Hotel Leelaventure Ltd today reported net loss of Rs 99.65 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2011 due to high interest costs and increase in depreciation and staff related expenditure.

During the three months ended December 31, 2010, the company had posted net profit of Rs 22.04 crore, it said in a filing to the BSE. 

The company's net sales during the period, however, increased 22 per cent to Rs 178.42 crore, as against Rs 146.24 crore.

During the quarter under review the company's interest outgo increased over five-fold to Rs 111.58 crore, as against Rs 20 crore in the third quarter of last fiscal.

Even depreciation cost more than doubled to Rs 25.14 crore and employee cost increased to Rs 48.91 crore compared to Rs 27.21 crore in the third quarter of last fiscal, the company said.

After the close of the quarter, a promoter group company has released over 16.44 lakh shares from pledge, it added.

Hence the pledged shares of promoters as on date stand at over 9.22 crore shares accounting for 23.78 per cent of the total outstanding shares of the company, the filing said.

The firm's scrips were trading at Rs 36.80 per share, down 5.88 per cent from the previous close on the BSE.