LONDON, Aug. 4, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) --
Solid growth in a challenging environment - lastminute.com today
announces Quarter 3 2004 financial results for the period ending 30
June 2004
LONDON, Aug. 5, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Results highlights
* 78.2% increase in Total Transaction Value to 268.9 million Pounds (Q3 2003: 150.9 million Pounds)
* 22.3% pro-forma organic like-for-like TTV growth in Quarter 3 (Q3 2003: 46.2%)
* Forward order book 77.0 million Pounds (Q3 2003: 61.1 million Pounds)
* 168.7% increase in statutory turnover to 168.1 million Pounds (Q3 2003: 62.6 million Pounds)
* 57.0% increase in gross profit to 46.3 million Pounds (Q3 2003: 29.5 million Pounds)
* Gross margin 17.2% for Quarter 3 2004 (Q2 2004: 17.3%, Q3 2003: 19.5%)
* 5.2% increase in pre exceptional EBITDA to 4.3 million Pounds (Q3 2003: 4.1 million Pounds) 18.3% improvement in post exceptional EBITDA to 3.3 million Pounds (Q3 2003: 2.8 million Pounds)
* Quarter 3 loss per share of 5.46p (Q3 2003: loss 4.22p)
* A further in-depth review of the cost base has highlighted 10.0% savings to be achieved in financial year 2005 (excluding travel agents commission)
* Overall net cash balances remain strong at 30 June 2004 at 5.4 million Pounds (Q3 2003: 28.6 million Pounds)
* Dynamic Packaging sales grow 205.6% to 16.5 million Pounds (Q3 2003: 5.4 million Pounds)
Allan Leighton, Chairman said: "lastminute.com has performed well in a challenging quarter for the travel industry. Our model continues to show its resilience with underlying margins remaining strong. The move by the consumer to be even more last minute makes our unique model more relevant than ever. However, the summer quarter as always remains both key and difficult to predict. We expect to make significant improvements year-on-year with Quarter 4 TTV of around the 400.0 million Pounds mark based on July trading."
Brent Hoberman, Chief Executive, added: "We have consolidated our position as the leading online independent travel and leisure group in Europe and have made continued progress in a number of key areas of our operation. We have enhanced our product offerings, improved the service to customers and continued to grow organically with the lastminute.com branded businesses growing by 50.0% in July 2004. Whilst the outlook for the final quarter of the financial year remains challenging we remain confident of making further significant progress."
High resolution photographs are available to media at www.vismedia.co.uk
An analyst conference call will take place at 9.30 am this morning. For further details please contact The Maitland Consultancy. The Quarter 3 presentation to analysts will be available for replay from noon BST today, 5 August 2004, at www.lastminute.com/ir, the presentation will also be available on the website from shortly after 7.00 BST today.
Notes to Editors:
About lastminute.com
lastminute.com, Europe's leading online independent travel and leisure group, operates directly in thirteen European countries and participates in three international joint ventures, providing travel and leisure inspirations and solutions to customers. At 30 June 2004 lastminute.com had over 9.6 million subscribers to its weekly newsletter and had established over 19,500 supplier relationships. The business is based on the idea of matching supply and demand. lastminute.com offers consumers opportunities to acquire airline tickets, hotel rooms, holidays (both self packaged and third party packages), car hire, entertainment tickets, restaurant reservations and food delivery, speciality services, gifts and auctions.