Wizz Air (WIZZ) declared a quarterly loss of €453mn (£379mn) in the three months to June, despite quadrupling revenue to €809mn. It booked €65.5mn of “other costs” in the period, mainly relating to flight disruption and customer compensation payments.
In June, it was forced to reverse a costly decision taken two years ago to abandon fuel hedges. Its share price is down 45 per cent this year, compared with declines of 28 per cent at easyJet (EZJ), 18 per cent at Ryanair (IE:RYA) and 14 per cent at Jet2 (JET2).
Indeed, Wizz’s current market cap of £2.36bn is only around £300mn more than Jet2’s, despite having a fleet that is 50 per cent larger.
Wizz chairman William Franke, whose private equity fund Indigo Partners owns stakes in several low-cost airlines, seems to think the sell-off has been overdone, buying £1.9mn-worth of shares on 22 July.
Not everyone agrees, though. HSBC analysts think the airline might face a liquidity squeeze this winter if it goes ahead with a ramp-up plan to grow capacity to 140 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, meaning it would need to either tap shareholders for more cash or risk its investment-grade status by borrowing more.
| Buys | ||||
| Company | Director/PDMR | Date | Price (p) | Aggregate value (£) |
| Advance Energy | Larry Bottomley (ce) ** | 26 Jul 22 | 0.1 | 40,000 |
| Advance Energy | Mark Rollins (ch) ** | 26 Jul 22 | 0.1 | 40,000 |
| Big Technologies | Daren Morris (cfo) | 22 Jul 22 | 230 | 92,000 |
| Brickability | Arnold van Huet (PDMR) | 21 Jul 22 | 81 | 100,035 |
| British American Tobacco | Kandy Anand * | 27 Jul 22 | 3,428 † | 123,563 † |
| C&C Group | Ralph Findlay (ch) | 26 Jul 22 | 195 | 49,484 |
| Conduit | Stuart Quinlan (coo) * | 27 Jul 22 | 334 | 43,789 |
| Conduit | Neil Eckert (ch) | 27 Jul 22 | 342 | 99,861 |
| Dechra Pharmaceuticals | Ishbel Macpherson ** | 21 Jul 22 | 3,430 | 29,978 |
| EnQuest | Amjad Bseisu (ce) * | 22 Jul 22 | 25 | 100,393 |
| Fintel | Neil Stevens (joint ce) | 25 Jul 22 | 195 | 97,365 |
| Fintel | Matt Timmins (joint ce) | 26 Jul 22 | 197 | 94,873 |
| GSK | Dr Hal Barron | 22 Jul 22 | 3,524 † | 42,916 † |
| Haleon | Sir Dave Lewis (ch) | 27 Jul 22 | 317 | 239,699 |
| Haleon | Bart Derde (PDMR) | 28 Jul 22 | 301 | 60,148 |
| Haleon | Marie-Anne Aymerich | 28 Jul 22 | 299 | 24,902 |
| Haleon | Deirdre Mahlan | 28 Jul 22 | 555 † | 111,002 † |
| Insig AI | Richard Bernstein (ch) | 28 Jul 22 | 28 | 32,200 |
| Jupiter Fund Management | Matthew Beesley (PDMR) | 29 Jul 22 | 119 | 48,398 |
| Jupiter Fund Management | Roger Yates | 29 Jul 22 | 125 | 125,240 |
| Jupiter Fund Management | Dale Murray | 29 Jul 22 | 124 | 24,873 |
| Jupiter Fund Management | Nichola Pease (ch) | 29 Jul 22 | 126 | 50,392 |
| Mountview Estates | Mhairi Archibald | 21 Jul 22 | 13,300 | 39,900 |
| Rio Tinto | Jakob Stausholm (ce) | 28 Jul 22 | 4,857 | 485,687 |
| Southern Energy | Steven Smith | 26 Jul 22 | 55 | 69,225 |
| The Restaurant Group | Loraine Woodhouse | 25 Jul 22 | 51 | 24,863 |
| THG | Matt Moulding (ce) | 26 Jul 22 | 70 | 820,974 |
| Venture Life | Paul Mcgreevy (ch) | 25 Jul 22 | 35 | 96,999 |
| Wizz Air | William Franke (ch) | 22 Jul 22 | 1,901 | 1,901,000 |
| Wizz Air | Andrew Broderick | 27 Jul 22 | 2,165 | 66,574
|
| Sells | ||||
| Company | Director/PDMR | Date | Price (p) | Aggregate value (£) |
| Calnex Solutions | Ashleigh Greenan (cfo) | 25 Jul 22 | 158 | 33,223 |
| Harbour Energy | R Blair Thomas (ch) | 20 Jul 22 | 349 | 5,567,290 |
| Wise | Harsh Sinha (cto) | 21 Jul 22 | 424 | 106,083 |
| *Spouse/Family/Close Associate. ** placing / open offer † Converted from $ / C$ | ||||
