Interest puts CNG in the red

ONLINE reservations firm CNG Travel booked a loss of €7.22 million in the first six months of the year.

The Kerry-based firm blamed the widening losses on exceptional items and said that at trading level it made profits of more than €1.6m.

A €4.5m interest bill during the year and the cost of an aborted acquisition in America wiped out most of the good news from the first half results.

The exceptional items also included the cost of its stock market flotation in May and foreign exchange translation charges.

Turnover jumped from €4.7m to nearly €22m, helped mainly by the contribution from its US subsidiary Tzell, which it took full control of earlier in the year. The turnover figure for the six-months was just €800,000 shy of the total for the whole of 2003.

Chief executive and company founder Finbarr Power said CNG was still loss-making at pre-tax level, but he hoped it would turn fully into the black by the year-end. He added: “Tzell continues to maintain its growth and a joint venture has been successfully established in Japan.

“Since the period in question we have acquired Placestostay.com, which has provided CNG with a strong retail orientated product which will complement our corporate business, as well as increase our penetration into new growth markets through greater distribution and product offering.”

Mr Power said that CNG has invested heavily in its technology and in distribution agreements and was expecting these investments to bear fruit.

“It is gratifying to be able to demonstrate a trading profit while still in that investment phase,” Mr Power added.

CNG is based in Kenmare, where it employs a total of 55 people.

A further 60 people are employed at Tzell.

Shares in the company, listed in London, ended the day unchanged yesterday at 86p, but have lost 16% of their value since the initial public offering in May.