Final Results
Year ended 30 September 2013 (statutory):
· Thomas Cook announces an operating profit ("Statutory EBIT") for the first time since FY10
Year ended 30 September 2013 compared with year ended 30 September 2012 (underlying):
· Encouraging profitable growth with revenue of £9,315 million (2012: £9,195 million), up £120 million, an increase of 1.3%, due to pricing, yield improvements and the effect of foreign exchange offsetting a managed reduction in committed capacity
· EBIT of £263 million (2012: £177 million), up £86 million, an increase of 48.6%, reflecting the benefits of disciplined capacity management, cost out and profit improvement initiatives
· EBIT margin rose by 90 basis points to 2.8% (2012: 1.9%)
· Underlying earnings per share improved significantly to 5.0p (2012: 0.6p)
· Free cash flow increased by £156 million to £53 million (2012: (£103)million) due to improved organic cash generation from the Group's operations
Stronger balance sheet
30 September 2013 compared with 30 September 2012:
· Net debt reduced by £367 million to £421 million (2012: £788 million), with £73 million of the reduction due to improved operational cash flow
· Credit ratings improved: Fitch "B" with positive outlook (2012: "B-" with stable outlook) and Standard & Poor's "B" with stable outlook (2012: "B-" with negative outlook)
Unified brand portfolio for our customers
· Simplified brand labels from 85 to 30, unifying them under the "Sunny Heart" symbol representing for our customers personalised and trusted holidays, "high tech, high touch" delivery, backed by market leading international scale and purchasing power
Delivering on targets and KPIs
New product growth
· Incremental new product revenue growth target increased to more than £700 million in FY15, up from £500 million that was previously targeted. By FY17 we expect to have increased this incremental new product revenue growth by a further £500 million to more than £1.2 billion
· Incremental new product revenue grew by £94 million in FY13 including the growing contribution from our exclusive concept hotels
· We have 309 exclusive hotels in total including concept hotels, which are franchised or leased under our brands, and partnership hotels, where we have strong relationships with the hotel owners. We plan to increase the number of these exclusive hotels to 800 by FY17
· Progress made developing our city break offer, having doubled our inventory in Central Europe. We plan to increase the number of city hotels that we can offer our customers from a current level of 7,000 to 20,000 by FY15
Web penetration
· 36% of holidays booked online (2012: 34%) moving towards our FY15 target of over 50%, the online booking only being recognised once our customer has departed on their holiday
· All markets saw increased web penetration, including Scandinavia which is over 70%
· Significant organisational change underway migrating our six key markets to a "OneWeb" common platform
· Digital Advisory Board appointed, comprising external web experts and supporting product innovation and digital recruitment
· New products innovated including DreamCapture, which enables the valuable customer relationship discussion in the store to continue digitally after the customer returns home
· Won "Outstanding Innovation" for our use of new technology to deliver online travel services in the Global Business Excellence Awards
· Developing our "high tech, high touch" offer: building competitive advantage through the digital delivery of quality assured services that our customers can personalise and trust
Cost out and profit improvement ("Wave 1")
· FY15 cost out and profit improvement target increased to £440 million, due to a further £40 million of deliverable benefits. These arose primarily from adjustments to our risk weighting, acknowledging that more of the gross benefits will be realised than we had originally expected. Going forward, any increases to our cost out targets as a result of risk weighting adjustments will be disclosed at our half year and full year results announcements
· By FY13 we have delivered cumulative cost out and profit improvement benefits of £194 million. This is £24 million above our increased target for the end of FY13 of £170 million; this target already having been raised in Q3 2013 from an original FY13 target of £145 million, which highlights the extent of the accelerated delivery this year
· Reflecting this accelerated delivery, we now expect to achieve total benefits of £340 million in FY14, higher than the £315 million target that we had previously announced for that year
Gross margin improvement
· Underlying gross margin on a like for like basis increased by 80 basis points to 22.1% (2012: 21.3%). This is the result of a systemised approach to enhance our yield management and realise benefits of cost out and profit improvement across the Group, driven by an internally engineered business operating methodology called "The Thomas Cook Business System"
UK turnaround
· UK underlying EBIT margin on a like for like basis improved by 210 basis points to 2.2% (FY12: 0.1%)
· Reduced retail stores by 21% from 1,101 at the beginning of the programme to 874 at the end of September 2013 and increased UK web penetration to 36% (FY12: 33%)
Cash conversion
· Cash conversion ratio rose to 48% (FY12: 11%) moving towards our FY15 target of more than 60%, reflecting substantial improvements in working capital management
· Cash conversion target for FY15 increased from more than 60% to a new target of greater than 70%, another example of the benefits of our systemised operating methodology and the gathering momentum of the transformation
· Delivered almost £100 million working capital improvement in FY13. Working capital improvement target for FY15 increased by £50 million to a new target of £200 million
Intense business focus
· Will have delivered £61 million of gross proceeds from disposals, once the announced Airline Group transaction completes, on track to achieve our target of between £100 million and £150 million by FY15
· Concluded successful discussions that led to an agreement to sell the majority of our interests in The Airline Group, 41.9% owner of NATS Holdings Limited, for a cash consideration of approximately £38 million
· Announced the disposal of Neilson for a cash consideration of £9.15 million, our outbound business in Egypt and Lebanon for cash consideration of £6.5 million and our Corporate Foreign Exchange business for a cash consideration of £4.5 million. Also outsourced our UK escorted tours business, Thomas Cook Tours, for a minimum period of five years
· Good progress made transforming our French and Russian businesses; French losses reduced and Russian performance stabilised
· On track in the development of the new "One Airline" structure, which will deliver integration of our four airlines, realising scale benefits and efficiency improvements
Target increases
· The following table includes three increases to our FY15 targets and sets out the milestones that we expect to reach in FY14:
- New Product Revenue FY15 target increased to >£700 million (previous FY15 target >£500 million)
- Cost Out and Profit Improvement FY15 target increased to >£440 million (previous FY15 target >£400 million)
- Cash Conversion FY15 target increased to >70% (previous FY15 target >60%)