More losses for online travel and accommodation agency Webjet have underlined the sector’s continuing problems with the pandemic and closed borders with a result again strewn with red ink.
The travel broker Wednesday released full-year figures for its new year-ending date of March 31, with the news the company’s net loss widening by 9% to $156.6 million over the nine-month period.
Revenue fell 86% to $38.5 million compared to the figure at June 30 last year.
No dividend was declared as Webjet has suspended payouts until at least July 2022.
The company said it will revisit the deferred 2019-20 dividend later this year.
Webjet said the change in reporting dates meant “it was not useful to provide a comparative discussion of overall group performance.” It’s not except for the revenue slump and losses which perfecting illustrate the continuing impact the border closures are having on the sector.
CEO John Guscic said in Wednesday’s statement thaat once borders reopen, he expected its businesses to rebound.
“We are hopeful that vaccine rollouts will allow travel markets to reopen and continue to do everything we can to make sure we are optimally positioned to capture the significant global business-to-business market opportunity and accelerate bookings growth in our business-to-consumer businesses,” he said hopefully.
“We know there is strong demand for travel – we’ve seen that with the performance of Webjet (online travel agency), with Australian domestic bookings reaching 95 per cent of pre-Covid bookings in April.“
Webjet said more cost cuts are underway in all businesses and are expected to deliver 20% reduction in lower across the group once the business returns to scale.
The company has a pro forma cash position of $431 million, reflecting net proceeds from the $250 million convertible notes offering completed in April. The company says its costing $5.5 million a month to remain in business at the moment.
The maturity for all remaining debt has been extended to November 2023. That is perhaps the best guide for when the company feels business will be back to normal. If that’s the case, no more dividends for quite a while.
The shares rose 0.6% to $4.70 on a day when the wider market sold off by 1.90%.
