GERMANTOWN, TN— Equity Inns Inc., a hotel real estate investment trust (REIT), announced it reduced its loss for the first quarter ended March 31, 2003. The loss to common shareholders for the first quarter 2003 was $1.7 million, or 4 cents per diluted share, compared with a loss of $2.3 million, or 6 cents per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2002. The company said the improvement was primarily derived from a $1.3 million gain on a previously announced sale of two assets. Funds from operations (FFO) for the first quarter 2003 were $7.0 million, or 17 cents per share, compared to FFO of $7.9 million or 21 cents per share, for the same period in 2002. EBITDA was $15.3 million in the first quarter of 2003 versus $15.9 million in the comparable period last year. Equity Inns said the FFO decrease is primarily the result of the company’s hotel portfolio RevPAR decreasing 2.2% to $46.89 from $47.92 in the first quarter versus the same period a year earlier. For the quarter, occupancy was relatively flat at 62.2%, compared to 62.5%, while average daily rate (ADR) was down 1.7% to $75.33 compared to $76.60 in the first quarter of 2002. For January, February and March, Equity Inns’ RevPAR decreased 3.1%, 2.9%, and 0.7% respectively, compared to the same periods last year. Additionally, the shift of Easter from March 2002 to April 2003 caused April RevPAR to decrease preliminarily by 3.5% against an industry performance decrease of 4-6%, the company said. However, when March and April results are combined, average RevPAR decreased by 1.9%, the company noted. While industry RevPAR declined 1.6% as compared to the first quarter of 2002, more than 44% of Equity Inns hotels had positive RevPAR growth in the first quarter, the company said. During the quarter, three regions, representing over 50% of the portfolio, generated positive increases in RevPAR. These included the East South Central and the South Atlantic, both up 2.1%, and the Mountain region up 1.6%. The company said its ongoing strategy of driving occupancy resulted in approximately 45% of its hotels posting an occupancy increase, as compared to the same period last year. Along with utilizing selective opportunities to increase ADR, better-positioned assets should drive results once the economy stabilizes, the company said. More than 10% of the portfolio produced double-digit occupancy growth, while 15% had double-digit RevPAR increases.
