Gabrielle Monaghan

Bloomberg

DUBLIN — InterContinental Hotels, the world’s largest lodging company, has put 10 hotels up for sale in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, taking advantage of a revival in demand for international travel to dispose of assets.

Eight of the hotels are in Australia, including the Crowne Plaza Canberra. InterContinental will not disclose the value of the hotels because they could all be sold in a single sale, spokesman Leslie McGibbon said yesterday.

The properties may be worth as much as A$150m, Credit Suisse First Boston estimated.

UK-based InterContinental, which runs 500000 hotel rooms, is shedding properties in a bid to model itself on US companies such as Marriott International, which manage and franchise hotels on behalf of others.

InterContinental has sold or agreed to sell 121 hotels for £1,75bn and returned most of the proceeds to shareholders since it was spun off from Six Continents in 2003.

The sale in Australia is "continued evidence of the commitment to a further realisation of funds for shareholders, albeit that the deal is small compared with recent major transactions InterContinental has undertaken", Tassos Stassopoulos and other analysts at Credit Suisse First Boston wrote in a note to investors.

Last month InterContinental agreed to sell 73 UK hotels to a group led by Lehman Brothers Holdings for £1bn. It still has 16 hotels worth £360m on the market. Shares of the UK hotelier were unchanged at 625p in London early yesterday.

The stock has risen 24% in the past year, beating a 22% gain in the 12-member Bloomberg Europe lodging index.

Credit Suisse First Boston has an "outperform" recommendation on InterContinental’s shares. The Australian properties may draw interest from Thakral Holdings, the owner of Melbourne’s Hilton hotel and eight others valued at a total A$500m along the country’s east coast. Thakral CE John Hudson has said it may bid for the properties on offer.