Profits at Fitzpatrick's two New York hotels up by 18.5% to €3.2m last year

Profits at the two New York hotels operated by Irishman John Fitzpatrick rose by 18.5 per cent last year to €3.2 million.

The company’s turnover increased by 3.5 per cent to €23.8 million in the year to the end of September, Mr Fitzpatrick said in an interview with The Irish Times. “The market is coming back nice and slow. We think it will be another 12 months or so before it really kicks in. Our job...is to get our average room rate up. The average at the moment is $285.”

Mr Fitzpatrick has two hotels in New York – the Manhattan and the Grand Central. He owns the freeholds on the properties and said they are valued at $140 million “and going up”.

He said the increase in sales and profits was largely due to success in winning UK business. “We’ve concentrated an awful lot on the English market in the past couple of years. I’m now kicking myself because I should have done it earlier.”

Mr Fitzpatrick expressed an interest in acquiring a city centre hotel in Dublin or possibly Belfast. He recently tendered unsuccessfully for the former Berkeley Court in Ballsbridge.

“I was reluctant to bid too high given that it was a short-term lease of five years and, truthfully, I was more interested in having an option to purchase the hotel at the end of the lease. But that option wasn’t available.”