in the first half.

In the first four weeks of the third quarter, RevPAR rose 7.6%, Kwek said.

"It's a booming hotel market and these are very good results," said Mark Reed, an analyst at Teather & Greenwood who rates M&C shares a buy. "M&C is really the only listed hotel company that owns its assets, so it has scarcity value."

Papadimitropoulos' departure is a "non-issue," Reed added, since shareholders are more focused on Chairman Kwek's expertise in property development for the company's longer-term prospects.

M&C shares have gained almost 40% in the past year amid strong global hotel trading and hopes that the company will extract value from its property portfolio.

Hotel groups like Intercontinental Hotels Group PLC (IHG.LN) have returned billions to shareholders in recent years after selling their hotel assets to property companies and then leasing them back.

In July last year, M&C set up CDL Hospitality Trusts in an attempt to extract value from its property assets. A real estate investment trust, or REIT, it was listed on the Singapore stock exchange in July 2006. M&C sold three Singapore hotels to the REIT and leased them back, realizing GBP210.6 million in cash. It used GBP78 million of this to take a 39.1% stake in CDLHT.


Company Web site: http://www.milleniumhotels.com


-By Michael Carolan and Margot Patrick, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 20 7842 9451; margot.patrick@dowjones.com