Aitken Spence PLC released its third quarter financial results to the Colombo Stock Exchange today, showing a10 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to Rs 914 million and a 14.3 per cent rise in profit attributable to shareholders to Rs 541 million over the same quarter last year.

Aitken Spence is among Sri Lanka’s leading and most respected corporate entities with interests in Hotels, Services, Logistic Solutions and Strategic Investments in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The diversified conglomerate reported Rs 2.14 billion as pre-tax profit and Rs 1.3 billion as profit attributable to shareholders for the nine months ended December 31; an increase of 3.3 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively over the previous year.

Performance from the Group’s resorts in the Maldives which operate as Adaaran Resorts, showed signs of recovery despite being lower than last year.

With seven resorts under its portfolio, Aitken Spence is the largest international resort operator in islands, which was sharply affected by a slump in tourist arrivals due to the global recession.

During the quarter under review, Adaaran Prestige Resorts was acclaimed as "The Indian Ocean’s Leading Water Villa Group" and Adaaran Prestige Water Villas at Meedhupparu won the award for "The Maldives Leading Water Villas" for the second consecutive year at the World Travel Awards ceremony held in London during the 2009 World Travel Market.

"Increased tourist arrivals due to the end of the armed conflict in the country has improved income from our resorts in Sri Lanka during the quarter. An outstanding rebound in tourism is imminent for the next season. With a focused and robust destination marketing strategy that builds a strong country brand internationally, we believe that the private sector is capable of making tourism a key engine of sustainable economic growth for Sri Lanka", said J M S Brito, Deputy Chairman and Managing Director of Aitken Spence.

Aitken Spence is the largest resort operator in Sri Lanka with nine award-winning properties across the island. The company has announced plans to expand its hospitality portfolio in the island with proposed resorts in the South, North and the East.

Aitken Spence opened the newly-rebranded Heritance Tea Factory in December, which joins Heritance Kandalama, Heritance Ahungalla and Heritance Madurai under the up-market Heritance Hotels & Resorts umbrella.

The company also announced that it will be managing the 130-roomed Ramada Hotel & Convention Centre in New Delhi, which is due to open in March this year. Aitken Spence currently operates five hotels and resorts in India, including the eco-friendly Barefoot at Havelock in the Andaman Islands.

During the quarter, the Group saw a lower contribution from the Aviation sector, which comprises of the Singapore Airlines and Kingfisher Airlines agencies, as a result of reduced frequency of flights and prices.

With the global economy recovering, the Maritime division showed an improved performance over last year during the period under review. Post-war opportunities in the field of domestic transport and logistic management contributed strongly to the performance of the Cargo Logistics sector.

Renegotiated prices and improved production has helped the company’s garment manufacturing arm to post positive results during the quarter.