BRISBANE, 20 August 2021: Corporate Travel Management (CTM) reports a return to profitability in the fourth quarter of the year ended 30 June 2021, led by the group’s increasing exposure to North America and Europe where pandemic recovery momentum is growing.
CTM today announced earnings for the year ended June 2021, posting an AUD13.6 million June quarter underlying EBITDA profit, representing an AUD19.1 million turnaround on the previous quarter. Positive second-half underlying EBITDA of AUD8.1 million helped reduce the group’s underlying EBITDA loss to USD7.3 million for the full year.
After acquiring Travel and Transport (T&T) in November 2020, CTM is now estimated to be the world’s fourth-largest global travel management company and will be a much larger business post-Covid.
North America and Europe currently generate close to 80% of the group’s revenue aftermarket share gains for CTM in these key markets, compared to 72% of pre-COVID 2019 revenue.
CTM’s managing director, Jamie Pherous commented: “We returned to positive underlying profit in the second half because of a rapid turnaround in fourth-quarter activity in North America and Europe. These regions have made significant progress in vaccine roll-outs and reopening the economy, which gives us reason to be optimistic about FY22”.
Pherous said CTM finished the year with no debt and cash of AUD99.0m. Given the strong balance sheet and the recovery of the business, CTM is targeting a return to dividend payments in calendar 2022.
Momentum across key regions
North America was CTM’s largest region in the financial year in terms of both Group revenue and other income (AUD96.0m) and new client wins.
Domestic travel is quickly recovering in the UK, and the trend is expected to accelerate across Europe after the summer vacation. Thanks to a robust AUD12.3 million contribution in the second half, CTM Europe turned the first-half loss into an underlying AUD10.1m EBITDA profit for the entire year.
The trading environment in the Asia region remains challenging because of the reliance on international travel. While CTM is growing market share in Asia, the region is expected to remain marginally loss-making until planned travel bubbles are opened.
CTM expects the rebound in corporate travel to continue, forecasting underlying EBITDA for the group to be positive for the three months to September 2021 and building in the following quarter as North America, the United Kingdom, and Europe return to work after summer vacation.
