Air Partner, a leading provider of private aviation services to industry, commerce, governments and private individuals worldwide, today releases full year results for the year ended 31 July 2009.
Air Partner PLC (“Air Partner” or “the Group” or “the Company”)
Preliminary results for the 12 months ended 31 July 2009
Highlights
Sales down 23% to £194.3m (£251.3m)
* Profit before tax (before exceptionals) down 57% to £4.0m (£9.2m)
* Profit before tax (after exceptionals) down 90% to £0.9m (£9.2m)
* Diluted EPS (before exceptionals) down 52% to 29.8p (61.7p)
* Diluted EPS (after exceptionals) 0.4p loss
* Proposed final dividend maintained 22.6p (22.6p)
* Total dividend for the year up 2% to 30.7p (30.0p)
* Net Cash at year end £16.1m
* Group remains profitable, debt free and cash positive
* Difficult trading after a strong Q1
* All areas of the business impacted by very weak trading conditions in H2
* Revenue diversification enabled the core broking division to perform relatively well and increase margins, despite trading conditions
* High overheads at Air Partner Private Jets (APPJ) and sharp deterioration of trading conditions led to significant loss in that business
* Increased profitability in Freight, despite reduced turnover and very challenging market conditions
* Significant action taken to resize business and reduce costs for current trading conditions, after four consecutive years of record profits
* Exceptional items and impairments:
- £0.44m of one-off costs in restructuring and redundancies
- £0.54m written off in developmental spend on the hangar project
- £2.1m impairment recognised on the goodwill valuation of APPJ
* Current trading remains at the weaker levels experienced in H2
David Savile, Chief Executive commented: “The past year has not been easy, but we have made significant progress in resizing the business to suit the current trading conditions. Despite the extreme challenges of the last year, Air Partner has remained profitable, debt free, cash positive and highly focused on providing clients with an unrivalled service. While short term uncertainty exists today, the
Board remains confident that the driving forces of globalisation, economic growth and deterioration in the commercial airline services will support a sector recovery in the medium term.”
14 October 2009
ENQUIRIES:
Air Partner PLC
David Savile On 14 October 0207 002 1080
Thereafter 01293 844 805
Temple Bar Advisory 0207 002 1080
Tom Allison 0778 999 8020
Nicola Flynn
