Tainui dividend up $2.1m after 33pc profit increase

Tainui and its Novotel partners plan to build another hotel in Hamilton.

Tainui Group Holdings (TGH) has posted a 33 per cent rise in net profit for the year to March compared with the previous year.

The group yesterday reported a net profit of $21 million, up from $15.8 million, and an operating profit before asset realisations of $12 million, up from $9 million.

TGH will increase its dividend to its shareholder, the Waikato-Raupatu Lands Trust, to $7.5 million, from $5.4 million last year. The lands trust represents the people of Waikato-Tainui.

Chairman John Spencer said TGH was now three years into a five-year strategy to rebalance the company's asset portfolio.

He said the sale of surplus and non-performing assets was now complete and the company would concentrate on continuing to improve its operating profit.

Chief executive Steve Murray said the year had marked the beginning of some of the company's more ambitious land development projects.

These include The Base, a large retail development on the northern outskirts of Hamilton, which is being built in a joint venture with The Warehouse.

The first stage of the $60 million project is due to open next month.

TGH has also announced plans to build a new Ibis hotel on a site in central Hamilton with its partners in the Novotel/Accor Group and Hamilton City Council.

- NZPA