National Express shares increased 1.1% to 181.2p in late afternoon trading on Thursday after the travel firm announced a 33.6% revenue growth to £1.3 billion in HY1 2022 against £990 million in HY1 2021, representing its highest revenue in a decade.
The company reported an EBITDA spike of 54.3% to £197.8 million from £128.2 million the last year, alongside an underlying operating profit surge of 295.3% to £90.5 million compared to £22.9 million.
National Express swung to a pre-tax operating profit of £42.3 million against a loss of £26.1 million in the previous year, and a pre-tax profit of £20.5 million compared to a pre-tax loss of £50.2 million year-on-year.
The group confirmed an underlying basic EPS of 6.2p compared to a loss per share of 2.1p the year before.
“I am pleased to see momentum building across the Group, with strong growth in revenue, profit and cash in the first half,” said National Express CEO Ignacio Garat.
“The path ahead will not be without challenges. We believe, however, that we are well positioned in an inflationary environment; resilient to slowing economic growth; and are taking all the steps we can to mitigate the industry-wide shortage of School Bus drivers in the US.”
“Whilst mindful of these challenges we maintain our full year guidance and continue to anticipate reinstating a full year dividend in respect of FY 2022.”