With economies opening up and international travel resuming, hotel operator Banyan Tree Holdings B58 is seeing a pick up. For its FY2022 ended Dec 31, 2022, the group recorded earnings of $767,000, compared to a loss of $55.2 million in FY2021.
This comes on the back of a 23% y-o-y increase in revenue to $271.3 million from $221.2 million a year ago.
During the period, total costs and expenses increased by 10% y-o-y to $253.4 million, thanks to higher other operating expenses, sales and marketing expenses, administrative expenses, salaries and related expenses, as well as cost of operating supplies.
For the 2HFY2022 period, earnings came in at $253,000 compared to a loss of $12.6 million in the previous year, while revenue saw a 7% y-o-y drop to $152.7 million.
Revenue decreased during the second half due to absence of revenue from the sale of development land in Gold Coast, Australia in 2HFY2021 of S$76.2 million. Excluding the sale of development land, revenue would have increased by $64.1 million from better performance in all segments.
Hotel investments segment reported higher revenue as the group’s hotels in Thailand reported a three-fold increase in revenue over the same period last year. For the fee-based segment, revenue was $2.3 million higher due to re-opening of borders in second quarter of 2022, which resulted in improved performance from the group’s managed hotels in Malaysia and Thailand, coupled with continued strong performance from its Mexico hotels.
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For the property sales segment, revenue was lower due to absence of the sale of its development property in Gold Coast and Brisbane, Australia in 2021. Excluding this sale, Revenue would have increase $41.2 million mainly due to completion and handover of Skypark condominiums building 1 and 2 in Phuket.
The group did not declare any dividends in this final year as it had not reach its pre-pandemic levels overall yet. It says that it will consider declaring a dividend in the future when operating performance and economic situation improves.
The group closed 2022 with a total of eight new hotels and 679 new keys in five countries, bringing the total portfolio to 63 properties and 8,731 keys. At the start of 2023, the group opened two properties in China, as well as a freshly rebranded Dhawa Ihuru. For the rest of the year, the group anticipates nine openings in China, Indonesia, Mexico and Vietnam.
Shares in Banyan Tree closed at 34 cents on Feb 24.
