TAS Business Monitor, a service from TAS Publications

Reading Transport, the council-owned bus operator, recorded a £1.45m pre-tax loss during the year to 4 October 2009, as the impact of the recession drove turnover down by over 3%, according to its annual accounts.

The directors report that revenue fell during the year by 3.3% to £26.2m, following a fall in patronage from March 2009 onwards prompted by the effects of the recession. Operating costs meanwhile rose by 1.3%. The resulting operating loss of £109,000 represented a margin of 0.4% against turnover, compared with a profit of 4.2% in 2008. Interest and pension finance costs drove the pre-tax loss to £1.45m, compared with the profit of £0.5m in the previous year -  a loss ,margin of 5.5% compared with the previous period's 1.2% profit.

A programme of overhead reduction, fare changes and service cuts was implemented from May 2009 onwards, which the report says addressed the issues and returned the company profitability at the start of the 2009/10 financial year. Two directors - finance director Mr J Carney and operations director S Simpson were amongst the casualties of the problems, both leaving the board in November 2009 after a financial settlement which saw them share a total of £41,000 in compensation for loss of office.

Other cutbacks included the abandonment of the company's high-profile experiment with bio-ethanol fuelled vehicles: in a vivid illustration of the costs to the industry of 'going green', the company says that the abandonment of the trials will result in savings of over £350,000 in a full year.

Financial Report

Reading Transport Limited

Results

Performance

Statistics

FirstGroup suffered a 9% fall in operating profits and a much larger 20% fall in pre-tax profits in the year to 31 March 2010, according to its annual report. The figures were before deduction of £50.7m of exceptional costs, mainly associated with restructuring the various businesses.

Arriva Trains Wales improved its profitability by almost £2m during the year to 31 January 2009, as passenger revenue continued to grow despite the onset of the recession, the company's annual accounts report.

Train operator Chiltern Railways continued to record operating and pre-tax losses during the 53 week period to 9 January 2010, according to its annual accounts. There was a small improvement in the pre-tax loss margin and the net position, but the business - now owned by the German state railway company Deutsche Bahn, clocked up net losses of £4.4m.