NatEx’s growth in all divisions

Revenues, profits and margins were up in all of National Express’s divisions, according to its results for the full year ended 31 December 2015. At Group level, its revenue amounted to £1.92bn (2014: £1.87bn), a 2.8% improvement. Its normalised operating profit rose 15.5% from the previous year to £193.5m (2014: £167.6m).

The operator’s UK Coach and UK Bus businesses were the strongest performers with UK Coach profit increasing 15.4% to £32.3m (2014: £28m). UK Bus delivered profit growth of 10.3% to £37.5m (2014: £34m).

National Express announced gains in two new markets during the year, including German rail services with the RME contract launched in December and a Bahrain bus contract launched in February 2015.

National Express Group Chief Executive, Dean Finch, said, ‘This strong set of results demonstrates that our focus on operational excellence is generating excellent returns for our shareholders and customers. I am pleased that every division has increased revenue, helping to drive overall group profit growth and another strong free cash flow performance. Our commitment to our customers and safety has also been recognised in a record year of industry awards. With this year’s strong cash performance and our confident outlook, and in-line with our previous commitment to now include rail profits in our dividend policy, we propose to raise the full year dividend by 10%.’