Tui reported an “enormous rebound” in working capital with the group “no longer burning cash” as it unveiled results for the three months to June yesterday.
Fritz Joussen, Tui group chief executive, hailed “a successful return of operations” and confirmed: “We are not borrowing cash anymore.”
He said: “We had an enormous rebound in working capital of €320 million [in the quarter]. This is the first time in the crisis we are not burning cash but adding cash, leading to liquidity of €3.1 billion.
“Our cash position is €1.4 billion better than just three months ago.”
Joussen reported: “We added 1.5 million customers to our customer base, bringing us up to 4.2 million customers for the summer.
“Of [those] 4.2 million, only 900,000 departed till June so we have a lot of bookings in the system which will be realised now.”
He also hailed the extension of repayments on Tui’s €4.7 billion worth of revolving credit facilities (RCFs) announced at the end of last month, saying: “We bought three years to repay this.
“All the banks agreed. It’s a sign the banks have confidence in our company and in the industry.”
The two-year extension will cost Tui 4.5% per year or an additional €423 million.
Joussen noted: “We will need to do something to our cash structure, but we have time now. We have three years to do that [and] we are not burning cash.”
Tui reported a loss of €940 million for the three months to June, reduced from €1.5 billion in the same period last year.
The loss for the nine months to June exceeded €2.4 billion, on a par with the loss of €2.3 billion for the first three quarters of the previous financial year.
Operating losses were lower at €491 million for the quarter, compared with €670 million in 2020, and €1.3 billion for the nine months.
Revenue in the quarter to June was up from €72 million in 2020 to €650 million this year.
Explaining the increased losses quarter on quarter, Joussen noted revenues were “still very low”, saying: “We needed to restart the business, to fly aircraft in April, May, June. So you have no revenue and all the costs. In Q4 we’ll see the revenue.”
The group also completed the sale of its 49% stake in the Riu family hotel portfolio at the end of July in a deal valued at up to €670 million, adding to its liquidity.