StockMarketWire.com - Rezidor Hotel Group revenues increased by a healthy 6% in Q4, with almost all of this growth coming from newly opened leased hotels.

The new leases, mainly located in the Nordics,performed above expectations and contributed positively to EBITDA and EBITDA margin.

The margin growth was also helped by additional high-margin fee revenue and one-offs in the fourth quarter of last year. Our net result was, however, negatively affected by write-downs of fixed and deferred tax assets relating to our leased hotels in Western Europe, mainly in the UK.

These write-downs were the result of revised GDP expectations for the UK and the Euro zone, and also stemmed from a review of our portfolio following a decision to intensify the focus on asset management.

At the end of the year, the company established a separate Asset Management department to further optimise the current portfolio of leased hotels in terms of increasing profitability and reducing the leverage of the company.

Kurt Ritter, President & CEO, commented:"Looking ahead, we will focus on improving profitability, both in absolute terms and relative to the industry.

"In December, we announced our 'Route 2015' strategy - a raft of initiatives to improve our EBITDA margin by 6 to 8 percentage points by 2015, assuming that market RevPAR growth covers inflation. We aim to achieve this mainly by putting stronger emphasis on revenue generation, together with our partner and brand owner Carlson, through greater and more aligned global synergies. To facilitate this ambition, in January 2012, Carlson and Rezidor announced their collaboration to jointly go to the market and do business together as the 'Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group'".





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