EasyHotel plans £50m placing to accelerate owned hotel roll-out strategy

AIM-listed EasyHotel has announced plans to raise around £50m in a placing of 45m new ordinary shares at 110p each to fund the acceleration of its owned hotel roll-out strategy.

The company also provided investors with a very brief update, saying trading for the year to the end of September 2018 is in line with board expectations.

Chief executive Guy Parsons said: "The group has made excellent progress in line with its strategy to speed up owned hotel development and accelerate the roll-out of franchise hotels to drive returns on investment.

"The strong and ongoing market outperformance of our growing owned hotel portfolio has continued into the current financial year with RevPAR up 10.9% against their competitive set as measured by STR.

"The proceeds from today's placing will enable us to continue the acceleration of our owned hotel development pipeline, allowing us to take advantage of the significant opportunities within our markets, delivering enhanced returns for our shareholders and underpinning the long-term growth of the EasyHotel brand."

At 1230 GMT, the shares were down 1.3% to 113p.