wh ireland

Shares in insurance provider Saga dropped by nearly 25 percent on Wednesday, after “challenging trading” led to the issuance of a profit warning.

The company were negatively affected by the collapse of Monarch Airlines, with the change of carriers costing £2 million. Shares fell after the Saga said that it expects underlying pretax profits to remain on track for the current financial year, growing by 1-2 percent, but then experience a 5 percent drop in profits in 2018.

Lance Batchelor, the chief executive, said: “Against a backdrop of some challenging trading conditions in our final quarter, we continue to develop the business for the long term.”

This comes just two days after Saga has confirmed that it has made “around 100” employees redundant, saying that the saved money would be put towards growing the company.

“The changes we have made this week will allow us to invest further in future growth,” Batchelor said.

Shares in Saga (LON:SAGA) are currently trading down 23.83 percent at 138.10 (1319GMT).

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Miranda is the online editor of UK Investor Magazine. Her interests include private equity, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer lending, gender equality and coffee.