Financial Performance Evaluation Of Thomas Cook Group Plc.

Profitability

1. Identify the profits, earnings- discuss, the 5 years trend, economic condition, calculate the ratios and interpret the results for 5 years on the financial performance?

2. Identify dividends (including a comprehensive ratio analysis) calculate the ratios and interpret the results for 5 years on the financial performance?

3. Financial stability and liquidity (including a comprehensive ratio analysis)calculate the ratios and interpret the results for 5 years on the financial performanc?

4. Research the webpage for any information about the company’s performance or any news that has an impact on their performance?

The investment related decisions highly depends on the return generating capacity of the investment. Potential investors always intend to invest in such companies, which can provide higher returns. The investors and stakeholders can evaluate the potentiality of any company in respect to its return generating capacity by proper analysis of its past financial performances.

Thomas Cook Group Plc. is a popular global travel company with having its headquarter at Peterborough in United Kingdom. Though, it is mainly UK based company, the company uses to operate around all over Europe. The basic operations of the company include world-wide tour-operating services and airline services in UK and Belgium. The company also runs the website, named Hotels4u, for booking hotels. Presently Thomas Cook Group has almost 33,000 employees and 3,000 service outlets. As per the turnover and operation, it is considered as the second largest travel company in allover UK and Europe, as well, after TUI travel.

In the last few decades, tourism industry has developed quite significantly. Introduction of low fare airlines has triggered the development and attracted more clients, especially, from the third world countries. Like the other international travel companies, Thomas Cook has also enjoyed the benefits of the industrial growth. However, it has faced tough competition from many low budgeted regional travel companies. Moreover, the company also suffered from financial crisis in the last few years due to high rise in the fuel costs and the unstable political conditions in Middle East & Northern Africa, which is one of the favored regions amongst European tourists.

The report is prepared to evaluate the financial performances of Thomas Cook Group Plc. for investment related decisions. The financial performances of the company for the last five years have been evaluated under various aspects by using ratio analysis technique. Apart from the financial factors, other important non-financial factors have also been considered for the decision-making process.

Dividend and Market Performance

The financial performance of any company can be classified under different groups in accordance to the different financial aspects. The different aspects help to describe the financial condition of the company from different perspectives. Therefore, the performance evaluation should also be conducted under these different aspects for better analysis (Uechi et al. 2015).

The financial performance of Thomas Cook is also evaluated under different aspects through related financial ratios.

Profit is the primary objective for any form of business. All the business firms use to invest capital and operate its business activities to earn profit. It not only helps the business firm to fund its business operation but also is the source of returns to the investors of the firm. Hence, it is necessary to evaluate the profit generating capacity of the company before any investment. The profitability ratios of Thomas Cook are presented in the table below:

Profitability Ratio Analysis:-
Particulars	2016	2015	2014	2013	2012
Revenue (A)	7812	7834	8588	9315	9491.2
Gross Profit (B)	5990	6062	1868	2020	7415.9
Net Profit/Loss (D)	9	19	-115	-213	-590.1
Total Assets (F)	6955	5958	5794	6285	5906.8
Common Stock(H)	391	368	285	548	457.9
Current Liabilities (I)	4630	3702	3894	3688	3540.1
Capital Employed (J=F-I)	2325	2256	1900	2597	2366.7
Operating Profit (K)	205	211	54	13	-319.3
Gross Profit Margin Ratio (C/A)	76.68%	77.38%	21.75%	21.69%	78.13%
Net Profit Margin (D/A)	0.12%	0.24%	-1.34%	-2.29%	-6.22%
Return on Capital Employed (K/J)	8.82%	9.35%	2.84%	0.50%	-13.49%
Return on Assets (A/F)	0.001	0.003	-0.02	-0.03	-0.10
Return on  Equity (A/H))	0.02	0.05	-0.40	-0.39	-1.29

The table exhibits that the gross profit margin of the company has fallen down in 2013 and 2012,but again it has increased quite significantly in the last two years.  Though from 2012 to 2014, the company the net profit margins were negative, the company has been able to turn into positive. However, still the net profit margin in very low. It has also improved its return on capital employed over the period. Like the net profit margins, the return on assets and equity were also negative in the first three years and have begun to improve in the last two years, though the return rates are not satisfactory at all.

It can be stated that from above discussions that from 2012 to 2014, due to high amount of operating and other non-operating expenses, the company could not convert its revenue and gross profits into net profit, rather ended up with net losses. However, it has shown some improvement in the last two years and has been able to generate some net profits. The company has also failed to utilize its assets for generating adequate amount of profit also. During the financial crisis, it had not provided ant return on equity. However, currently it is providing nominal rate of return to the invested equity capital (Babalola and Abiola 2013).

Dividends and market performance in terms of stock market are two major factors, considered by the investors. The following table describes the dividend policy and market performances of the company:

The table shows that the Dividend payout ratio and dividend yield rate, both were nil in the initial four years. It has been caused as the company was unable to pay dividends due to the huge losses, incurred in the first three years.. However, in the current year, the company has paid 63% of its net earnings as dividend. The dividend yield rate, which reflects the return rate in accordance to the market price per share, is presently 0.54%, which can be regarded as poor also. The P/E ratio describes the net earning generating capacity of any company in comparison to the market value per share. It had been negative also from 2012 to 2014. However from 2015, it has become positive and currently it is quite high comparing to the last 4 years.

It can be sated that though the company was unable to provide any returns to its shareholders during the first few years, the market performance has improved in the last two years. The company is providing returns to the investors in terms of net earnings and dividends. However, the return rates are not very satisfactory in comparison to the other companies (Bodie et al. 2014).

Financial stability and liquidity position implies the financial strength of any business. Financial stability describes whether the business is able to continue its operation in long term or not. The stability ratios of Thomas Cook are shown below:

b) Long-Term Stability Ratio Analysis:-
	2016	2015	2014	2013	2012
Total Equity (A)	391	368	285	548	457.9
Total Liabilities (B)	6,564	5,590	5,509	5,737	5,449
Total Assets ( C)	6955	5958	5794	6285	5906.8
Debt to Equity Ratio (B/A)	16.79	15.19	19.33	10.47	11.90
Equity Ratio (A/C)	0.06	0.06	0.05	0.09	0.08
Debt Ratio (B/C)	0.94	0.94	0.95	0.91	0.92

The table states that the debt-to-equity ratio and debt ratio are very high, whereas, the equity ratio is too low for all the five years. It implies that the company uses to raise its capital mostly through debt financing. The assets are majorly funded by debt capital also. It may help the company to lower down its cost of capital, but it also indicates that the company does not have any internal reserve to continue its operation (Heikal et al. 2014).

The liquidity ratios describes the ability of any firm to cover its current liabilities through its current assets. The ratios of Thomas Cook are calculated in the following table:

c) Short-Term Liquidity Ratio Analysis:-
	2016	2015	2014	2013	2012
Total Current Assets (A)	2656	2035	1829	1933	1524.2
Inventory (B)	43	52	34	38	30.5
Income before Interest & Taxes ( C)	15	29	-106.8	-195.9	-373.9
Interest Expense (D)	6	10	8.2	17.1	216.2
Total Current Liabilities (F)	4630	3702	3894	3688	3540.1
Current Ratio (A/F)	0.57	0.55	0.47	0.52	0.43
Quick Ratio [(A-B)/F)	0.56	0.54	0.46	0.51	0.42
Time Interest Earned Ratio (C/D)	2.50	2.90	-13.02	-11.46	-1.73

From the table, it can be stated that the current ratios and quick ratios during the period were below 0.6. The time interest earned ratios over the first three year were negative, whereas, in the last two years, it is above 2. It indicates that the company does not maintain sufficient current assets to pay off its current liabilities. Moreover, due to huge losses, initially the company did not have the ability to pay its interest expenses out of its net income. However, after improving its profit earning capacity in the last two years, it has enough income to cover the interest expenses (Wahlen et al. 2014).

There are many other financial factors, which may create impact on the market value of the company. The factors, which should be considered for evaluating Thomas Cook are described below:

The important information, disclosed by the companies regarding its financial performance and other activities, often affect the market price of the stocks. Thomas Cook provides many important details in its official website. The quarterly and annual financial reports, published in the website, help the investors to evaluate the growth or downfall of the performance properly.

Moreover, many corporate news, like, introduction of new own brand hotels and announcement of new partnership ventures with Fosun and Ingo Burmester, also create impact on the performances (Thomascookgroup.com, 2017). Such news helps the company to attract new investors and increase the share value in the stock market.

Apart from the company’s reports, it is necessary to analyze the market reports of the company from various sources.

The UK tourism statistics report for 2015 provides detail description of the industry performance for the last few years. It states that the huge loss, incurred by Thomas Cook in the initial period, were not caused only for the poor performance of the company. Most of the large travel companies, as well as, the airlines companies, faced the same consequences. It had been caused due to drastic increase of fuel costs. The travel companies were unable to provide economic tour packages to the clients and loss many customers accordingly. Many customers shifted to lower budgeted packages, offered by the small travel companies. However, within the last few years, the large travel companies have developed many economic plans to recover its clients. It has been observed that to offer low budget tour packages and maintain the service quality, as well, most of large travel agencies have merged with small airlines companies so that they can control the travel cost accordingly (www.tourismalliance.com, 2017). Thomas Cook has also introduced its own airlines company under the brand name Condor. It has also planned to introduce own hotel chains. Thus, the company is not only trying to reduce the travelling cost, but also, the accommodation and fooding costs, as well.

Higher management and the board directors of any company use to take all the important decisions. Hence, the credentials of the higher management and the directors should be checked also for investment decisions.

The board of directors of Thomas Cook is consisted with one chairman, two executive directors and five non-executive directors. Currently, Peter Fankhauser is the Group Chief Executive Officer, who governs over all the departments of the company and Michael Healy, the other executive director, looks over the finance department mainly. The other non-executive directors work independently (Thomascookgroup.com, 2017).

Conclusion:-

From the above discussion, it can be stated that Thomas Cook Group Plc. was suffering from financial crisis for the last few years due to the poor performance of the company and overall tourism industry, as well. Currently it is recovering its financial strength and financial position gradually.

The company has begun to earn profit again, but the profit margins are very low. Moreover, the company has still not recovered its financial strength completely. It has large debts in the market. The liquidity position is also not stable yet.

The asset value per share of the company, as shown above, is very low in comparison to the market price per share. It indicates that the market price of the company stocks is overvalued, as it is not supported by sufficient amount of asset.

However, the poor financial performance of Thomas Cook is a result of industrial downfall. The company has taken several initiatives to improve its financial position in the next few years.

Therefore, it can be concluded that though Thomas Cook Group Plc. has shown improvement in its performance in the recent years, considering its poor return rate and unstable financial strength, it is better to invest in its stock after observing its performance for the next year also.

References & Bibliography:-

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