TUI Group has reported group pre-tax losses for the full year to September 30, 2021 of €2.48bn on revenue of €4.7bn. Airline losses remained high at €1.47bn although this was a 25% reduction on last year’s losses of over €2bn. In its fourth quarter, TUI delivered first positive Group quarterly EBITDA of €160m since start of pandemic, with group revenue up €2.1bn to €3.4bn compared to Q4 FY20.
TUI’s year-end net debt was €5.0bn, a reduction of €1.4bn since Q3 and €3.9bn on a pro-forma basis including €1.1bn capital increase completed post balance sheet. The company has extended its RCF maturities by 24 months and therefore has no major maturities until July 2024.
TUI raised more than €2bn of refinancing in less than 12 months since agreeing third state support package (Dec 2020) and noted that it had made “significant steps towards returning to gross leverage ratio2 of around 3x”. TUI issued €590m of convertible bonds during the reporting period.
During the fourth financial quarter, TUI Markets & Airlines operated at 50% capacity for the July to October period in line with expectations.
The holiday company said that it had an encouraging pipeline of 4.1m bookings across both Winter 21/22 and Summer 22, with 1.4m bookings added since 3 October (2.7m bookings). But TUI noted that “the increased media coverage of rising incident rates and the emergence of new Omicron variant has weakened this positive momentum, particularly for Winter”. Winter 21/22 bookings are 62% of Winter 18/19 levels with ASP up 15%.
As of 6 December, TUI had a strong liquidity position of €3.5bn, with the recent capital increase offsetting the lower winter working capital swing in Q1, said TUI. “We are well prepared for the remainder of the winter season and to weather any change in the booking environment.”