Millennium & Copthorne Profit Rises; 2010 Sales Up | wsj.com

Millennium & Copthorne Hotels PLC (MLC.LN) beat expectations with its fourth-quarter results Friday and said sales growth would return to its hotels in the first half of 2010 after a difficult 2009, though it added it is still too early to call a recovery. The U.K.-based hotels group said pretax profit doubled in the fourth quarter of 2009 to GBP29.5 million from GBP14.4 million the previous year.