Europe props up profits at Bass

By Christina Golding

A strong performance from European hotels and pubs helped boost Bass's operating profits for the year ended 30 September, although pre-tax profits took a 29% dive.

Holiday Hospitality , which includes Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels, saw worldwide operating profits slip by 7.2% to £181m.

By contrast, the Europe, Middle East and Africa sector increased operating profits by 16.3% to £30.3m.

More focus on pub-restaurants in the UK led to the opening of 17 Harvester restaurants and 19 Vintage Inns last year. Bass now has a total of 358 pub-restaurants, which accounted for operating profits of £315m, up 11.7% on the previous year.

For Bass as a whole, pre-tax profits dropped from £671m to £477m on turnover of £5.2b, while operating profits increased by 6% to £796m.

The fall in pre-tax profits was blamed on the Government's block on the merger of Bass and Carlsberg-Tetley and poor performance from the group's bingo interests.

• Meanwhile, at the annual results for Vaux, Swallow Hotels put the spotlight on the Swallow Royal hotel in Bristol as the best performer this year, with profits rising by 41%. Swallow's overall profits hit an all-time high of £28m.

By region, Swallow's London hotels were the strongest performers, with profits up by 22.5% compared with the provinces where profits rose by 19.2%.

Overall, room occupancy rose from 71.7% to 73.5% and average room rate increased by 7.9% to £49.40. Yield per room increased by 10.7% to £36.31.