Stobart Group Annual Results

[Thames Gateway]

Results published today. Couldn't see much of new interest on aviation, and virtually no mention of Stobart Air (the airline).

Some aviation content found:
RNS

"Passenger numbers at London Southend Airport increased by 9% to 1.09m passengers.

Planning permission secured and construction underway for air/road freight distribution centre at Carlisle Lake District Airport



At London Southend Airport, we are working towards securing longer term passenger volumes and are in constructive discussions with a number of potential airlines.



An interim dividend of 2.0p was paid on 5 December 2014. The Board is proposing a final dividend of 4.0p (2014: 4.0p) per ordinary share totaling £13.1m (2014: £13.2m paid on 4 July 2014) and giving a maintained total dividend for the year of 6.0p. We expect to maintain our current dividend payment level and will continue to partially fund it from property disposals in the short term.



Aviation

Our main KPIs in this division are passenger numbers and revenue per passenger. The infrastructure and new management team are in place to deliver our target of over 2.5 million passengers annually by 2018 and we have created capacity to handle up to 5 million passengers per annum through the new terminal.

In the past year, we have grown passenger numbers travelling through London Southend Airport by 9% to 1.1 million and increased revenue per passenger by 8.5% to £20.80.

We offer significant peak capacity availability and fast turnaround times at a low cost base for airlines that want a hassle-free experience for their customers. Access to the airport is good with a regular rail connection to Liverpool Street Station taking around 50 minutes and plenty of parking availability for passengers travelling by car. Our customers are important to us and after listening to them we improved the new terminal catering facilities and developed safer and more efficient security arrangements. For the second year running we received the Which? award for airport customer satisfaction.



We are seeing interest from a number of large European operators who consider London Southend Airport a very attractive option to serve the London market. In the short term we are expecting passenger numbers to remain flat while we build these partnerships with new operators and extend relationships with existing operators to deliver sustainable routes.

Outlook

Good progress has been made in the delivery of our volume targets for the Energy and Aviation divisions. We continue to realise value from mature assets and businesses. Our focus is now on getting new airlines into London Southend Airport, finalising our supply chain for the Energy division and driving external works in the Rail division.




Aviation Revenue 2015 £23.6m; 2014 £20.3m   +16.3%
Growth
Profitability (EBITDA) Aviation 2015 £1.4m; 2014 £0.1

Profitability (EBITDA) Group Total 2015 Loss of £1.2m; 2014 Profit of £11.3m  

Travel Weekly article

[tagron]

The silence on the subject of Stobart Air is almost deafening. All they can say about Stobart Air is that have an investment in "an airline" and this about Propius in which they have a 33% interest: -

< Propius owns ten ATR-72 aircraft which are leased to Stobart Air and continues to deliver good returns as expected, with the opportunity to grow.>

Only a year ago they were promoting Stobart Air as a means of driving traffic growth at SEN with a target figure of 300,000 ppa. Clearly this policy has virtually collapsed, in circumstances of which we are all aware. Are they too embarrassed to mention this ? What are the implications for their longer term ownership of Stobart Air, especially now that they have achieved the major policy objective of gaining planning consent for the Carlisle distribution centre ?

There is the Annual Report "coming shortly." In past years this has contained some different material from the Results presentation, which of course covers the financial year up to Feb 28. It will be interesting to see whether the same holds true this year and whether there will be answers to some of the more obvious questions about future plans for Stobart Air and SEN. And of course the solar farm.

[devonian]

Stobart Air/flyBE's six mainland Europe routes carried 84,081 passengers up until the end of March. Even 100,000 per year looks ambitious. Having said that, it is good that they are persevering with four of the original six routes. For some reason Rennes looks especially viable with well over 2500 pax each month, but the others lag behind.

[Thames Gateway]

After the 2015/16 results, an interesting analysis on Stobart prospects from Edison on the Investing.com website:Edison Analysis

[Thames Gateway]

RNS- New CFO appointed

Has been at EZY in the past.

I see also that Neil Woodford's fund has been taking quite a stake recently, now over 15%: RNS - Notification of major holding. He must see it as being a good investment; I wander what he sees as being the future of the company.

[Thames Gateway]

An RNS issued yesterday after stock market COP, and before a long weekend; some concern to investors etc no doubt, and the sort of distraction any Board does not need:

Fri, 25th May 2018 16:51
RNS Number : 4025P

Stobart Group Limited
25 May 2018

STOBART GROUP LIMITED
('Stobart Group' or 'the Company')

Annual General Meeting and possible Board changes

The Company announces that it will shortly be issuing to shareholders the documents in relation to its Annual General Meeting.

The notice convening the AGM reports that the Board has been advised by Andrew Tinkler, Executive Director, that he will be voting at the AGM against the re-election of Iain Ferguson, as a Director and Chairman of the Company.

All of the other Directors offering themselves for election or re-election at the AGM ("Ongoing Board") confirm that they have full confidence in Iain Ferguson, both as a Director and as Chairman, and will therefore be recommending to shareholders that they vote in favour of Mr Ferguson's re-election. Furthermore, Andrew Wood, Non-Executive Director and Senior Independent Director, and John Coombs, Non-Executive Director, have advised the Board that they would resign from the Board in the event that Mr Ferguson is not re-elected. As announced in the 2018 Preliminary Statement of Results, John Garbutt, the other Non-Executive Director, had decided to step down at the AGM and he has not participated in the Board's recent deliberations on this matter.

The Board has received written confirmation from the largest shareholder in the Company, Invesco Asset Management Limited acting as agent for and on behalf of its discretionary managed clients, with 24.8% of the voting rights, that it is supportive of the re-election of the Non-Executive members of the Board, including the Chairman.

The Board has also received written confirmations from Mr Tinkler, who holds 7.7% of the voting rights, and two other shareholders, who together own 25.5% of the voting capital, that they are not supportive of the re-election of Mr Ferguson and will vote against his re-election at the AGM.

As outlined in the full year results announcement, the Board has established a clear plan to deliver value to all shareholders, principally through its two main operating divisions, Aviation and Energy. The Ongoing Board is confident in the ability of the management team, led by CEO Warwick Brady, to execute the plan and strongly believes shareholder value can best be obtained through stability at both Board and management levels.

ENDS

[Thames Gateway]

From RNS today prior to the AGM:

"Stobart Group further announces that Richard Laycock has decided to step down as its Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director and will not be putting himself forward for election at the AGM, but will continue to support the Stobart Group business.

The Board has commenced an executive search to identify a suitable interim replacement for the role and a further announcement will be made as soon as possible."


Always leads to some conjecture when the CFO leaves, and in the present circumstances of Board internecine warfare, who knows what the actual reasons are...

[Thames Gateway]

I see A-109 G-HLSA flew down to the south of France today, called in at Lydd (for fuel I should think) rather than Southend. I wonder who was on board?

[Thames Gateway]

This article after the latest Annual Report published:
Daily Mail

[Thames Gateway]

As well as good-bye to the Stobart name, it's goodbye to Stobart Rail, and another equity raise coming up:

www.lse.co.uk/rns/STOB/full-year-results-83bpwcwtg6drhi8.html

This paragraph suggests that Energy will also be sold off:

"That airport passenger-focused future, which is ready to capitalise on a recovery in the wider short-haul aviation sector, sits squarely next to a strong performing energy from waste business. We will ultimately seek to monetise the energy business in the next 18 to 24 months, providing further capital that can be invested in our aviation businesses. We plan to dispose of our non-core assets within the next three years."

This hardly sounds like an endorsement of CAX either:
"Non-Strategic Infrastructure
Stobart Group owns Carlisle Lake District Airport and a number of brownfield development properties across the UK. Stobart Group will realise value from its property assets in the next three years."

and "Carlisle Lake District Airport (CLDA) commenced commercial operations in July 2019 with regional airline Loganair. Whilst recognising the importance of regional connectivity and in particular the Northern Powerhouse project's support in enabling us to open the airport, the administration of Connect Airways had led us to recognise the likely importance of the land ownership as opposed to the commercial aviation opportunities at CLDA, which resulted in a write down of £21.0m."

On Stobart Air:
"The intention is that Stobart Group will continue its current positive dialogue with Aer Lingus to conclude a long-term franchise extension and ensure that the businesses are put on a sound financial footing. Stobart Group intends to exit its involvement in a controlled way at the appropriate time."

[Thames Gateway]

Clive Condie appointed as non-exec to Board.

www.lse.co.uk/rns/STOB/board-appointment-r7evhgdftw22w7x.html

[Thames Gateway]

Here is link to the annual report, has updates for some post-year end events: wp-stobart-group-2020.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/media/2020/07/02063824/Stobart-Group-Limited-2020-Annual-Report.pdf

[Thames Gateway]

Interview from minutes 2 to 9:30 here: www.voxmarkets.co.uk/articles/stobart-group-and-paul-hill-on-clearstar-lloyds-and-the-markets-940474e/

and another here: www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=vMsqccTedm4&feature=emb_logo Lets hope the social distancing measures at LSA use a different yardstick to the one used in this interview...

[Thames Gateway]

Half year results out: www.lse.co.uk/rns/STOB/interim-results-e2zvpbtwmfnyzw1.html

[tagron]

"Across our aviation assets we will also explore further aviation logistics opportunities. There is available land to base further logistics operations at London Southend Airport."

Significant that they have chosen to include this comment ?