NX reports 9% increase in revenue

[DaveNewcastle]

National Express holds its Annual General Meeting today.
Here is an extract from its report:
"Our trains business has continued to perform in line with expectations and we have continued to improve operational performance across all our train operating companies. We have achieved overall revenue growth of 9% in our trains business despite a softening of demand on Stansted Airport routes resulting from lower footfall through the airport.

At National Express East Coast ("NXEC") we have seen revenue growth of 11%. The NXEC franchise commenced in December 2007, and the launch process has proceeded as planned.

We have also relaunched our National Express East Anglia ("NXEA") franchise,
driven by our desire to make a significant improvement in our customers' travel experience, as well as providing a platform for leveraging further value from our strong brand. As part of these improvements NXEA is taking a leading role in implementing the Department for Transport's plans for growth."

And because trains are so similar to busses (!), they've also reported:
"We are encouraged by the performance of the whole UK Division. The integration process announced in July 2007 is substantially complete, with the £11 million of annualised cost savings achieved. We are now seeing the benefit of having a single management team responsible for all activities in the UK, particularly in the areas of revenue and yield management. "

The comapny also reports successes in their businesses beyond the UK - private buses in Spain and School Busses in the US.
Nice to know someone's making money.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
. . . and Stagecoach made a similar announcement on Monday 28/4 :
"Stagecoach said its UK rail division and its joint venture with Virgin, Virgin Rail Group (VRG), were the main contributors to an outperformance in its earnings . . . .

Stagecoach, which runs South West Trains (SWT) and East Midlands Trains (EMT) as well as having a 49 percent stake in VRG, said revenue growth in the UK rail division had continued to be strong and costs remain closely controlled.

The group said trading at EMT, which it took over on Nov. 11 last year, had been encouraging. VRG, which runs inter-city services on the West Coast main line, had continued to see strong revenue growth and has also settled a number of contractual issues with infrastructure operator Network Rail (NR), all of which had contributed to a rise in its expected profit for the year to April 30.

Like-for-like revenue growth in UK rail, excluding EMT and services transferred from the group's former Cross Country franchise -- which it lost to Arriva Plc. last year -- to West Coast, was 13.7 percent in the 44 weeks to March 2 and 13.1 percent in the 48 weeks to March 30. In VRG, like-for-like revenues grew by 12.7 percent in the 44 weeks to March 2, and 11.2 percent in the 48 weeks to March 30."

13% increase in revenue is a lot of extra passengers and price increases.

 

[Metroland]

NATIONAL Express, which took over from GNER the East Coast Mainline franchise to run trains through York from Scotland to London, is doing very nicely, thank you.

In the first three months since taking on the franchise in December, revenue has grown by 11 per cent.

And, in a statement issued ahead of its interim results on June 30, the group declares: "The launch process has proceeded as planned."

That is welcome news for the Government, which accepted the firm's bid ahead of three rivals last year for a franchise which means the group will pay the government £1.4 billion in order to run the franchise until March 2015.

So far it has not been an easy ride. The franchise takeover coincided with an increase in unregulated fares of 6.6 per cent in January, drawing criticism from rail passenger groups and green campaigners.

Then, in March, it announced almost 100 posts were set to be axed at the York headquarters, although it decided to keep its base in the city.

But there has been progress. National Express East Coast managing director David Franks said: "Since starting services on this flagship route last December, we have been working extremely hard to make travel simpler, to attract more passengers and to improve standards.

"Good progress is being made and passenger numbers are growing in line with expectations, but it's still early days and there is much more to do.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/bus...2243349.0.rail_operators_profits_on_track.php

 

[Metroland]

Arriva, Go-Ahead and Stagecoach have all issued upbeat trading statements, showing that, far from hitting the buffers, they are growing like Topsy.

Yesterday's update from Stagecoach was the best of the trio, prompting a flurry of analyst upgrades, largely due to the runaway progress of its rail operations.

Underlying revenue growth at its UK rail business, notably South West Trains, rose 13.1pc in the 48 weeks to March 30, while at Virgin Rail (49pc-owned by Stagecoach) it's up 11.2pc. The run rate is actually slightly better than that after adjusting for the early Easter.

East Midlands, which Stagecoach took over on November 11, is also off to a flier, with revenues up 9.9pc.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/04/29/cxquest129.xml

 

[Mojo]

Makes a change from last year when Go-Ahead fell over 20% over fears of rising fuel prices and lower rail subsidies.