Minoan Group reports growth in travel business

Travel and leisure company Minoan Group on Tuesday reported a 'robust' performance with revenues in excess of 37m pounds.

The AIM-listed group said operating profits came to circa £400,000 for the year to October 2012, driven by growth in its travel business which helped reduce losses at group level.

Losses are expected to be lower than the previous year despite the continuing costs of developing a resort in Crete, central expenses and share based payments charge.

Minoan said cash flows within the travel industry as a whole were under pressure.

The group's cash balances were affected by less beneficial terms from major suppliers, requirements of merchant card acquiring arrangements and the application of the Civil Aviation Authority's new Air Travel Organisers Licence regulations (Flight Plus).

However, trading in the division remained strong during the period with commission in excess of 20%.

"The group has had an eventful year with the rapidly-expanding travel business performing well and progress made on the Crete project," said Chairman Christopher Egleton.

During the year the company installed the first 50 computerised travel agency kiosks across largely market town based sub post offices. It followed an agreement with the National Federation of Sub Postmasters to set up kiosks across the UK's network of more than 9,000 sub post offices.

"All this has helped to deliver a good set of trading figures from the travel business," Egleton added.

Full-year figures for 2013 are expected to show a substantial improvement compared to the previous year when published in March.

Shares rose 5.08% to 7.75p at 10:07 Tuesday.

RD