National Express pulls dividend and secures £800m in new cash facilities
Transport group National Express said today it was scrapping its dividend and keeping future dividends under review as it said it had secured £800m in new cash facilities.
National Express said that two of its workers had died of coronavirus globally and that other members of staff were suffering from the virus.
The company said it was withdrawing its 2019 dividend and keeping future dividend payments under review.
National Express also said it had secured £600m from the UK government and Bank of England’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF) alongside £200m in extra facilities.
It said this meant it has over £200m of cash on deposit and undrawn committed facilities of over £1bn.
In a trading update for the three months to 31 March the company said revenue was up 9.4 per cent.
In the first two months of the year revenue was up 17 per cent, this was followed by a “significant decline in revenue as services have been withdrawn,” the company said.
In the US it said transit volumes are down around 75 per cent and shuttle volumes by around 85 per cent.
National Express said it was receiving over 60 per cent of pre-covid-19 revenue in the US, and said it expected that to grow following the US government’s stimulus package.
In Spain and Morocco its Alsa business has approximately 25 per cent of services running.
In the UK it has suspended its coach services and is running its West Midlands bus network at 46 per cent capacity.
Around half of the company’s UK workforce have been furloughed, with 80 per cent of salaries covered by the UK’s coronavirus job retention scheme.
Dean Finch, National Express Group Chief Executive, said: “I would like to pay tribute to our two colleagues who have tragically lost their lives to Coronavirus. They were much respected colleagues and will be sorely missed. We are providing their families with support during this very difficult time.”
He also said: “We continue to make important progress in dealing with the impact of the pandemic across our businesses. We are combining self-help with productive discussions with customers, national governments and relationship banks.”
And added: “National Express went in to this crisis with revenue up strongly across the Group. I remain confident that we will emerge out of this unprecedented period with our portfolio of strong assets ready to return to delivering industry-leading service to our customers.”