International Hotel Investments (IHI) – the owner and operator of Corinthia Hotels – continues to consider a second listing on an international market, it reaffirmed this week.

Answering shareholder questions during a Q&A session at its 2021 Annual General Meeting, it stated that in order to increase its percentage of free float shares, which it acknowledges is low and below 10 per cent, it has been looking for a secondary listing on an international market.

This listing, it said, would make it easier to issue new shares and increase the free float to 25 per cent of total shares in issue.

Discussing the secondary listing in more detail, it explained that it will be waiting for “the right moment” to launch. This timing, and the market to be considered for this secondary listing is under constant review, it added.

The move will be timed towards the full recovery of the hospitality industry, and the Group claimed that “attempts to approach this earlier could be detrimental to the shareholders of IHI in not obtaining an adequate price for the new shares that will be issued”.

The Group has previously launched an attempt for a second listing, aiming for the UK market in 2008. Following a year and a half of discussions with Goldman Sachs, the listing was aborted due to the financial crash that year.

Also discussed at the AGM, IHI said that it was considering starting to publish quarterly updates. Regarding this, it said: “We will inform the market in due course, through a company announcement, as from when we will be able to do so”.

Addressing its failed sale of the Corinthia Hotel in Prague, the Group said that it still considers it to be a non-core asset and confirmed that it plans to sell it as and when the opportunity arises.

Plans to sell the hotel to a private investor for €158 million collapsed when the pandemic struck and the investor withdrew from the agreed sale, beginning a tumultuous period for the Group.

During the year, the Group recorded just over €90 million in losses, with operations being shut down from March due to lockdowns.

Year on year revenue decreased from €268 million in 2019 to €91 million in 2020, reflecting a decline of over €176 million.