Employee Complaints Ground Flight Centre
Travel agent Flight Centre shares took a hammering yesterday despite a higher profit and dividend.
Read MoreTravel agent Flight Centre shares took a hammering yesterday despite a higher profit and dividend.
Read MoreAttempts by Flight Centre, the country’s largest travel agency to fix the value of tickets with three airlines so its “price beat guarantee” didn’t reduce the company’s profits has rebounded badly with the Full Federal Court fining it $12.5 million in a decision handed down yesterday.
Read MoreTravel group, Flight Centre has gone all bullish about its outlook for 2017-18, forecasting not only a solid December half, but a full year profit rise of 15%.
Read MoreFlight Centre shares jumped 11% yesterday – hitting a three-year highs in the process after the travel group suggested that the heavy discounting of international airfares was ending.
Read MoreFlight Centre shares jumped sharply yesterday when a profit shortfall became a positive.
Read MoreQantas (QAN) certainly felt it (see separate story), but compared to the damage done to Flight Centre (FLT), it was only a glancing blow. Flight Centre, the country’s biggest travel agency group took a head-on whack from the global air fare war and the weak local travel market in the six months to December.
Read MoreInvestors took a wary, but slightly positive stance with Flight Centre’s (FLT) 2015-16 results yesterday and veiled warning about the current financial year.
Read MoreFlight Centre (FLT) shares took another whacking yesterday in the wake of its shock profit downgrade on Monday and the spate of broker downgrades which naturally followed the update.
Read MoreFlight Centre Travel Group (FLT) shares fell 9% to $33.55 yesterday after the travel group produced another earnings downgrade.
Read MoreFlight Centre (FLT) shares held up solidly in yesterday’s mostly weaker trading session after it reaffirmed its full-year profit guidance in the wake of a 3.4% rise in interim earnings for the December half year.
Read MoreAnd a solid update from Flight Centre Travel Group (FLT) yesterday with the annual meeting told that the company has “generally … performed in line with expectations” in the first four months the current financial year.
Read MoreFlight Centre (FLT) shares leapt 15% at one stage yesterday after reporting expectations of an improved performance in 2015-16.
Read MoreFlight Centre (FLT) shares have plunged after the travel group downgraded its profit forecast due to weaker demand and higher costs.
Read MoreShares in travel group Flight Centre Travel Group (FLT) jumped more than 12% yesterday after the feared slowdown caused by fewer Australians travelling offshore because of the weakening Australian dollar, failed to have any real impact on the company’s performance.
Read MoreFlight Centre (FLT) shares took flight yesterday and sank nearly 9% after the company formalised what many investors had been waiting for – a profit downgrade.
Read MoreFlight Centre (FLT) is another major company which says it’s banking on a stronger second half to lift earnings for the full 2014-15 financial year.
Read MoreFlight Centre (FLT) shares dipped 0.8% yesterday, to end at $4.702 after the company met guidance for another record profit, and revealed plans to buy a travel company based in the UK and which was started by group founder Graham Turner.
Read MoreFriday bought some conflicting reports about 2013-14 profitability from two middle ranking industrial stocks.
Read MoreTravel group Flight Centre (FLT) has cut its profit forecast, joining the growing list of companies blaming the recent post budget slide in consumer confidence for a drop in holiday bookings.
Read MoreContrasting results yesterday from the world of bricks and mortar and online travel.
Read MoreGlobal travel agent Flight Centre Travel Group Limited (FLT) has lifted its first half profit by almost 21% to a record $110.8 million due to network expansion, enhanced in-store productivity and improved sales in both corporate and leisure markets.
Read MoreShares in Flight Centre (FLT) eased yesterday, despite an upbeat outlook given at the AGM in Brisbane.
Read MoreThe one point to be made immediately about Flight Centre (FLT) is it has been a most consistent outperformer on the ASX in the past year to 18 months. It has done that in a positive fashion by riding the surge in offshore travel by Australians seeking to take advantage of the higher dollar in the past couple of years. And 2012-13 is going to be no different.
Read MoreTravel operator, Flight Centre has spent the past six years proving why a late 2006 offer from management and private equity at $17.20 a share, was a steal that was rightly rejected.
Read MoreTravel group, Flight Centre expects its sold first half growth rate will run out of puff in the next few months of the 2011 financial year.
Read MoreFor about the third time so far this financial year travel group, Flight Centre has upgraded its fiscal 2010 guidance, and the shares take-off.
Read MoreThere seems to be a bullish trend emerging in the early flow of corporate earnings updates for the December half.
Read MoreLike Woolworths, travel agent and operator, Flight Centre is looking for a slower and lower 2009 after a hectic 2008.
Read MoreTravel services provider Flight Centre (FLT) said it is currently on track to exceed its previous profit target for the period of $85-$90 million before tax and now expected a half year result in the order of $92-$93 million, up about 75% on prior year.
Read MoreTravel company, Flight Centre (FLT)'s shares hit a one-year high of $27.50 on Friday before requesting a trading halt in anticipation of a ‘major acquisition'.
Read MoreShareholders in Flight Centre, Australia's biggest travel agent, must be wondering if the phrase 'private equity buyout' is some sort of curse.
Read MoreOnce again we have had a reminder that it pays to think long and hard about takeover offers and be a little slow in accepting.
You never know what might be around the corner, especially if big shareholders start talking about the company being undervalued.
We have just seen that with the mop-up bid for the 16.4 per cent minority holdings in Colorado from Hong Kong equity Fund AEP and its local arm, ARH, at $6.20 a share.
And we received an even better reminder yesterday from Flight Centre when the second version of a deal with private equity group, Pacific Equity Partners, was revealed.
Flight Centre said it had reached preliminary agreement to transfer its assets into a venture with PEP, around two months after a $1.6 billion management buyout bid with PEP was rejected at a shareholders meeting.
This deal stems from that rejection of the $17.20 a share buyout offer from PEP.
It forced PEP to come again with a new offer that emerged yesterday and is similar in style to the joint ventures PBL and the Seven Network struck with CVC Asia and KKR respectively.
Speculation about the deal has seen the FLT share price driven to above the $17.20price and yesterday it rose to $17.70, up 20c on the day.
Under the proposed deal with PEP, Flight Centre will raise $1.1 billion in cash by transferring all its operating businesses into the venture.
Flight Centre will own 70 percent of the venture and Sydney-based PEP will own the rest. If certain targets are met, PEP’s stake will rise to one third and FLT’s stake will fall to 66.6 per cent.
Flight Centre said in a statement to the ASX yesterday that it would now proceed to negotiate and finalise an Implementation Agreement with PEP as quickly as possible.
“Under the terms of the agreement, it is proposed that PEP will purchase a 30% economic interest in a leveraged joint venture to be formed to acquire the FLT business’s operational assets. PEP’s minority holding will increase to one-third if the business achieves certain targets.
“FLT shareholders will effectively retain an initial 70% economic interest in the joint venture’s business via their existing FLT shares. This interest will reduce to two thirds if the targets are achieved.
“FLT expects to receive about $1.1 billion in cash proceeds from the transaction, to be sourced from debt facilities entered into by the joint venture and the amount paid by PEP ($195 million) in acquiring its economic interest.
“It is proposed that the substantial part of these proceeds will be returned to FLT shareholders as a combination of cash and franking credits via an off-market buyback of FLT shares.
“The proposed buy-back is expected to be structured along similar lines to that proposed during the previous privatisation proposal and will be implemented by way of a scheme of arrangement.”
The company said it would offer a way for smaller shareholders to exit in full for an as yet to be determined cash amount per share if they do not wish to indirectly hold a continuing interest in the leveraged, restructured FLT business.
In addition, FLT shareholders will receive a $0.40 per share fully franked final dividend for the current financial year. The final dividend is expected to be paid prior to the transaction’s completion.
The sale of the FLT business to the joint venture will be subject to approval by an ordinary resolution of shareholders at a FLT shareholders meeting and will not be conditional on the outcome of the scheme of arrangement to facilitate the subsequent off-market buy-back of FLT shares.
Prior to any such meeting, an independent expert will review and evaluate both the sale transaction and the proposed scheme of arrangement.
The scheme of arrangement to facilitate the subsequent off-market buyback of FLT shares will be subject to a resolution passed by 75per cent in value and 50 per cent in number of shareholders present and voting at that meeting.
FLT chairman Bruce Brown said: “This proposal has the potential to benefit FLT and its shareholders, including those who do not wish to maintain an investment in what will become a highly leveraged vehicle”.
The company said the deal will release a significant cash amount to shareholders, introduce a disciplined and experienced strategic partner in PEP with a strong track record of delivering high returns, deliver an attractive cash exit opportunity for smaller shareholders via a tax-effective off-market buy-back and provide those Flight Centre shareholders who choose not to sell with the opportunity to participate in the FLT business’s future upside potential.
It said this potential was “evidenced by the company’s recent upgraded profit outlook for the current year, and also create the potential for enhanced returns by introducing significantly greater leverage than can be practically obtained at the moment.”
The creation of the leveraged joint venture will not affect the travel agency business’s day-to-day operations and the joint venture’s cash flow will primarily be used to service the business’s new debt.
That will mean income and franking credits will not be important and any returns will probably be more capital in nature.
FLT told investors late last month that “Preliminary results for the nine months to March 31 2007 show that FLT’s pre tax profit is ahead of expectation and about 18% up on the previous corresponding period, excluding the abnormal $22.4 million gain from the sale of FLT’s Adelaide Street headquarters”.
That upgrade and the possible venture with PEP (which was announced a month earlier) helped rekindle interest in FLT shares and has pushed them past the $17.20 level of the first offer.