“Hilton Colombo profits drop, plans for high market revenues 2015/16”
The owners of the Hilton Colombo have sent a clarification to the report under the above headline which appeared in last week’s Business Times:
There have some inaccuracies observed as follows which need to be corrected ;
Para 1 – “the USD 35 Million Refurbishment drive that caused the shut down of some hotel rooms resulting in low occupancies”. This is incorrect as there was no shut down of the hotel rooms due to refurbishment.
Para 3 – “Earnings per share had dropped to 16 cents from Rs. 15.24 in 2012/13” which was mainly due to the issue of new shares arising from the conversion of loan into equity and capitalization of leasehold value of the land into equity”. Without giving the reason this would mislead the reader.
Para 4 – “total cost of refurbishment sourced through a syndicated bank loan and the balance from internally generated resources of the company”. This too without referring to the amount of the syndicated bank loan amount of USD 27 million stating that the balance from internally generated resources would be misleading.
Para 5 – “the Annual Report attributed the hotel’s drop in profits to the “significant achievement of repaying a loan of Rs. 1 Billion”. This should read as “despite the drop in profits a significant achievement of repaying a loan of Rs. 1 Billion was made”, otherwise this would also mislead the reader.