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| (c) 2011 Amadeus |
Amadeus IT Holding, S.A., parent company of the Amadeus Group, announced year-on-year financial and operating results for the first half of 2011 (six months ended June 30, 2011).Adjusted profit for the first half increased 12.2 percent to reach €263.7 million.
This was backed by a growth in revenue from continuing operations of 3.9 percent to €1,389 million and an improvement in EBITDA of 6.0 percent to €572.1 million, Amadeus said. Excluding the impact of the sales of equity stakes in Vacation.com and Hospitality Group during 2010, and the impact of a change in treatment of certain bookings within IT Solutions, revenue grew by 5.8 percent.
During the second quarter of the year Amadeus successfully refinanced its debt with a new €2.7 billion senior unsecured financing. Amadeus’ consolidated net financial debt on June 30, 2011 was €1,895.8 million (based on covenants’ definition), representing 1.82x last twelve months’ EBITDA. With the benefit of the net proceeds of the sale of Opodo, this figure was down by €675.5 million or 26.3 percent versus December 2010.
“This has been a positive and active first half of the year," said Luis Maroto, President & CEO of Amadeus. "At an operational level, both our Distribution and IT Solutions businesses continued to grow and in particular had significant successes in the Asia-Pacific region, adding further visibility to our future growth. In Distribution, our global market share of air travel agency bookings increased by 0.8 percentage points and an important partnership was signed with TOPAS, a subsidiary of Korean Air, to launch a reservation system using Amadeus technology, which will handle more than 50 percent of all travel agency bookings in Korea."
"In IT Solutions, the number of Passengers Boarded increased by 32.5 percent, and we signed further Amadeus Altéa Suite contracts with leading global airlines such as All Nippon Airways (ANA) for its international flights, Korean Air and Thai Airlines. We are confident that our ongoing investment in developing the best technology will continue to produce long-term results and now expect our annual Passengers Boarded (PB) to be more than 700 million by 2014,” said Maroto.
“From a financial perspective, the results are also encouraging: year-on-year EBITDA grew by 6.0 percent to €572.1 million, adjusted profit rose by 12.2 percent to €263.7 million, and net debt decreased by €675.5 million to represent now only 1.82x last twelve months’ EBITDA. We look forward to the second half of the year with confidence," Maroto said.
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