Minoan close to sale of travel and leisure division
Minoan Group, parent to Stewart Travel, hopes to confirm the completion of the sale of its travel and leisure division ‘in the near future’.
Reporting a rise in after tax losses from £2.2 million to £2.5 million and a six-fold increase in loans to £6.1 million, the group said it expects to be debt free once the division is sold off.
The Scottish group received an offer for the travel and leisure division at the end of last year.
It plans to use the proceeds to focus on a resort complex in Crete being developed with joint venture partners.
Chairman Christopher Egleton said the group’s total transaction value has increased by around 18% to £80 million for the year to October 2017 and gross profit rose by 18% to £8,346,000.
Operating profit rose from £272,000 in 2016 to £563,000.
"Travel trading in the year achieved the above noted increases in particular via our Lapland business, which once again grew far in excess of the average," he said.
"Cruise continued its growth as planned, although management believe that the rate of growth was slowed by difficulties in the Caribbean cruise market following the devastation to Puerto Rico and a number of destination islands.
"Since the year end, travel has continued on its upward trajectory. In the first quarter of the financial year ending 2018, Total Transaction Value is up 14% and gross profit up close to 9%, the variations in increase once again being due to Caribbean cruise sales which, until recently, have been among our most profitable."
He said the decision to dispose of the travel business has ‘not been taken lightly’.
"The two main drivers of this decision have been the fact that we were unable to expand the business as fast as we had intended for fear of diluting the group’s capital unnecessarily and, with the advent of the grant of outline planning consent in Greece, the need to concentrate our efforts on creating value without a significant debt overhang with its concomitant costs.
"I very much hope we will be able to report in more detail on this transaction in the near future. "
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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