National Express regains some value after update

FTSE 250 travel firm National Express (LON:NEX) witnessed a 22.79% recovery in its share price today as it bounced back to 111p (as of 15:25 GMT), but the shares remain below their level from a week ago. The company said that it was taking steps to control costs and that many of its contracts had minimum income provisions that were helping to mitigate some of the impact.

CEO Dean Finch commented: “These are unprecedented times and have had an immediate and direct impact on our business. Nevertheless we are taking action everywhere to reduce our cost base, whilst both our contractual customers and governments are being very supportive.

“At this stage we cannot give precise guidance to what this means for our profitability this year, but our cash flow over the next three months is still anticipated to be positive even in light of the material downturn in passenger volumes. Our balance sheet is strong and we have borrowing headroom of around £500 million, while we are holding discussions to increase this further.

“National Express has a diverse portfolio of high quality transport assets that provide an essential service to millions of passengers daily. We will work through these challenges to continue to provide those services for the benefit of customers and shareholders alike and I would like to thank all our management and staff for their enormous efforts“.