Host Funding Inc. Reports Q2 Loss

Host Funding Inc. reports this week a second quarter 2000 loss of $270,848, or 15 cents a share, on revenue of $865,000. In the year-earlier period, the company lost $728,037, or 47 cents a share (including a 34 cent-a-share write-down), on revenue of just over $1 million.

According to company officials, the reduction in revenues was primarily due to reductions to base rents as a result of competition, and the absence of a Findlay, Ohio property sold in November of last year.

Earnings Before Interest, Depreciation, Taxes and Amortization (EBIDTA), which management feels more accurately reflects the financial performance of the hotel industry and the Company, was approximately $593,000 for the three months ended June 30, 2000. In the year-earlier period, EBIDTA was $145,000.

Host Funding is engaged in the business of acquiring limited-service and full service hotels affiliated with national or regional hotel chains. The company was initially structured as a real estate investment trust, but has not yet elected REIT status under the Internal Revenue Code. The company currently forms wholly owned subsidiaries for the purpose of financing, acquiring and owning its hotels.

Meanwhile, Bufete Grupo Internacional S. A. de C. V. (“Bufete”), a Mexican company which controls several dozen hotel properties in Mexico, has completed the first step of a transaction which will result in Bufete taking over the management and majority stockholder position in the company via U.S. affiliate Hotel International Advisors LLC.

The transaction, which has been in process for several months, was expected to be closed in July. The company could not immediately be reached for comment on the transaction. Upon completion, Bufete is expected to own approximately 55% of the beneficial interest in the Company, elect two directors to the five-member board, and acquire the contract to advise the Company from MacKenzie Patterson, Inc.

It is expected that Rob Dixon, currently Host’s chairman of the board, and Glen Fuller, Senior Vice President of MacKenzie Patterson, the current investment advisor to the Company, will resign their seats. MacKenzie Patterson will continue to administer to the Company under its three-year contract, but such services shall be performed at the direction of Bufete.