Fourth quarter and year-end 2012 results for The Rezidor Hotel Group were released yesterday in Brussels. In his year-end statement, Wolfgang M. Neumann, president and chief executive officer, reported that despite a continued fragile global macroeconomic climate, Rezidor's Like-for-Like RevPAR continued to show a positive development with a healthy growth of 4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. For the full year, RevPAR grew by 5 percent, fueled by a strong growth in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The RevPAR improvement, together with the continued weakening of the Euro, resulted in a revenue increase of 7 percent in Q4 2012, including a strong growth of 18 percent in fee revenue from our managed and franchised business. The earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) margin and the net result were negatively impacted, primarily by termination costs for lease agreements which were exited in the quarter, and write-downs of assets. Cash flow from operations, adjusted for the termination costs, improved by 12 million Euros. 

The group’s commitment to profitable asset-light growth continues. All of the 4,000 room openings and 7,100 room signings in 2012 were either managed or franchised contracts. 

Rezidor achieved another important milestone by converting two lease agreements to franchise agreements in Sweden. Together with the earlier announced exit from seven leases in France, these transactions represent a positive effect of approximately 0.5 percent on the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) margin going forward. 

Here is a summary of The Rezidor Hotel Group financial performance during Q4 2012:

• Like-for like ("L/L"), RevPAR was up by 4.2 percent
• Revenue increased by 6.6 percent to 240.6 million Euros
• On a L/L basis, Revenue increased by 2.8 percent
• EBITDA amounted to 15.6 million Euros, and the EBITDA margin to 6.5 percent
• Loss after tax amounted to -13.3 million Euros, negatively impacted by termination costs due to exit of contracts of -9.4 million Euros, write-downs of assets of -6.7 million Euros and a write-down of deferred tax assets of -3.3 million Euros
• Basic and diluted Earnings Per Share amounted to -0.09 Euros
• Approximately 1,100 new rooms opened and approximately 1,300 new rooms were contracted

 For the twelve months ending December 31, 2012

• L/L RevPAR was up by 4.6 percent
• Revenue increased by 6.9 percent to 923.7 million Euros
• On a L/L basis, Revenue increased by 4.0 percent
• EBITDA amounted to 50.9 million Euros, and the EBITDA margin to 5.5 percent
• Loss after tax amounted to -16.8 million Euros, negatively impacted by termination costs due to exit of contracts of -9.4 million Euros, write-downs of assets of -12.3 million Euros and a write-down of deferred tax assets of -3.3 million Euros
• Basic and diluted Earnings Per Share amounted to -0.12 Euros
• Cash flow from operating activities improved to 16.5 million Euros, negatively impacted by termination costs of 9.4 million Euros
• Approximately 4,000 new rooms opened and approximately 7,100 new rooms were contracted

 The full report can be downloaded from www.investor.rezidor.com.