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Bass gets earnings boost
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December 8, 1999: 5:43 a.m. ET
Pretax profits rise 4%, buoyed by hotels division; stock rises
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Bass unveiled a 4 percent increase in full-year pretax earnings Wednesday, boosted by a surging contribution from the hotels and resorts division, its biggest.
Pretax profit before one-time items for the 12 months to the end of September rose to £824 million ($1.3 billion), while revenue rose 11 percent to £4.69 billion and earnings per share climbed to 62.3 pence, up 9 percent.
The news boosted stocks throughout the U.K. brewing sector: Bass itself rose almost 3 percent to 716 pence, while Whitbread (WTB) gained 1.7 percent and London-listed South African Breweries (SAB) rose 2.5 percent.
The report underlined the company’s expansion away from brewing, its traditional mainstay. The biggest gain in profits came in the hotel unit, where Bass operates more than 457,000 rooms under brands such as Inter-Continental, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn. The division’s operating profits rose by almost a quarter to £321 million.
Bass said it faced very competitive conditions in its pubs and restaurants arm, which boosted its contribution to operating earnings by 11 percent to £298 million. But the brewing business was the toughest of all in the past year: the unit relied on rigorous cost control and a focus on five key beer brands to generate a 7 percent gain in divisional operating earnings to £160 million. Amid a shrinking British beer market Bass increased its volume sales, and made its Carling beer brand the first in the U.K. to achieve sales of more than 1 billion pints in a year. 
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Bass
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