Combined Hotel Investors’ Profit Drops 85% Despite Revenue Rise

Hotel Investors Trust and Hotel Investors Corp., whose stocks are paired on the New York Stock Exchange, reported an 85% drop in combined profit for 1988 despite a 32% jump in revenue.

Hotel Investors Trust is a Woodland Hills real estate investment trust that invests in the lodging industry. Hotel Investors Corp., based in San Diego, is a hotel management company.

In the year that ended Dec. 31, 1988, the companies’ combined net income fell to $1.34 million from $8.82 million in 1987, although their revenue rose to $94 million from $71.3 million.

The companies blamed the earnings drop on higher interest and depreciation costs related to acquisition of the Indian Wells Ramada Inn and two Las Vegas hotel/casinos, and to the lower-than-expected results of certain hotels in Texas and the Southeast.

Separately, Hotel Investors Trust elected Leland R. Speed as chairman, and Hotel Investors Corp. named Earle F. Jones as its chairman.

Speed, a trustee of the trust since 1985, also is a director of Eastover Group Cos., a group of real estate investment trusts. Jones, a director of Hotel Investors Corp. since 1985, also is president of MMI Hotel Group, a hotel operator in the Southeast.