Trainline books heavy loss on £21m stock market listing costs

Online ticketing business Trainline sunk to a heavy loss as bosses revealed it cost £21 million to list the company on the London Stock Exchange.

The company saw pretax losses grow from £11 million last year to £89 million in the six months to August 31, although stripping out one-off costs, pretax profits were £42 million, up from £21 million during the same period last year.

Net ticket sales rose 19% to £1.8 billion with bosses saying this was due to an increase in customers using its website and app together, and more train users willing to switch to etickets.

The Trainline logo
The Trainline logo

Revenues increased 29% to £129 million and the company said it will turn its attentions to growing its business division, selling train tickets direct to companies. In June, Trainline announced a revenues upgrade as sales were proving greater than previously expected.

But the cost of bringing Trainline to market took its toll. A further £70 million one-off charge was taken in relation to finance costs.

Chief executive Clare Gilmartin said: “We continue to focus on making rail and coach travel easier for customers worldwide, thereby encouraging a much greener way to travel.

“As most rail and coach tickets continue to be sold offline at the station, and as customers and governments commit to more environmentally friendly modes of travel, we see significant growth opportunities for Trainline over the long term.”

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