By Johan BODINIER
(Reuters) -Accor, Europe’s biggest hotel group, on Thursday forecast a larger-than-expected impact from adverse exchange movements this financial year, causing its shares to drop more than 12% in early trading.
While the French-based company reported a 9.4% rise in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to €552 million ($631 million), ahead of market expectations, it warned it would be adversely affected by around €60 million on the basis of expected exchange rates.
“Accor is now guiding for a negative impact of circa 5% from FX, against a consensus of approximately 2%”, JPMorgan said in a note, warning that would “weigh on the shares today”.
Accor’s revenue per available room (RevPAR), one of the industry’s main performance indicators, fell below the consensus of 4.7% to 4.1% for the second quarter.
Despite that, the operator of brands including Ibis and Novotel, said it remained confident of hitting its medium-term growth targets.
“The momentum remains positive, despite the negative impact of exchange rate fluctuations – in particular the appreciation of the euro against the dollar,” finance chief Martine Gerow told reporters.
Accor said revenue in the six months to July 31 reached 233 million euros, down from 253 million euros a year earlier.
The group reiterated its outlook for 2025, including RevPAR growth of between 3% and 4%.
($1 = 0.8752 euros)
(Reporting by Johan Bodinier in Gdansk; Editing by Matt Scuffham)
