The good old package holiday was front and centre for travel specialist Dart (DTG) this summer. Customers with Jet2holidays - the group's tour operator - totalled 940,000 in the key April to September period, a 22 per cent increase over the respective 2014 half-year number. Together with a 5 per cent increase in the average package price, this growth fuelled a 65 per cent increase in underlying operating profit to £147m within the leisure travel division.
While the group considers its flight-only customers "important", it carried just 2.65m such passengers, down from 3.07m in the comparable period. Chief financial officer Gary Brown said it remained management's strategy to grow the package holiday's proportion of sales. A total of 42 per cent of customers flown by Jet2.com - the group's airline - were on package holidays, compared with 33 per cent in the 2014 half year. Mr Brown said the group could "add more value" with holiday customers compared with flight-only ones.
While travel accounts for the vast majority of profit, Dart's distribution business, which trades under the name Fowler Welch, also put in a good performance. Revenue was down because lower fuel costs were passed on to customers, but operating margins were up 2.8 percentage points to 4.8 per cent, causing operating profit to more than double to £3.5m.
Analysts at broker Arden Partners expect pre-tax profit of £95m for the 2015-16 financial year, leading to EPS of 51.6p, up from £50.8m and 28.2p.
| DART (DTG) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 482p | MARKET VALUE: | £711m | |
| TOUCH: | 481-481.5p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 505p | LOW: 250p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 0.7% | PE RATIO: | 8 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 214p | NET CASH: | £335m | |
| Half-year to 30 Sep | Turnover (£bn) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 0.90 | 72 | 38.9 | 0.75 |
| 2015 | 1.02 | 147 | 79.8 | 0.90 |
| % change | +14 | +105 | +105 | +20 |
Ex-div: 3 Jan Payment: 1 Feb | ||||
