18th Dec 2007 07:01
National Express Group PLC18 December 2007 National Express Group PLC Pre Close Trading Update National Express Group PLC ("the Group") today reports on trading for the yearending 31 December 2007 prior to entering its close period. We have tradedstrongly throughout the second half of the year across all three geographies andexpect to announce a full year result at the top end of market expectations. Our Spanish bus and coach operations traded well in the second half of the yearand we expect to see full year passenger growth of 4% as well as maintaining ourmarket leading margins. Our last three months trading has included a good startat Continental Auto, which has strengthened our presence in the commuter, urbanand regional markets. Importantly, like for like revenue growth in Alsa remainsin line with expectations. We are pursuing a number of new commercialopportunities across Spain and, two years after our entry into this keystrategic market, remain encouraged by the growth potential for 2008 and beyond. In the UK we delivered exceptional operational performance and implementedstrategic fares initiatives which have resulted in like for like revenue growthof 11% on trains, 6% on buses and 6% on scheduled coaches. To ensure our UKoperations can deliver on our promise of Making Travel Simpler, we havecommenced the integration of our UK businesses into one division. This processis well underway and the new UK division launches in the New Year. The last three months have been exceptionally busy with the launch of NationalExpress East Coast ("NXEC"), the UK's premier railway service, the acquisitionof The Kings Ferry Group, further progress in the West Midlands in developingpartnership opportunities with Centro and the start of a new business, dot2dot,where corporate and consumer interest over its first few months has beenencouraging. Public transport has a positive role to play in reducing personal carbonfootprints. Consequently, we are continuing to invest in greater customerrelationship management and marketing to stimulate repeat business across our UKoperations. Since September, we have run pilot schemes focused on our railoperations and based on a database of 150,000 customers have generatedincremental profit of £1m, a two to one return even after taking into accountinitial set-up costs. In 2008, we will incorporate our NXEC and Coach customerswhich will increase the database to over 2.3 million customers. In North America, the beginning of the school year went well and we startedrunning 14 new contracts. We are now operating in 27 states and 2 provincesacross the US and Canada, and following the sale of Stewart Airport in Octoberfor $78.5 million, we are totally focused on school bus operations. We havecompleted the initial evaluation work on our Business Transformation project. Wewill run pilot studies early in 2008 and believe that the projected benefits canbe delivered earlier than originally anticipated. We remain on course to offerschool boards the most efficient and best value operator. We end the year positively with strong ongoing cash flow generation andtherefore remain confident for the Group's future prospects during 2008. - ENDS - For further information, please contact: National Express Group +44 20 7529 2000Richard Bowker, Chief ExecutiveAdam Walker, Finance DirectorNicola Marsden, Director of Group Communications Maitland +44 20 7379 5151Neil Bennett/ Suzanne Bartch/ Brian Hudspith This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
NEX.L