Holiday group Saga forecasts lower annual profit on higher costs

By Anandita Mehrotra and Chandini Monnappa

-Saga, Britain’s over-50s travel and insurance group, expects profit for fiscal 2025/26 to be lower than the prior year, due to weaker cash flow, higher financing and restructuring costs, it said on Wednesday.

Saga has been taking steps to return its core focus to travel, which is experiencing a rebound. It sold its insurance underwriting business for $88.1 million to Belgian firm Ageas in October and expects the deal to complete in the second quarter.

The company warned of a "material increase" in financing costs in 2025-26 which will lower profits, but did not elaborate. It plans to further reduce net debt, it said.

Saga expects its motor and home insurance partnership with Ageas to go live in the next few months and will take another 12 months to migrate fully to the Ageas platform, CEO Mike Hazell told Reuters. 

Saga posted a 25% rise in underlying pre-tax profit to 47.8 million pounds ($61.19 million) from 38.2 million pounds a year earlier, driven by growth in its travel business.

Its shares were unchanged at 125.2 pence early on Wednesday and are up about 3.7% so far in 2025 compared to the FTSE small cap index which is down 1.6%.

The company saw high demand for its ocean and river cruises, Hazell added. 

Saga, which operates two ocean cruise ships, said travelers were picking European destinations like Spain, Italy and Croatia.

India and Japan were the preferred longer haul destinations, with people avoiding congested hotspots, Hazell said.

($1 = 0.7811 pounds)

(Reporting by Anandita Mehrotra and Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee, Sumana Nandy and Elaine Hardcastle)