daa Finance plc Statement
daa finance plc
EUR400,000,000 1.554 per cent notes due 2028 of daa finance plc (the “Issuer”),
guaranteed by daa plc (ISIN:XS1419674525) (the “Notes”)
COVID-19 – Trading Update
On 19 May 2020, daa plc (“daa”) announced that due to the ongoing challenges faced by the aviation industry as a result of Covid-19, daa and its subsidiary undertakings (the “Group”) will make a significant operating loss in 2020 (see RNS Number: 3793N). As a result, daa has been required to implement a range of cost reduction measures, including the implementation of a voluntary severance scheme (see https://www.daa.ie/covid-19-costs-daa-e160m-in-lost-turnover/).
It is currently anticipated that passenger numbers will be just below 9 million for Dublin and Cork airport in 2020 (the equivalent figure in 2019 was approximately 35.5 million). Due to the ongoing uncertainty in respect of the impact of Covid-19 there is also a risk that passenger numbers in 2021 may be lower than had been previously anticipated and announced.
Whilst Dublin and Cork airports enjoyed a positive start to this year (2% ahead of 2019 for January and February) in terms of traffic growth, the sharp fall in travel since then has resulted in overall passenger numbers at these airports declining by approximately 75% to date when compared with the comparable period in 2019. This has resulted in a similar rate of reduction in Group turnover to date this year when compared with the same period in 2019.
To mitigate the impact of the traffic decline and corresponding reduction in turnover, the Group has taken a range of cost and cash mitigating actions, including reducing Irish based employees to a four-day working week, pay and hiring freezes, implementing a voluntary severance scheme and availing of a number of government payroll and other supports that have been made available to businesses generally in Ireland and internationally. As at the end of September 2020 this has delivered a reduction of approximately one-third in the Group’s operating cost base when compared to the same period in 2019. Operating and capital expenditure plans continue to be re-evaluated.
Total Group net debt at December 2019 was €430 million. By the end of September 2020, this had increased to approximately €700 million (after the incurrence of capital expenditure of approximately €200 million in that nine-month period).
On 16 October 2020 the Group effected the extension of the final maturity of its undrawn committed revolving credit €450 million facility from March 2025 to March 2026. The facility continues to benefit from no financial covenants and all of the Group’s existing syndicate relationship banks were involved in the transaction.
Enquiries:
Ray Gray, Group Chief Financial Officer, daa plc
Telephone number: +353 1 944 5265/6
ray.gray@daa.ie
Catherine Gubbins, Director of Finance, daa plc
Telephone number: +353 1 944 2205
catherine.gubbins@daa.ie