MARKET REPORT: TUI shares fly higher as 500k take off at Easter
MARKET REPORT: TUI shares fly higher as 500,000 holidaymakers depart at Easter
Tui, the world’s largest travel company, was popular as it benefited from holiday travel and faced a busy summer.
With families flying off in search of some sunshine, the FTSE 250 company said more than 500,000 customers have booked a Tui holiday over Easter.
The Mediterranean Sea and the Canary Islands were among the most desirable travel destinations, it said. Holidaymakers are also drawn to Turkey, the Balearic Islands, Spain, Egypt and Greece.
Tui said its latest trade figures show that “customers don’t want to miss out on holidays”.
The package tour company said its load factor, a metric used by airlines to measure how many seats are occupied on an airplane, should be around 95 percent for the period.
This would be roughly in line with levels seen before the pandemic.
Tui said its latest trade figures showed that “despite economic challenges, customers don’t want to miss out on holidays”. Summer travel is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels.
Sebastian Ebel, CEO of Tui, said: “Booking dynamics remain encouraging and travel trends and strong demand at Easter are a healthy signal for the coming summer.” TUI shares rose 12 per cent or 66.8 pence to 624 pence .
The FTSE 100 was up 1 percent, or 78.62 points, to 7741.56 and the FTSE 250 was up 1.1 percent, or 195.61 points, to 18,797.03.
Ferrexpo rose 5.9 percent, or 6.5 pence, to 117.1 pence after improving business despite the war in Ukraine.
The miner, who works in Ukraine, said its production of iron ore pellets doubled to 901,000 tons in the first three months of this year compared to the last quarter of 2022.
This was due to increased electricity supply to its operations in Ukraine, leading to the group restarting its second pellet line in February.
Peel Hunt said this was faster than expected and paved the way for Ferrexpo to increase exports.
Liberum’s Ben Davis said a “spring offensive in Ukraine is likely to begin soon” as Russian forces lose momentum.
Robert Walters was having a rough day at the office as the recruitment firm warned of a “slow start” to the year as economic uncertainty weighed on hiring.
The company, named after its boss, who founded the company in 1985, said employers around the world are more cautious about hiring permanent employees and have turned to temporary workers.
Net fee income rose 4% to £102.4m in the first three months of this year.
Business improved across Europe, with the exception of the UK where revenue fell 9% to £16.3m.
It said recruitment work in London and the regions was “subdued” while UK tech recruitment was hit by the “continued drip-feed from layoffs”. Stocks, which fell as much as 7 percent on the day, fell 2.5 percent, or 11 pence, to 427 pence.
De La Rue was back in the black after the banknote printer appointed a temporary chief financial officer. Charles Andrews starts Tuesday after Rob Harding resigned in January to take up the same role at Paypoint.
It came a day after shares fell 5.8 percent when activist investor Crystal Amber doubled down on calls for Kevin Loosemore to resign as chairman, saying the three-year turnaround plan had “failed in every way”. Shares rose 6.1 percent, or 2.9 pence, to 50.4 pence.
The Motorpoint boss said an 18 percent increase in new registrations in March should benefit his company’s used car offering.
Mark Carpenter remained optimistic the used car dealer would be well-equipped to cope with higher interest rates and rising inflation as it reported record earnings of £1.44 billion for the year to March 31. Shares were up 2.9 percent or 3.75 pence 134.75 p.p.