The Gresham hotel chain went into the red last year with pretax losses of €1.21 million after exceptional charges of €3.07 million. The charges were incurred in the closure of the Royal Marine hotel in Dún Laoghaire, the group's delisting from the stock exchange and a redundancy programme.
Gresham was taken private during 2004 by the Precinct consortium, whose unsuccessful bid this summer for the Jurys Doyle chain triggered a takeover battle for that group.
Chief executive Patrick Coyle said the group was examining possible opportunities in the British market, but no particular deal was imminent. "We're still in the process of reviewing and evaluating."
Accounts just lodged in the Companies' Office for 2004 show that the Gresham had a turnover of €37.37 million and an operating profit before exceptionals of €3.57 million.
With an operating profit of €504,000 after the exceptional charge, the pretax loss was derived after finance costs of €1.72 million in respect of the group's borrowings.
These finance costs did not reflect the cost of the borrowings taken out by the Precinct group to fund its takeover. After a restructuring, Gresham now operates hotels in Dublin, Cork, London, Amsterdam, Brussels and Hamburg.
Despite the pretax losses, Mr Coyle said the underlying performance of the chain was improving. "Trading generally has improved in Dublin, Cork and London. Generally, the prognosis is better," he said.
Mr Coyle pointed out the group had an underlying operating profit of €1.86 million after its finance costs. "That will improve again this year," he said.
This 2004 figure compared with an operating profit of €1.71 million for 2003 after finance costs of €2.46 million. The 2003 operating profit before finance costs was €4.18 million.
However, the 2004 and 2003 accounts are not strictly comparable due to the group's sale in the previous year of the three former Ryan hotels in Limerick, Galway and Killarney.
Turnover of €47.89 million in 2003 reflected the contribution until July of two of these hotels and the other traded within the group until November.
The €37.37 million turnover for 2004 included sales until October 31st at the Royal Marine hotel, which was acquired on that date for €22.5 million by property developers William Neville & Sons.
Mr Coyle said the outlook for the Gresham group was good following the restructuring and the stripping out of costs associated with its stock exchange listing.
He said that while trading in the London hotel worsened markedly after the terrorist bombings in July, a recovery in September had continued into trading in the current month.
The 2004 accounts show that administrative expenses fell to €6.55 million from €8.72 million. The exceptional costs in the year included professional fees of €1.97 million and redundancy costs of €941,000.
