HOSPITALITY firm TPS Eastern Africa has issued a profit warning for the year ending December 31, 2015 citing a challenging business environment in Kenya that affected its regional hotels.
The company which manages 15 hotels and resorts across East Africa under the Serena brand name is the 13th company listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange to issue a profit warning this year.
"The company continued to face a challenging business landscape in Kenya which to some extent caused a ripple effect in the East African region," it said in a letter to the Capital Markets Authority yesterday.
This means that the company expects its profits to fall below at least 25 per cent of what it made last year.
TPS posted a 39.2 per cent drop in net profit of Sh274.4 million as at end December 2014.
"Foreign leisure and to a lesser extent, corporate business segments took a cautious approach due to the elevated travel advisories and other forms of security alerts issued by governments of main source markets," the company said.
Key tourist source countries such as UK, US and France issued travel advisories against Kenya following rising terror attacks in the country in May 2014. The travel bans were in still force for the first half of this year after which the countries started reviewing them positively. France lifted its travel ban last Friday while the US and UK lifted theirs in October and June respectively.
Other than TPS other listed firms to issue profit warnings this year are Standard Group, Crown Paints, Mumias, Athi River Mining, retailer Uchumi Supermarkets, East African Cables, logistics company Express Kenya, Car and General and Sameer.
