If you want to make a few quid in time for crimbo take a look at these.

IHG have announced a massive sale of their largest and less profitable hotels. They will be focussing on hotel management rather than ownership and most of the proceeds of the sales will be returned to shareholders.

They announced a 250million share buy back in August that kick started the share price and so far they have bought back and cancelled about 210m. In the results in mid September they announced a further 250m buy back of shares and a futher 500m to be given back to shareholders in a December dividend on the proceeds from the sales. Depending on how quickly the disposals happen, there may be even more cash returned.

Many brokers have upgraded their targets to well over 700p (Barclays have a target of 800p). The SP has been consolidating around 630p for a week or so ready for the next push upwards.

A total of 17.5 million has been spent buying back and cancelling shares since the results were announced bring the total to 229.5 million of the initial 250 million allocated.

Once the balance of 20.5 million has been spent there is a further 250 million allocated for buybacks.

Buybacks over the past week:

8th 100k @ 655p
7th 100K @ 654.6p
6th 100k @ 660.2p
5th 100k @ 663.1p

Can anyone answer this re Divi PLEASE

"If i was to buy shares the day before it went EX DIVI would i get the divi 72p or not seeing has it is a special divi payment".

Normally I would say yes but not sure on this one as if you look the record date is the 10/12 and the ex divi date is the 13/12, I think it is usually the other way around.

Thanks in advance

Pappy

Chart looking good today -- orders to fill?

Two Buy notes out late friday from Brokers. Forward P/E of just 11.

Looks rather cheap to me.

InterContinental Hotels Group PLC

FORECASTS
2009 2010

Date Rec Pre-tax () EPS (p) DPS (p) Pre-tax () EPS (p) DPS (p)

SG Securities
20-03-09 BUY 53.15 29.11 53.99 29.11

Exane BNP Paribas
20-03-09 BUY 197.55 46.40 23.20 226.38 49.92 23.20

Certainly worth keeping a eye on this one on more and more bid rumours.

Taken from crazy company page...

Comment

20-03-09 20.03.09: -4, (547.5) an article in the Times reports: Intercontinental Hotels rose 41.5p to 554p on high volume amid talk that the Barclay brothers might be looking to engineer a bid to allow them to sell their 10% stake. ............ends

Id noticed a move up in volume over the last few days and a few B/B rumours and now we get this from the Times.

From the Blue Index blog

Checking Out
12th May 2009

Never having been a huge fan of hotel stocks, (for no rational reason I hasten to ad), I see an opportunity to go short of hotel operator International Hotels (IHG) today

The hotel operator unveiled a sharp fall in Q1 operating profits which fell to USD69m from USD124m last year. The numbers excluded liquidated damages, although the group are targeting cost savings of USD70m this year and expect to complete the USD1bn relaunch of Holiday Inn by the end of 2010. CEO Andrew Cosslett said the year had been very challenging for the industry and while occupancy rates were showing signs of stabilization during the quarter, room rates, which held up well during 2008, declined under the pressure of a very competitive market. Added to this a key industry metric called RevPAR (Revenue per available room), fell 13.6% in the first quarter of 2009, compared with a 6.5% fall in the previous three months.

Full transcript here

http://blog.blueindex.co.uk/2009/05/checking-out/

Panmure Gordon currently have a price target of 1650p, attributable to an anticipated recovery in the U.S. market, increasing dividend and certain asset disposals.
Sales split: U.K. 5%, U.S. 70%, Europe 15%, ROW 10%.

Hotelier InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is the first scheduled big company result of the week, however, on Tuesday, with the group set to declare full year figures. Market consensus (in sterling terms) is for profit before tax of £302.9m on revenue of £1,113m. The full year pay-out is predicted to be 33.77p. Credit Suisse (NYSEArca: CSMA - news) has taken the precaution of revising its forecasts ahead of the results, moving them in an upward direction, as it thinks fourth quarter numbers will be ahead of the market consensus. Credit Suisse predicts revenue (in dollar terms) of $1,756.1m and pre-tax profit of $495.5m. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation is tipped to rise to $671.1m. The Swiss bank thinks there may be a disposal or two round the corner for IHG. "The disposal of the IC Barclay looks increasingly likely, in our view, following a number of recent Manhattan (Xetra: A0X9G1 - news) transactions and this potentially adds $300-350m to IHG's firepower. We estimate a $1.0bn cash return is 9% accretive to 2013E EPS [2013 estimated earnings per share]," Credit Suisse said

Predateur

Dreamcatcher, thanks for the information.

Why is it that Credit Suisse start the statement in sterling terms and then switches to dollar terms.

A whip round to send them a calculator ???

Note from Numis today:
"We believe that hotel industry consolidation is inevitable at some stage. IHG, trading at an apparently perpetual discount to its US peers, looks like a possible consolidatee. There are a number of possible consolidators, but we consider Marriott the most likely and this note discusses the financial strategic merits of a Marriott bid for IHG. We believe the case is compelling, driving a near term potential uplift in EPS for Marriott of 44%, based on an all cash bid, and over 20% based on a 70:30 share:cash offer. A merger would create a dominant player in the global hotel market with over 9% of global room supply (19% in the US) and over 20% of the global pipeline. It would broaden Marriott’s business base and geographic exposure and significantly enhance its growth profile in the rapidly developing Chinese market.
Supply, demand dynamics are driving room rate growth. Supply growth for US hotels is at record lows and continued strong demand growth from both leisure and business traffic, RevPAR growth in the important US market is increasingly being driven by room rate increases. IHG has an attractive share of the global pipeline and the progress that it has made in improving its brand profile and systems is, we believe, reflected in its strong share of the global hotel pipeline. IHG has a 4.7% share of global hotel rooms, but a pipeline share of 13% including a leadership position in China.
As such, IHG’s investment attractions are increasingly apparent. We believe this explains IHG’s 24% outperformance of the FTSE All Share over the last 12 months. Despite this, IHG continues to trade at a valuation discount to its closest industry peers, Marriott and Starwood: 23% and 21% on a FY12E PE basis respectively.
So long as the sector benefits from cyclical recovery and secular expansion there may be no rush for the industry to consolidate. However, in our view, there is a high probability of consolidation at some stage. This could involve any of the big players: IHG, Marriott is, we believe, just one of the potential tie-ups. In our opinion, a potential for takeover will put a floor under the IHG share price which, combined with its standalone investment attractions confirms IHG as one of our top picks.

Investors in InterContinental Hotels, which is reeling from a price-fixing investigation, hope for better news this week with City analysts betting they may be on track for a $1.5bn (£960m) bonus. That is the amount they could get via extra dividend payments and share buybacks, a move that might also keep activist investor Nelson Peltz happy. The US fund manager recently took a 4.27% stake in IHG. One source of cash is the sale of the flagship New York Barclay hotel, progess on which is expected at the group's half-year results on Tuesday. Last week, the Office of Fair Trading found Holiday Inn-owner IHG had colluded with Booking.com and Expedia to limit discounts. The firms said they did nothing wrong and will challenge the findings, The Independent on Sunday writes.

InterContinental Hotels Group PLC

Half Year Results to 30 June 2012



http://www.moneyam.com/action/news/showArticle?id=4422655

InterContinental hikes dividend 31% as earnings grow
StockMarketWire.com
InterContinental Hotels Group said revenue increased by 3.3% to $878m in the half-year to end-June.

The Holiday Inns operator said operating profit before exceptional items increased by 6.3% to $286m during the six months.

On a constant currency basis, revenue and operating profit before exceptional items increased by 4.8% and 7.1% respectively.

Group RevPAR increased by 6.5% against the prior year period, and by 6.1% in the second quarter. RevPAR growth was led by increases to daily room rates across all brands (3.5% for the Group). System size increased by 1.6% compared to June 2011.

Profit before tax increased by $79m from $205m to $284m.

Adjusted earnings per ordinary share increased by 8.3% to 64.1¢.

Interim dividend per share is 21.0¢, up 31% from 16.0¢.

Net debt reduced to $564m from $818m.

The IHG global system (the number of hotels which are franchised, managed, owned or leased) increased in the first half of 2012 by 62 hotels (8,525 rooms) to 4,542 hotels (666,873 rooms) with openings of 112 hotels (17,449 rooms) and removals of 50 hotels (8,924 rooms). By way of comparison, 122 hotels (24,519 rooms) joined the system in the same period last year, including two InterContinental Alliance resorts (6,986 rooms).

At 30th June 2012, the IHG pipeline which represents hotels and rooms where a contract has been signed and the appropriate fees paid, totalled 1,060 hotels (167,485 rooms), a decline of 84 hotels (12,999 rooms) since the year end. The movement included additions to the pipeline totalling 152 hotels (22,104 rooms), four more than in the same period in 2011. Additions were offset by openings and pipeline terminations which occur for a number of reasons such as withdrawal of financing and changes in local market conditions.

Richard Solomons, CEO, said: 'We have delivered good results in the first half with RevPAR growth from all regions through gains in both occupancy and rate. Our brands continue to perform well and we have achieved solid underlying margin growth, resulting in increased profits and strong cash flows.

'We are increasing the interim dividend by 31% reflecting these results, our previously stated intention to rebalance the interim and final dividend payments and our confidence in the future prospects of the business.

'Consistent with our asset light strategy and our strong track record of returning funds to shareholders, we today announce a $1bn return of capital. This recognises the expected proceeds from the ongoing disposal of InterContinental New York Barclay and our commitment to maintaining an investment grade credit rating.

'We continue to invest for growth, strengthening both our existing and our new brands, including EVEN Hotels and HUALUXE Hotels & Resorts. While the global economic environment remains uncertain, IHG continues to trade well and we are confident that our strategy will deliver high quality growth into the future.'

IHG

InterContinental Hotels Group PLC

Credit Suisse

Outperform

Outperform

1,845

1,845

Sold

Investec has upgraded its rating for InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) from 'hold' to 'buy' and lifted its target price from 2,000p to 2,100p, following the disposal of IHG Park Lane.

Liberum Capital Buy 2,005.00 2,214.00 2,214.00 Reiterates

Shore Capital Sell 2,005.00 - - Retains

Credit Suisse Neutral 2,005.00 1,906.00 1,906.00 Retains

InterContinental Hotels Group: Exane ups target from 2040p to 2060p retaining a neutral rating

Bid rumoured to have been made and rejected.

Mirabaud comment today:
"Surely the most important driver of a bid for IHG must be about a desire to buy growth. IHG has built a pipeline that is far larger than one would normally expect a business of its size to possess. IHG brands account for 5% of global industry room supply, but its pipeline is 13% of global planned new rooms, and strongly biased in favour of the USA and Greater China.
As investors, we all tend to focus too much on the short term, and so obsess over whether Chinese quarterly GDP will print at 7.5% or 7.8%. Large corporations however tend to obsess about the fact that China has a massive economy, growing far faster than anything they are used to back home, and which is often still virgin territory for Western consumer brands. IHG offers a commanding share of the Chinese upscale, branded hotel market, and has a big supply of new rooms to underpin that position.
It is pretty hard to argue that IHG is cheap on a stand-alone basis. The stock trades on 25x earnings and 15x EV/EBITDA on the current Bloomberg consensus forecasts. But it is now clear that the industry is very excited by the strategic value of that pipeline of rooms.
As global GDP forecasts pick up, we should also see improvements to occupancy and REVPAR. Hotel companies with rising REVPAR and occupancy are typically very good at generating upgrades, and consensus only has IHG’s top line compounding at 3.7% p.a. Any improvement on that is likely to be accompanied by meaningful earnings upgrades, which ought to keep IHG’s stock looking shiny. We will leave it on our best ideas list and keep our fingers crossed."