RNS Number:3744K
MyTravel Group plc
31 March 2005
31 March 2005
MyTravel Group plc
Annual General Meeting Statement
MyTravel Group plc announces that at its Annual General Meeting today, it will
give the following update.
We completed the financial restructuring on 31 December 2004, when trading began
in the new shares issued following the restructuring. This has created a strong
foundation and momentum for the business. The company rejoined the FTSE 250
index on 18 March 2005.
We have made significant progress in restoring the business, however a lot
remains to be accomplished in the UK. The company is making good progress in
line with our business plan and we continue to target an operating profit for
all three divisions in 2006 and an industry standard 3.5% margin in the UK in
2007.
As part of this business plan, in the UK we have reduced capacity for this year,
begun to make improvements to our product offering and continued to focus on
cost control.
All three divisions have performed in line with our expectations for the winter,
despite the effect of the tragic events in South East Asia, which we estimate to
have impacted our operating result by #10 million in our Northern Europe
business and #2 million for the UK.
We have been encouraged by bookings for all three divisions for the summer. In
the UK, as outlined above, we have reduced capacity significantly and begun
reshaping our product. We have achieved close to the same number of brochure
bookings as last year and we now have significantly fewer holidays left to sell
than we had at this time last year. In Northern Europe, following a slight
increase in capacity, bookings are also up slightly with improved margins. In
North America, bookings are encouraging but still at an early stage.
With regard to the recent increases in the price of oil, we are taking
mitigating actions and have purchased caps for jet fuel at $600 per metric tonne
(c. $60 per barrel of Brent crude) for the remaining 300,000 tonnes of fuel
forecast to be required for the remainder of this financial year. The longer the
oil price is near to $600 per tonne (c. $60 per barrel) over the period, the
more difficult it will be to mitigate the effect of this through other actions.
Overall the Board continues to believe that we will be able to achieve our
business plan for the year.
Ends
Media enquiries:
Brunswick Group LLP 020 7404 5959
William Cullum
Analyst/investor enquiries:
MyTravel Group plc
Steven Olivant, Director of Communications 0161-232 6424
A conference call for analysts will take place today at 7.45 am. The dial-in
arrangements for the call are as follows:
Telephone number: +44 (0) 1452 541 076
Password: MyTravel
A recording of the conference call will be available on:
Telephone number: +44 (0) 1452 55 00 00
Pin number: 5187886#
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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