International Hotel Investments plc - Quote

International Hotel Investments plc - Profile

International Hotels Investments plc was incorporated on 29 March 2000 by Corinthia Palace Hotel Company Limited (CPHCL) with the objective of pursuing hotel acquisitions and investments in selected geographical areas including Central and Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean rim, and the Middle East.

The Directors of International Hotel Investments plc are: Alfred Pisani (Chairman), Mustafa Khattabi, Yosef Abdelmaula, Frank Xerri de Caro, Simon Naudi, Joseph J Vella, Joseph Fenech, Richard Johnson, Giuseppe (Joe) Sita, Khaled Al Kamda and Alfred Fabri (Company Secretary).

Owned Hotels

IHI’s owned hotels are listed hereunder:

• Corinthia Grand Hotel Royal in Budapest, Hungary, which was acquired in April 2000 as a vacant site. It was subsequently demolished and entirely rebuilt as a landmark deluxe hotel which opened in April 2003. The hotel consists of 414 executive bedrooms, extensive conference facilities, 29 luxury apartments, a multi-storey carpark and a 19th century Spa.

• Corinthia Nevskij Palace Hotel in St Petersburg, Russia which was acquired in January 2002 together with four vacant adjacent properties. IHI is currently undergoing a development of these four sites with the hotel being extended by an additional 105 executive rooms to 390, a convention centre as well as a commercial centre with extensive retail and office space for lease to third parties.

• Corinthia Lisboa Hotel in Lisbon, Portugal, acquired in August 2001 and closed for refurbishment in February 2003. The Corinthia Lisboa Hotel was re-opened in May 2004 comprising 517 rooms with extensive conference facilities. Further refurbishment on 248 guestrooms was completed in September 2007.

• Corinthia San Gorg, St. Julians, Malta, acquired in April 2000. This 5-star hotel has 250 rooms, with a total area of 28,000 metres squared.

• Corinthia Hotel, Prague, Czech Republic. This 551-room hotel (acquired on 1 June 2007) is primarily aimed at the conference, leisure and executive traveler markets. Its facilities include an entire floor dedicated to conference facilities, an executive business lounge, a casino, nightclub and various retail outlets.

• Corinthia Bab Africa Hotel, Tripoli, Libya. This 300-room deluxe hotel (acquired on 1 June 2007), includes extensive meeting and banqueting facilities together with large office space currently leased to blue chip oil companies.

• Metropole Building & 10 Whitehall Palace, located in London, United Kingdom. On 6 February 2008, the consortium, made up of IHI, Libyan Foreign Investment Company (LFICO) and Istithmar Hotels FZE (Istithmar) of Dubai, acquired these two properties from the Crown Estate for a total consideration of £130million (equivalent to €174million). The 130 year old Metropole Building is to be refurbished into a 283 room, 5-star hotel to operate under the Corinthia Hotels brand. On the other hand, the Whitehall Palace will be redeveloped into a luxury spa and 12 luxury apartments for sale.

• Benghazi, Libya: On 22 February 2008 IHI announced that it had entered into a joint-venture agreement with Libyan Foreign Investment Company (LFICO) to develop a 360-room 5-star hotel on the waterfront in central Benghazi (Libya’s second largest city). Part of the 7,000 square metre site used to house the former, historic, Al Jazira Hotel. The development, scheduled to begin in 2008, will also contain offices and retail outlets. Once finished, the hotel and other facilities will be under the management of CHI Limited.

Management Company

• CHI Limited (70%): IHI acquired a 20% shareholding of CHI in April 2000 and a further 50% in August 2006 bringing IHI’s shareholding to 70%. Wyndham Hotel Group International of the United States owns the remaining 30%. CHI is the hotel management arm of the Group operating four and five star hotels in Europe, Africa and the Mediterranean region. As at February 2008, CHI manages 16 hotels and targets 65 by 2015, including the recent agreements in Morocco, UK and Abu Dhabi.

• CHI entered into licensing arrangements with CPHCL to offer management services in the EMEA region for the Corinthia Brand, and with WHGI to offer management services in the EMEA region for the Wyndham Grand, Wyndham and Ramada Plaza Brands.

• Wyndham Hotel Group is engaged in the lodging business, franchising of hotels and provides property management services to owners of its various brands. Through steady organic growth and acquisitions of established lodging franchise systems over the last 15 years, Wyndham Hotel Group has become the world’s largest lodging franchisor as measured by the number of franchised hotels. Its lodging business has more than 6,400 franchised and managed hotels, which represent more than 535,000 rooms worldwide. Its franchised hotels operate under one of its ten lodging brands, which are Wyndham, Wingate Inn, Ramada, Baymont Inn, Days Inn, Super 8, Howard Johnson, AmeriHost Inn, Travelodge and Knights Inn.

Strategic Partnership with Intourist

• On 26 May 2008 IHI announced a strategic partnership with Intourist who are jointly aiming to create the largest hotel chain in Russia. Intourist is the oldest and bestknown tourist business in Russia and has established itself as a leading universal operator in the tourist market with a sales network spread across 34 regions in Russia. Intourist is majority owned by Sistema JSFC, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange. Sistema is one of Russia’s largest private sector consumer services companies with investments worldwide, principally in the telecommunications and technology sectors but also with considerable exposure in real estate developments. The second and third principal shareholders of Intourist are the Moscow City Government and GAO Moskva. GAO Moskva also belongs to the Moscow City Government and is focused on developing the city’s potential as a tourist destination.

• IHI and Intourist have agreed to join forces to establish an equally-owned investment fund with an initial capital of US$100 million, expected to increase to US$200-230 million through bank loans by the end of 2008 enabling the fund to invest US$330 million in upscale hotels in major cities across the Russian Federation. The 5-star hotels will operate under the Corinthia brand, while the 4-star hotels will be named after both parties, Corinthia- Intourist. IHI and Intourist plan to invest in developments in Sochi, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Associate Company

• Quality Project Management Limited (20%): In April 2000, IHI acquired a 20% shareholding in the construction project management Company of the Corinthia Group.

Share Capital

IHI was floated on the Malta Stock Exchange in April 2000 following an issue of 10,000,000 ordinary shares of €2.33 each at par. Prior to the share issue, IHI had an issued share capital of €57,791,754 made up of 24,810,000 ordinary shares of €2.33 each.

In October 2000, CPHCL were allotted a further 5,190,000 shares at €2.33 each, bringing the issued share capital of IHI to 40,000,000 shares of €2.33 each.

In December 2001, IHI announced a Rights Issue to shareholders, in which a further 8,000,000 shares of €2.33 each were issued. The Issue was fully subscribed bringing the issued capital of the Company to 48,000,000 shares.

In December 2003, an Extraordinary General Meeting was held to approve a set of resolutions including the re-denomination of the share capital into euro. As a result, the issued capital of the Company changed to 110,053,489 shares of €1.00 each. In January 2005, CPHCL completed an equity injection into IHI bringing the issued capital to 139,053,489 shares of €1.00 each.

During 2006 IHI allotted new shares to other institutional investors as detailed hereunder:

• On 18 July 2006, IHI issued 1,972,995 shares at a price of €1.00 each to Bayan Investments Co. of Kuwait. Bayan was formed in 1997 by a group of prominent Kuwaiti businessmen, and a group of banks and financial institutions. The company focuses on investment and consultancy services for individuals and institutions, offers specialist advisory and research services and manages investment portfolios on behalf of clients. Bayan Investments is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange.

• On 7 August 2006, IHI issued 2,000,000 shares to National Projects Holding Company Limited (NPHC) also at a price of €1.00 each. NPHC is a subsidiary of National Real Estate Company (NREC) of Kuwait, a leading real estate company with multinational investments in large developments. It was set up in 1973 and is also listed on the Kuwait and Dubai Stock Exchange.

• On 13 September 2006, IHI allotted 2,500,000 shares at a price of €1.00 each to HSBC No-Loads Funds SICAV plc.

• On 5 December 2006 IHI signed a Subscription Agreement with Nakheel Hotels (previously Istithmar Hotels FZE), a global hotel investment firm based in Dubai. Further to the agreement, Nakheel were allotted 178,000,000 new shares in IHI at €1.00 each on 5 September 2007. The capital injection is earmarked to fund further hotel acquisitions. Nakheel is the investment arm of the Dubai Government and is equally owned by the Corporate Office of Dubai and Dubai World. The two key areas of focus are private equity and real estate.

Following the allotment of the new shares to Nakheel Hotels and the other institutional investors, IHI’s issued share capital amounted to 537,099,977 ordinary shares of a nominal value of €1.00 each.

On 4 June 2007, IHI allotted 4,961,223 new shares following a 1 for 5 bonus issue to those General Public shareholders who held the 29,765,114 shares in issue as at 30 June 2006. IHI also offered a 6-week buy-back programme enabling all shareholders wishing to encash their bonus shares to do so at a price of €1.00 each.

On 15 May, 2008 the AGM approved a 3 for 100 bonus share issue to shareholders at close of trading on 15 April 2008. This bonus issue increased IHI’s share capital by 16,112,854 shares to 553,212,831 ordinary shares.

Bond Issues

IHI raised funds from the public through three bond issues:

1) In April 2000, IHI raised Lm10,000,000 through a 5% convertible bond issue at par maturing in 2010.

2) In February 2003, IHI issued Malta Lira and euro denominated bonds for an aggregate value of €22,500,000 due in 2013. The Malta Lira Bond was issued at 6.3%, whilst the euro Bond was issued at 6.2% for the first 7 years, and 6.8% for years 8 to 10. These funds were used to part finance the re-development and refurbishment of the Corithia Lisboa Hotel.

3) In March 2006, IHI issued €12,500,000 6.5% Bonds 2012-2014. The bonds were used to fund part of the project costs of the extension of the Corinthia Nevskij Palace Hotel in St Petersburg and the development of two sites adjoining the hotel.

International Hotel Investments plc - Financials

International Hotel Investments plc Interim Accounts

International Hotel Investments plc Final Accounts

News for International Hotel Investments plc

International Hotel Investments plc - Downloads

• International Hotel Investments plc - 2009 Annual Report (3.6 MiB, 100 hits)
• International Hotel Investments plc - Focus Newsletter November 2009 (603.0 KiB, 325 hits)
• International Hotel Investments plc - Annual Report December 2008 (3.7 MiB, 160 hits)
• International Hotel Investments plc - Stockbrokers' Presentation August 2009 (1.4 MiB, 76 hits)