LUX EXPRESS ESTONIA AS current status
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's activity report 2022
Lux Express Estonia AS is an international group, whose parent company is Mootor Grupp AS located in Tallinn, Lastekodu 46. The main activity of the group is passenger transport on international and domestic regular bus routes and charter services. Lux Express Estonia AS has subsidiaries in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Russia, Belarus, Finland and Poland.
As of 31.12.2021, the following companies belong to the group: Lux Express Estonia AS (parent company, Estonia) and subsidiaries: Lux Charter OÜ (Estonia) 100%,
Lux Express Latvia SIA (Latvia) 100%, Lux Express Lithuania UAB (Lithuania) 100%, AO Eurolines (Russia) 100%, Lux Express Finland OY (Finland) 100%,
Lux Express Polska sp. z o.o. (Poland) 100%, Guppavto Plius UAB (Lithuania) 100%, Pink Tour UAB (Lithuania) 100%, Lux Express Lines Unitary Enterprice (Belarus) 100%.
The number of employees in the group as of 31.12.2022 was 314 people, 31.12.2021 respectively 244 people. The number of employees of the parent company as of 31.12.2022 was 175 people, 31.12.2021 respectively 138 people. Lux Express Estonia AS's consolidated sales revenue in 2022 was 33.96 million euros and profit 5.97 million euros.
In 2022, with the very rapid recovery of travel demand, including the rapid growth of international line traffic volumes, the group's turnover increased 2.8 times compared to the previous financial year. Consolidated sales revenue was 33.96 million euros. In the conditions of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020-2021, the drastically reduced cost base to ensure the sustainability of the company allowed to achieve a profit of 5.97 million euros at the mentioned sales turnover. The profit of the reporting year creates the ability to make bus fleet investments postponed in the previous two financial years. As interest rates started to rise rapidly in 2022 and continue to rise in 2023, it is planned to maximize own financing when buying new buses. No dividend policy has been confirmed in the Lux Express group.
The general solvency level of Estonia AS (current assets/short-term liabilities) was 1.37 at the end of 2022, in 2021 the corresponding ratio was 0.60. The debt ratio (debt/total assets) was 0.63 at the end of 2022, in 2021 the corresponding indicator was 0.87. The debt ratio shows that the share of the group's equity is 37%. The company's balance sheet total on 31.12.2022 was 22.4 million euros, 31.12.2021 the corresponding indicator was 20.3 million euros.
2022 is characterized by a very rapid growth (recovery) of travel demand and the challenges arising from it for increasing Lux Express's line transport volumes. Compared to 2021, the total line transport volume of the entire group increased by 58%. The demand for international line transport increased particularly sharply, where the transport volume increased 2.8 times compared to the previous year. Such rapid growth in international transports was favored by the difficulties in the aviation sector to increase the number of flights after the pandemic, which allowed the faster responding bus traffic to achieve some advantage in restoring the market position. In 2022, the group's companies operated 14.2 million kilometers of line transports. Of this, domestic line transport in Estonia accounted for 7.4 million km and international line transport 6.8 million km. In 2022, the group's companies served 2.43 million passengers on line transports, which is 83% more than a year earlier.
At the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war, it was highly likely that the complete cessation of transports in the direction of Russia within a couple of weeks. In practice, Lux Express
Tallinn-St. Petersburg and Helsinki-St. Petersburg line traffic after the cessation of air traffic and the Allegro train connection operated in cooperation with Finnish-Russian state companies became the last means of connection for citizens of Europe and other Western countries wishing to leave Russia. As a result, maintaining line traffic became important. From April, the proportion of refugees leaving the occupied areas of Ukraine through Russia began to grow rapidly on the St. Petersburg lines. The increase in demand led to the need to increase the volume of transports until mid-summer. The flow of refugees also significantly increased the demand
on the Narva-Tallinn lines, as some war refugees arrived at the Russian-Estonian border in other ways and used domestic bus lines to move on. From the second half of the year, the proportion of refugees leaving Russia began to decrease and as a result, Lux Express reduced the volume of Tallinn-Petersburg line transports by about 55% and continues transports in a volume that is necessary to maintain emergency movement opportunities for people with family relations on both sides of the border.
As a result of the war, the rise in fuel prices, which had already begun at the end of 2021, accelerated. As predicted last year, the rise in fuel prices increased people's interest in bus travel. A sharp increase in demand took place already in March, when the price per liter of both gasoline and diesel fuel in the Estonian gas station network rose above 2 euros. The increase in fuel prices was accompanied by an increase in line transport costs - both due to the fuel itself and the general inflation resulting from the price increase of energy carriers. As the primary goal of the company was to restore the number of passengers to the pre-corona crisis level as quickly as possible, Lux Express avoided raising the price of services until mid-summer despite increasing input costs. The increase in the number of passengers and the filling of lines helped to compensate for the increase in costs to a significant extent during the peak season. After the summer high season, when the number of passengers began to decline, adjusting the price of services was, however, inevitable.
Rapid inflation is likely to continue to affect the company's operations for the next couple of financial years. This is most directly reflected in the growth of labor costs. At the same time, wage pressure due to high inflation, the lack of bus drivers with excellent professional skills and the need to increase administrative staff due to the growth of service volumes have coincided. All these circumstances are reflected in the growth of labor costs and the need to pass it on to the final price of the service. In general, the perspective of the economic environment can still be considered favorable for Lux Express's field of business, as people's readiness to use public transport instead of a private car increases in economic downturn conditions. The risk here is the deepening of market distortions caused by the state's increasingly large-scale subsidization of train traffic - a more price-sensitive customer may start to prefer the passenger train on Estonian domestic lines more than before, the ticket price of which has not been formed on a cost basis but through political decisions.
In 2022, Lux Express Estonia AS achieved a fundamentally important court victory with the Republic of Estonia in a court dispute that has been ongoing since 2019. The dispute centered on the obligation imposed by the state to transport pre-school children and disabled persons free of charge without paying compensation. The European Court declared such an obligation to be imposed without determining compensation to be illegal. A compromise solution for determining compensation for free passenger trips serviced since August 2016 was born between Lux Express and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications representing the state in February 2023. According to the compromise, the Republic of Estonia undertook to pay Lux Express Estonia AS compensation for passengers serviced free of charge under the Public Transport Act §34 from August 2016 until the end of 2022 in the total amount of 1.63 million euros. The amount also included compensation for free passenger trips serviced by Eesti Buss
OÜ, acquired by Lux Express Estonia AS in 2019.
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