Lastminute Group is planning to raise about €95 million to strengthen its financial position.
The company says the equity capital will enable it to “capture business opportunities… at significantly better conditions.”
Lastminute announced the move as part of its first quarter 2020 results, a period which saw revenue down 1.9% to €70 million and EBITDA down nearly 49% to €9 million.
The company’s net result was a loss of €6.7 million compared with €6.3 million in Q1 year-over-year.
Lastminute announced a series of measures in March as part of its full-year 2019 results presentation.
The group has implemented some cost reductions which it says will amount to savings of €30 million from March to December, compared to the nine-month period in 2019.
In addition, the board of directors will not take cash payments during 2020, both for the remaining portion of 2019 and the whole of 2020.
Lastminute says cash available to the business at the end of April stood at €96 million but it expects some of this will be absorbed during the summer months, with a recovery in its position only expected to begin from October.
The online travel agency end of the business is currently down 95% in bookings compared to the same period in 2019 and it expects this trend to continue until the end of June.
The company anticipates a slow recovery beginning in July with business down between 85 to 90%.
Marco Corradino, Lastminute Group's CEO, says: ”2020 will not be about performance. It will be more about resilience and will be a time in which to invest for the long-term, by further improving our products and even optimizing the way the organization is structured, looking at the future and at the evolution of our industry.”
The company says that it has also stopped discussions regarding a corporate transaction, referring to the possible sale of a stake in the business that were first rumored in March this year.