Airlines soar as Easyjet eyes a record summer
Airline shares soared as Easyjet looked forward to another summer of record profits – despite a £40m hit from conflict in the Middle east.
A post-pandemic boom has helped it to trim first-half losses by £50m but it still lost between £ 340m and £ 360m in the six months to the end of March.
easyjet took a £40m hit from cancelled flights to israel and Jordan after the Hamas terror attacks but chief executive Johan lundgren said business was ahead of last year.
The group posted a record £866m profit for the six months to the end of September 2023. ‘We move into the summer with confidence that we can deliver another record performance,’ he said.
easyjet shares rose 2.3pc, or 11.8p, to 530p, while British Airways owner IAG was up 5.7pc, or 9.1p, to 169.8p and Wizz Air climbed 6.6pc, or 131p, to 2118p.
The FTSE 100 rose 0.4pc, or 29.06 points, to 7877.05 and the FTSE 250 was up 0.6pc, or 110.53 points, to 19,450.67.
Rentokil Initial, which won contracts at Buckingham Palace in the 1960s earning a reputation as the ‘ royal ratcatcher’, said sales in north America rose 1.5pc to £761m in the first three months of this year, less than the 2pc growth it had forecast. Shares fell 7.6pc, or 34p, to 412.9p.
AJ Bell said it now has more than half a million customers after it added 19,000 in the second quarter to the end of March, and assets under administration rose 5pc to a record £ 80.3bn. it increased 1.7pc, or 5p, to 300p.
Gold miner Centamin sank 1.2pc, or 1.6p, to 128.1p after maintenance projects resulted in production and sales in the first three months of the year falling short of the same period in 2023.
Ukrainian miner Ferrexpo said it is producing more iron ore than at any time since the invasion by russia, lifting shares 0.8pc, or 0.35p, to 46.6p.
Australian miner BHP – down 1.7pc, or 40p, to 2325p – expects to produce less coking coal than originally planned this year after two cyclones hit output.
Sales at Dunelm rose 3pc to £435m in the third quarter but the homewares retailer warned that the outlook for UK consumers remained challenging. Shares sank 7.3pc, or 78.5p, to 995.5p.
Deliveroo said food orders rose 2pc to £73.5m in the first three months of 2024, and gained 4.5pc, or 5.4p, to 126.6p.
electric vehicle charging point provider Pod Point upgraded its sales forecast for its energy flex business after revenues beat expectations in 2023. The unit helps companies reduce purchases of short-term supplies of electricity at higher prices. Shares rose 1.3pc, or 0.3p, to 23.15p.
Volex, which makes power cords and charging plugs for electric cars, said annual sales were lifted by contributions from a cable harness maker it bought last June. it charged up 5.2pc, or 15p, to 303p.
And LBG Media – a global digital entertainment business – reported a 7.5pc increase in revenues to £67.5m last year. Shares soared 5.2pc, or 3.5p, to 71p.