[Featured Stock] Hotel Shilla Rises 4% on 1Q Earnings Improvement

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Ji Yeon-jin] Hotel Shilla's first-quarter earnings this year have significantly exceeded market expectations, showing an increase of over 4%.

On the 3rd, Hotel Shilla was trading at 90,200 KRW, up 4.28% compared to the previous trading day on the KOSPI market.

Earlier, Hyundai Motor Securities upgraded its investment opinion on Hotel Shilla to "Buy" and raised the target price from 84,000 KRW to 100,000 KRW.

Hotel Shilla's consolidated sales for the first quarter were 727.2 billion KRW, a 23% decrease compared to the previous year, but operating profit turned positive at 26.6 billion KRW. Although the hotel and leisure division continued to incur operating losses, the duty-free shop division recorded operating profits that greatly exceeded initial expectations.

Park Jong-ryeol, a researcher at Hyundai Motor Securities, said, "The hotel and leisure division's sales remained at the same level as last year due to continued low occupancy rates, and the operating loss narrowed slightly to 15.1 billion KRW," adding, "With the improvement in duty-free shop performance in the second quarter and the reduction of losses in the hotel division, favorable earnings momentum is expected to continue."