Millennium & Copthorne H... Share Discussion Threads

[sylvestris] 03/5/2009 16:44

Bad news has already been priced in. How has the company performed to this expectation? We will find out on Wednesday. Remember that Beijing is one of only a number of destinations. We'll just have to wait and see...

[hy3nas4] 03/5/2009 14:23

From The Sunday Hearld {Scotland}

Hotels group Millennium & Copthorne, which has prestige outlets in Glasgow and Aberdeen, will take an early chance to update investors on the potential impact of swine flu on its business when it produces quarterly figures on Wednesday.

Brokers are already braced for bad news as a result of falling international demand and believe prospects are especially bleak for the group's Asian operations, particularly in China where room rates have plunged as a result of excess capacity following the Beijing Olympics.

Brokers at Shore Capital say annual profits could slide to around £45m, down from £125m last year.
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Hope this helps.

[pennypunter] 30/4/2009 12:42

Both Wyndham and Marriott reported better than expected Q1 results. The good news is both pricing and occupancy appears to have stabilised.

[sylvestris] 27/4/2009 21:06

MLC does not have any hotels in Mexico so give it a break!



Is this health scare being blown out of proportion as a good news story to build up? I think so. The evidence points to it having minimal effect in global terms. In any case MLC has no exposure at all to Mexico and is doing very well, 1st QTR results are out 6th May 2009.

[solomon9] 03/4/2009 09:35

Q1 is traditionally the weakest QTR and MLC flagged at the analyst call that the Q1 will be weak, this is largely priced in, what is important is MLC sticks with £60m profit guidance for 2009.

[solomon9] 02/4/2009 22:22

Finally this has started to move.

[mrminister] 27/3/2009 09:16

this situ looks dire to me.....hotel and leisure stocks have a long time to recover imo......for that reason i am shorting the hide off it....shame i noticed it a bit late....only found it trawling through a breakout down list....profits hemorrhaging.....divi halved.....good luck whatever you do......

[solomon9] 24/2/2009 23:03

Fact is short-term outlook is poor and MLC has not quantified cost savings from recent 300 people restructuring.

Co saved £19m by cutting dividend but has alienated clientele who want high dividends. Co surprised many holders by cutting dividend. Yes the stock is cheap measured by assets but increasingly discounts are being applied to book values of around 40%. Marked to marked asset value per share around 373p ps.

Sad thing is in this very short-term market people sell first and ask questions later. MLC has left the impression H1 will be very weak. There appears very little reason in the short-term to jump in. Furthermore co is hoarding assets, not ever realising much for shareholders, Kwek is an empire builder and is never going to change course. This sort of approach only works in bull markets when everyone can talk about riing asset values.

[rcturner2] 23/2/2009 12:13

eps forecast of 20p for 2009 at a PE of 7 gives a fair value of 140p. I would want at least a 20% discount from that before I buy any.

Been watching these for a while now.

[mkwng] 23/2/2009 12:11

FT newspaper, last week say: MLC share price will go down at future?
but not sure, I will buy at 130-140p area.
at today market, any low price will be..

[bigbertie] 23/2/2009 11:59

RCT - yes awful nos, but against a strong REVPAR comparison a year ago if I remember right. I expect operating results to be dire this year, but cancelling capex and cutting dividend will save cash of about £80m (£50m net gain on 2008 deductiong the cash from the aborted Korea sale). I have some of these and am holding as I think the share price is already low enough, but I'm certainly not adding. Good luck to all, long and short.

[rcturner2] 23/2/2009 09:55

Are you guys in a state of denial? Did you not see the 09 numbers??

They are horrendous.

Down 40% in some markets.

[bonzo1] 23/2/2009 09:06

just bougth some at 178p - asians will buy the company , well below nav and hotels in asia still busy. very cheap.

[solomon9] 22/2/2009 14:52

by cutting dividend so unexpectedly they have alienated their clientele who are income seekers. Co is not an income stock now. Cannot help but think this might be a deliberate ploy to buy the co on the cheap.

[bonzo1] 18/2/2009 13:00

agree results do not seem that bad and surprised by the fall to 190p. buying more again - decent well-run company which will recover strongly. owns plenty of property outright, freehold. bid speculation will return from singapore if it stays below 200p. 17% fall overdone.

[bigbertie] 18/2/2009 11:18

My first reading of the results today suggests they are not bad. There was a raft of write-downs which are almost all non-cash, so earnings per share are down, but £27m cash received for the aborted hotel sale. Net debt and interest cover are fine. hotel revenues in constant currencies are down 7% and obviously the concern is that global recession will intensify. But equally things may improve in which case these are good value (& will presumably soon have revaluation surpluses again). In the meantime they are still paying a dividend albeit reduced. There was about £90m of gross capital spend last year so presumably they can scale that down in 2009, although I didn't notice any capex forecast on first reading. I'm holding.

[solomon9] 15/2/2009 23:25

The 08 results will be fine; I think the issue is 09; which is looking like being a very tough year according to Marriott, Starwood etc. and its a tough year globally not just USA.

Morgan Stanley analyst cut his target price to 260p from 270p why bother?

Its tough to find any analyst positive on the sector not withstanding the collapse in valuations ie IHG 1/3rd of 07 price. HOT 1/5 of 07 etc.

Market's short-termism may prevail next week hence buying opportunity.

[scrapman] 13/2/2009 10:12

spoke to a couple more management in various MLC hotels and keep getting good reports on occupancy's,

following up from my comments re Best Western , they are looking to build their market share in the lower quality areas aiming to grow from current 139 hotels to 205 by the end of 2010

The comments are from a bloomy article , ending with " Best Western and Accor are competing for market share among budget travellers in Asia "

Personally I like the higher revpar

Results out on 18th Feb ,

[solomon9] 12/2/2009 22:35

Best bet remains a buyout by City Dev. At this price it is lower than 1996 IPO price. Absolute steal

[bigbertie] 11/2/2009 10:55

Best Western are coming to the Asia party a bit late aren't they? Hopefully it means the demand for hotels is high & existing players like MLC will be reaping the benefit.

And I suppose they will be changing their name to Best Eastern and Western?

[scrapman] 11/2/2009 08:46

another bit from the local paper , Hong Leong , have reported good profits ,

and in a totally unrelated piece ,

a note from Best Western quoting they are wanting to increase their presence in Asia by 50% ,

that will take a lot of doing without some big buyouts I suspect

[solomon9] 01/2/2009 15:42

Yeah I've heard the same both SIngapore and Malaysia are holding up well.

When translated into STG ringitt and Sing dollar profits are up 30%-40%. The ringgit has gone from 7 to £ to 5.

[scrapman] 27/1/2009 08:47

FWIW , i am in Asia at the moment , and travelling around I am getting pretty decent feedback from staff at the various MLC hotels I have talked to.

Also there was an article in a local Newspaper giving various hotels occupancy and revpar , looks as though MLC in KL has increased occ by about 9% and revpar by almost a quarter , combine this with FX gains and it "should" bode well

[solomon9] 21/1/2009 20:15

Stock has outperformed IHG due to low debt and quite high volumes.

Quite high volumes and looks like its being accumulated, whenever comes down big buyer picks up.

2008 financial year should be good as forex rate 31 Dec was $1.44 vs $1.95 31 Dec 07. Upside in 2009 comes from big new Singapore property.