City pars

PASSENGER NUMBERS TRIPLE AT RYANAIR

Ryanair saw a jump in passengers last month as the air industry started to show signs of revival. The airline carried 5.3 million passengers in June, up from 1.8 million in May and one million in April, it revealed on Thursday. The figure was also more than 13 times higher than the same month last year, when lockdown restrictions were very strict. Hungarian budget airline Wizz Air, which is also listed in London, said that it carried a little under 1.6 million passengers in June, up from around 500,000 a year ago. Shares in Ryanair were up by around 1.7% on Friday afternoon. Wizz was trading down slightly.

NAKED WINES BOSS BAGS PAY RISE

The chief executive of Naked Wines was paid £917,000 last year as the business saw sales jump by more than two thirds. The business handed the money to Nick Devlin in what appears to be an approximately 42% pay rise from the year before. Mr Devlin was only appointed in June 2019, so his pay packet was missing some months. But between him and Rowan Gormley, who preceded Mr Devlin, the chief executive was paid £648,000 between March 2019 and March 2020. Despite boosting sales last year, Naked Wines increased spending on advertising so much that pre-tax loss rose from £5.4 million to £10.7 million.

TEAM17 SNAPS UP KIDS APP-MAKER TO ENTER “EDUTAINMENT” MARKET

Video games developer Team17 has bought kids app-maker StoryToys for 26.5 million dollars (£19.2 million) and will pay a further 22.5 million dollars (£16.3 million) if certain targets are hit within three years. Investors in Team17, which is best-known for its Worms franchise, jumped more than 4% on the news and bosses said they hope the deal will allow it to tap into the growing demand for children’s education apps, which have grown in popularity during the pandemic. Team17’s deal, which involves a buyout of StoryToys’ parent company TouchPress, will also give bosses access to top children’s brands including Disney, Warner Bros and Hasbro. The company said Dublin-based StoryToys has seen more than 100 million downloads of so-called “edutainment” apps to date.