On track success for National Express

A WINNING combination of strong growth, successful restructuring, and expansion has helped East Coast Main Line operator National Express deliver another strong set of results.

The group, one of the UK's largest public transport firms with operations in Spain and North America, today announced a 13% increase in normalised profit before tax to £177m for the 12 months ending December 31, 2007.

Revenue saw a year-on-year increase of 4% from £2.5bn to £2.6bn for the transport operator, which late last year took over the prestigious East Coast rail franchise from GNER.

National Express said there had been strong passenger growth in all divisions including 6% in trains, 3% in coaches, 2% in buses and 4% in its Spanish operations helped by the completion of its acquisition of Continental Auto for £459.8m.

Restructuring of its UK operations to form one division has also led to the release of £11m in annual savings.

David Ross, National Express's chairman, said that the transport group had undertaken significant change to deliver a “more focussed service culture”.

“I am delighted to announce that we traded strongly throughout the year and that our results are at the top end of market expectations,” he said.

“All divisions provided a healthy contribution. We have delivered 10% earnings growth and increased the group margin to 7.9%.”

Greater confidence in the group's prospects and visibility of rail earnings led to the group announcing a commitment to increase its dividend by 10% per year for the next three years.

Mr Ross said that the addition of National Express East Coast (NXEC) to its trains portfolio significantly strengthened its positions in the long distance market.

Around one billion journeys a year are made worldwide on National Express Group's bus, train, light rail and express coach and airport operations.

The new NXEC franchise, which runs until 2015, will see the group invest around £44m in improving the service between London, Yorkshire and the North East coast of England and Scotland.

Under its promise “to make travel simpler” passengers can expect free WiFi internet access for the first time in standard class, a more contemporary range of meals and snacks, and improved punctuality.

Innovations in ticketing and information will also make it simpler for customers to get the right ticket at the right price and to plan journeys more effectively.