National Express wants more airports: Group profits for the year rise 37% to pounds 9m but coach operation loses share of the market

NATIONAL EXPRESS, the transport company that bought East Midlands Airport last year, is likely to bid for up to six more regional airports as they come up for privatisation.

The company announced its plans as it reported a 37 per cent rise in profits to pounds 9.3m in 1993. East Midlands, bought in August, contributed operating profits of pounds 2.2m.

Adam Mills, deputy chief executive, said: 'We made it quite plain when we bought East Midlands that it was a strategic move rather than an opportunistic acquisition. We see ourselves as being in the business of mass passenger transportation, and the airports and coaches businesses complement eah other in that regard.'

He added that National Express was now running 26 coach departures a day from East Midlands, including 11 connecting services to Heathrow and Gatwick.

There are 25 regional airports owned by municipal authorities slated for privatisation, including Manchester Airport and Aldergrove Airport, Belfast.

'We will probably have a thorough look at five or six, and although we wouldn't expect to get them all, we would not be unhappy to end up with three or four airports in the next two to three years.'

National Express's original core business of coach services continued to lose market share last year, seeing a 6.6 per cent fall in passengers carried. Mr Mills said that a third of the decline resulted from the group pulling out of unprofitable services.

He added that a marketing initiative and a new fare structure introduced at the end of the year appeared to have marginally reversed the decline. National Express suffers from stiff competition from British Rail on some services. 'We are disappointed that BR privatisation has been put off for another year, but as it nears the new franchises being created will not be in a position to run loss-making services, so we should benefit.'

The coaches business in England and Wales saw operating profits rise marginally to pounds 4m, despite the decline in passengers and pounds 400,000 redundancy costs. Mr Mills said better margins had resulted from cost savings and operational efficiencies. National's Scottish company, Scottish City Link, made operating profits of pounds 840,000 on turnover of pounds 7.8m since its acquisition in May.

Mr Mills said that trading had begun well this year, but that the seasonal nature of the businesses, with most profits coming in the seond half, made it very difficult to predict accurately the full year's result. City analysts were forecasting profits in the pounds 11m area.

The dividend is 7.5p, against a notional payout of 7.12p in 1992, when the group came to the stock market. The shares closed unchanged at 270p.