Online travel agent On The Beach Group (OTB) may have reined in its spending on online marketing to 40.5 per cent of revenue in the reported period, from 46.3 per cent in last year's first half, but previous efforts to get its name out there appear to have paid off. The number of unique visitors on the website increased by 9.5 per cent to 27.5m, while branded and free traffic soared to 56.7 per cent of overall visits.
Not included in this set of results is the recent acquisition of fellow travel website Sunshine.co.uk for £12m, three-quarters of which will be paid on completion and the remainder in December. Management estimated that the acquisition would add 200,000 customers to its 1.2m (in FY2016), and assured shareholders that the purchase would not affect its ability to pay dividends.
Holiday prices were flat year-on-year as cheaper flights due to an oversupply of seats to popular Western Mediterranean destinations were offset by higher hotel prices, a function of weaker sterling and sector inflation. Some destinations such as Turkey and Tunisia proved less popular as the terrorist threat put off travellers.
Analysts at Numis expect pre-tax profits of £27.5m with EPS of 17.6p in the year to September 2017, compared with £21.2m and 13p in FY2016.
ON THE BEACH (OTB) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
ORD PRICE: | 376p | MARKET VALUE: | £ 490m | |
TOUCH: | 364-376p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 394p | LOW: 175p |
DIVIDEND YIELD: | 0.8% | PE RATIO: | 31 | |
NET ASSET VALUE: | 67p* | NET DEBT: | 3% |
Half-year to 31 Mar | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
---|---|---|---|---|
2016 | 35.5 | 7.3 | 5.0 | nil |
2017 | 38.1 | 9.9 | 6.1 | 0.9 |
% change | +7 | +34 | +22 | - |
Ex-div: 2 Jun Payment: 30 Jun |