Never been a big fan of airlines and companies especially since 9/11 but bookings are now well up and a recovery as taken place in the industry, in fact more people have decided to go abroad this year than the last few years and the alternative 'stay at home holiday is on the wane' as witnessed by a poor trading statement from Holidaybreak were the camping division as taken a big hit in paticular.
Dart carry out business in both the holiday, short haul and commercial divisions.

The company is very cheap with a P/E of only just over 7 and a forward P/E of just over 6.

It also pays a nice divi, and is a small cap capitalised at around circa of 48 million.

The cheapness as not gone unoticed as you will see from this report.


The smart investors' favourite budget airline

Published:
By Graeme Davies, Companies Correspondent
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A host of shrewd investors are backing budget airline and distribution business Dart Group with one top smaller companies team buying at the start of this month.

Dart (DTG), which operates fledgling budget airline jet2.com and also offers air distribution services using the same planes, has become a tempting destination after a slump in its share price in the second half of last year.


The latest buyers are the smaller companies team at Aberforth who bought 315,000 shares at the beginning of this month to increase the holding of the Aberforth UK Smaller Companies unit trust Aberforth UK Smaller Companies to just under 1.2 million shares.


Dart's share price surged to 224p in the first half of last year before falling back to 124p towards the end of the year. It has been as high as 162p in 2004 but today is unchanged at 132.5p.


At 132.5p the company is valued at just 7.25 times its expected earnings per share of 18p for this year, falling to 6.6 times next year's earnings. It also offers a healthy 4.7% dividend yield which is covered almost three times.


This valuation has attracted the likes of Framlington's AA-rated Roger Whiteoak who holds shares in both the Framlington UK Smaller Companies fund Framlington UK Smaller Companies Acc and Throgmorton investment trust (THRG). New Star's AAA-rated Patrick Evershed also holds 500,000 shares in the Select Opportunities unit trust New Star Select Opportunities and Rathbone's Carl Stick has 250,000 shares in the Rathbone Special Situations unit trust Rathbone Special Situations.


In the first half of the year Dart's pre-tax profits rose by 31% to 7.1 million from a 16% rise in turnover. However this was helped by the seasonal performance of jet2.com which is expected to be profitable in the summer months and loss-making in the winter.


Jet2 operates from Leeds/Bradford and Belfast with flights to 13 destinations once a Belfast-Prague service is launched at the end of this month.


When Dart's fleet of aircraft is not being used to transport holidaymakers they are utilised for distribution services, ferrying cargo, fresh produce and flowers. The company is also involved in freight forwarding at Manchester, Newcastle, east Midlands and London Heathrow.

The company will report its full-year results in June.

Looks a very sound value share to me and I think its a short to medium term investment.

Please DYOR you are responsible for the timing of your buying and selling actions.

cheers GF

StockMarketWire.com
Dart Group posts a pre-tax profit of £163.7m for the six months to the end of September - 12% up on a year ago.

A strong summer season saw group revenue increase 21% to £1,240.8m (2015: £1,024.0m) while operating profit, which was underpinned by continued growth in its leisure travel business, increased 14% to £167.5m (2015: £147.1m).

Basic earnings per share rose by 14% to 90.65p and the interim dividend of 1.375p per share is up 53%.

The group said: "Whilst we recognise the likely upward pressures on market pricing following the weakening of sterling post Brexit; for the long term, we have confidence in the resilience of our Leisure Travel business and are encouraged by the increasing proportion of customers taking our great value, real package holidays.

"With winter 2016/17 Leisure Travel bookings continuing to perform in line with expectations, the Board is currently optimistic that market expectations for the full year will be slightly exceeded."