Dart Group plc – Prelims for Year to 31st March 2004
Dart Group PLC
17 June 2004
For Immediate Release 17 June 2004
DART GROUP PLC
PRELIMINARY RESULTS FOR YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2004
Dart Group PLC, the aviation services and distribution group, announces its
preliminary results for the year ended 31 March 2004.
CHAIRMAN’S STATEMENT
I am pleased to report on the Group’s trading for the year ended 31 March 2004.
Profit before tax, excluding goodwill amortisation, amounted to £9.0m (2003 –
£7.9m). Turnover was £228.2 m (2003 – £198.2m). Earnings per share before
the amortisation of goodwill were 17.91p (2003 – 15.78p). The Board is
recommending an unchanged final dividend of 4.26p, taking the total dividend for
the year to 6.11p (2003 – 6.11p). The dividend, if approved, will be payable on
20 August 2004 to shareholders on the register on 25 June 2004.
Capital expenditure amounted to £28.4m (2003 – £36.4m) and mainly related to the
expansion and upgrade of the Boeing 737-300 fleet.
Net borrowings at 31 March 2004 were £15.0m (2003 – £28.2m) which represents
gearing of 37% (2003 – 76%). The Group continues with its policy of matching
long-term US Dollar assets, namely Boeing 737-300 aircraft, with US Dollar
liabilities. Interest cover was 25.1 times (2003 – 8.5 times). The Group has
negligible exposure to rising fuel prices in the year to 31 March 2005 as its
fuel requirements are either substantially hedged or subject to pricing
adjustments with its contract customers.
The Group has continued to build its business-to-business services in both its
Aviation Services and Distribution Divisions. At the same time, considerable
energy is being put into the development of Jet2.com – our low cost scheduled
passenger airline business. The activities of the Group’s two divisions are
more fully described in the Review of Operations that follows this statement.
Aviation Services
The Group now owns 14 Boeing 737-300 aircraft and is currently negotiating to
acquire further aircraft of the type for operation by Channel Express (Air
Services). Four of these are being converted to ‘Quick Change’ (QC)
configuration which allows the aircraft to be transformed from a passenger
carrier to a containerised freighter in less than 40 minutes. By the autumn
these aircraft will be operating for Royal Mail at night whilst flying passenger
charters during the day.
Seven Boeing 737-300 passenger aircraft are operating Jet2.com (a trading name
of Channel Express) low cost services to 11 European business and leisure
destinations primarily from Yorkshire’s Leeds Bradford International Airport.
The company expects to carry in excess of 1 million passengers on these services
during the coming financial year and to progressively add further aircraft to
this fleet.
The low cost airline market is competitive and no doubt there will be some fall
out amongst the less experienced carriers. However, we believe that with Channel
Express’ low operating cost base and our careful aircraft acquisition policy,
Jet2.com should succeed in this market. Our immediate focus is to continue to
build our operations in the North of England.
The agreement to operate Boeing 737-300QCs at night for Royal Mail also gives
the long term stability needed to enable Channel Express to develop its daytime
passenger charter business. These modern jet aircraft are replacing smaller
turboprop aircraft that the company has operated for Royal Mail for many years
and will, we believe, provide an efficient and reliable air service to this
important customer.
Channel Express also operates four Airbus A300B4 ‘Eurofreighters’ primarily on
behalf of express parcel companies, flying packages nightly from the UK, Ireland
and Italy to and from these customers’ European hubs. Three Fokker F27s operate
on behalf of freight forwarders and newspaper publishers. T
