The purchase was made by WestCoast CEO Art Coffey during the quarterly conference call regarding the company's fourth quarter financial results, which were released Wednesday morning. The pre-set purchase price is not being released until the sale closes.
WestCoast posted a fourth quarter loss of $2.03 million in the final three months of 2003, which is 50% more than the company lost in the fourth quarter of 2002. Revenue in the fourth quarter of 2003 was $41.2 million, compared to $44.4 million in the final three months of 2002. The quarterly loss per share was $0.20 for the quarter, $0.05 worse than the fourth quarter of 2002.
Fourth quarter RevPAR was $32,68, down 3.7% from the fourth quarter of 2002. The drop in RevPAR was in part due to a 3,5% decrease in the company's average daily room rate to $66.54 and a slight decrease in occupancy to 49.1%.
For all of 2003, profit was $1.21 million, nearly an 85% drop from the same quarter in 2002, when net income was just over $8.01 million. Total revenue for 2003 was $184 million, $10 million less than 2002.
During the conference call, company officials said part of the fourth quarter decline relative to 2002 was a significant drop in group bookings, in part due to a large airport security group that booked in 2002 but did not do so in 2003. The company says it has been successful recently in securing airline crew contracts in nine markets.
Looking forward, company officials say they will launch a best-rate guarantee program for flights booked through the company's own Web sites, which carries a lower cost per reservation for the company then going through third-party booking services. As well, company officials said it plans to implement more consistency in the menus at its hotel restaurants in order to gain greater volume discounts.
Dispositions in the fourth quarter included the sale/leaseback of the 245-room Red Lion River Inn, which provided a pre-tax gain of $7 million. The gain was used to acquire the 172-room Red Lion Hotel Yakima Gateway for $6.3 million in a 1031 exchange. The remainder of the River Inn gain will be used to fulfill part of the purchase price for the Red Lion Bellevue Inn.
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