Wed, 21 Jun 2023 | BUSINESS SALE
Southend Airport has been put up for sale by its owners, Esken as the company’s shares plummeted 25 per cent to 2.79p.
Esken, formerly known as Stobart Group has also put its Renewables business up for sale and said “there is a material uncertainty in respect of [its] going concern assumption and the directors have exercised a significant degree of judgement in concluding that the group remains a going concern.”
The company added that it “concluded that the interests of all stakeholders would be best served by seeking a new owner for each of the core businesses through a managed sale process.”
Esken, which bought the airport in 2008 for £21 million, recently made a multi-year agreement with easyJet to operate a new route to Amsterdam as well as the three existing destinations of Malaga, Majorca and Faro. However, due to the Coronavirus pandemic and the travel restrictions, the airport had to close to commercial passengers and didn’t reopen until last summer.
Last year, Esken arranged a £50 million borrowing facility to keep its finances afloat, however since 2020, Ryanair and Wizzair pulled operations from Southend with only EasyJet returning.
Revenue for Esken’s renewables business, which includes the production of biomass fuel, rose 17.7 per cent for the year to the end of February to £93.7 million, while its airport revenues rose 8.7 per cent to £25.5 million. Pre-tax losses narrowed slightly, from £35.7 million to £27.7 million.
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