Tourism Holdings' profit has plummeted after a rough six months for the tourism and campervan company.
Photo: Unsplash / Hanson Lu
It reported a net loss of $1.8 million for the first half of the financial year, down 114 percent on the year earlier when it made $13m.
During the period the company worked hard to bring down debt levels - down from $175m in March last year, to $22m at the end of December.
This was done mostly though selling its vehicle fleet, with a 132 percent increase in global vehicle sales revenue compared to the year before, contributing to overall revenue down only 1 pct year-on-year.
Chief executive Grant Webster said that freed up cash and allowed the business more flexibility across its various markets.
"So in the US we are investing again now and we had a really strong US result up on the prior year which in this environment's pretty outstanding, and we do see that there's good growth for us in the US... and we'll put some more fleet in there in the coming weeks.
"In New Zealand there's probably a bit of de-fleeting to still occur, same for Australia to a little extent and then as we get to calendar year 2022 we'll start to see those fleet inventories rise again."
He said its tourism businesses Kiwi Experience and Waitomo were not sustainable with just domestic tourists, but would be ready and waiting for when borders re-opened.
"There's aspects of the business that have gone well and domestically we're well up but it was such a small proportion it hasn't really driven what we would have hoped but that's the same as many tourism businesses across the country.
"Their place in this as solid as it's ever been, this is a long-term game the borders will re-open and tourism will return to some extent... it's just a matter of time for us."
Webster said the second half of the year would generate a greater loss than the first, due to the US moving into its off-season and uncertainty around travel over Easter.
"Our loss will be significantly greater than the first half but it's too hard to give a figure at the moment."
The company has also agreed to purchase, through a mix of shares and cash, the remaining 50 percent of the vehicle specialiser and modification firm Action Manufacturing for $9m.
"That's a really good New Zealand manufacturing story and I think it's going to have some really strong growth over the coming years as well."
"We're okay with where we are, given what's going on in the world."