TUI Talk with TUI Group CFO Mathias Kiep

Thank you, Linda, and thank you as always for having me. Now, I think the summer bookings — it's an update on bookings for the fiscal year '23 — the summer bookings are really good and they're robust, and it's really a good cornerstone to get towards our target to have significantly more profit than we had last year and to deliver on what are the market expectations on us.

This number is really interesting because we have 15% more bookings compared to last year same time, but with a bigger program, and we are sold at the same level like we were last year. So this is really good, and this I think not only shows okay, consumers are there, our guests continue to book — a big question for everyone in this environment: inflation, recession, questions about the consumer everywhere. But at the same time, it shows also in our products: hotels, cruises, excursions — we see the same. And this actually is a really good start into the new year, and we want to become more profitable going forward, and this is a real good step into that direction. And with 30% booked, it's also tangible enough to talk about it.

Yes, very good question, Linda. I think it's not good — the share price is not making me very happy, and I'm not happy how it developed over the last kind of weeks in particular. I mean, we had a very successful and great capital raise earlier this year; it removed a lot of concerns on the company, we became investable again. And since then, we have actually delivered our results in May, we have delivered Q3 in August, now the trading update plus 15% in for the winter. I think it's much better than most people would have anticipated, and also as I said, it is a really good step towards okay, the winter will be a normal year for the company, and it's not as bad as people may think about consumer environment overall. No, but what had happened? I think after the raise, we had a lot of short-term investors as a result, and many of them they exited around €7. You could see that the share price always went up up to €7, then it went back again. €7 was kind of a hurdle. Then we got over that, and also Q3 was actually quite positive, but still it went down. And there were some long-term investors who sold the shares. We can only speculate why, but there are many reasons around us which are not specific environment — less capital in equity alternatives in terms of high interest rate environment, so things like that made people sell our shares. And the problem is we don't really see yet buyers who take up these shares, and other than delivery, I think we currently have to be patient, yeah, because we can't influence of course what people do with our shares.

Yes, and I think this is our obligation. We must continue to deliver on our results. I think we did the capital raise — that was kind of a reset point. We promised and we have an obligation to deliver the numbers that were, you could say, in the room at that point in time. The expectations we have to meet them this year, but we also have to grow the company further. So all the initiatives in terms of delivering growth, they're really important so that the share can also start to trade ahead. I would expect we need time, we need to deliver quarter by quarter to get there, so that we also build this credibility again. But at the same time, again, I don't see a specific reason why the share price is so down. At the same time, we're lacking these buyers, and we need to build a reason that people really say, 'Okay, earnings are great, future is credible and growing,' and that's why I will buy the share again.

Thank you and have a great day. Thank you.