National Express accelerates to record half year profit

Birmingham-based National Express said profits have been boosted to £80 million by strong growth in North America during school bus contract bidding season, and also with the growth of its Spanish bus and coach business Alsa.

During the six months to the end of June the group installed the largest contactless payment system on buses outside of London, helping to drive a 1.3 per cent growth in passenger numbers in the West Midlands.

National Express is the dominant bus operator in the region, employing more than 5,500 people and operating around 1,500 vehicles that handle nearly eight in every 10 public transport journeys in the West Midlands.

Its buses in the region carry around one million people a day and it is due to launch an on-demand bus service in the region. It has also expanded into running workforce shuttle buses for companies.

The transport group has continued to expand abroad, running buses in Switzerland and Morocco as well as in the US and Spain, and also operates train services in Germany.

Group chief executive Dean Finch said: “National Express has had another strong start to the year, delivering its best ever half year statutory profit, up 24 per cent year-on-year. Our increasingly diversified portfolio has again delivered strong results and has entered a new phase of expansion in to complementary growth markets.

“All of our divisions have grown revenue, profit and commercial passengers through a relentless focus on good customer service and technology investment. We also continue to make disciplined acquisitions that help grow our portfolio strategically.

"We have made seven acquisitions so far this year and have entered new fast-growing markets, providing avenues for interesting future expansion. Our pipeline of new opportunities remains strong and growing.

“This combination of growth in our core business and the number of exciting new opportunities allows us to again increase the interim dividend by 10 per cent. We remain on course to deliver the board’s expectations.”

On top of its record group statutory pre-tax profit of £80.1 million, up 24 per cent, National Express saw its group revenue rose 3.2 per cent to £1.21 billion over the first six months of the year.

In the UK its coach and bus services saw revenue grow 0.8 per cent to £273.6 million, while operating profits soared 21.5 per cent to £31.6 million, boosted by £3.4 million of property sales. Stripping that out, underlying profit growth was a still healthy 8.5 per cent.