Esken puts Southend Airport up for sale, warns over future

Esken warned over its future on Wednesday as it confirmed it had put London Southend Airport up for sale.

The company also announced that the sale of its renewables business is progressing well and is now at an advanced stage, working with a preferred bidder on an exclusive basis.

Esken said that following a strategic review, it had concluded that the interests of all stakeholders would be best served by seeking a new owner for each of the core businesses through a managed sale process.

"In each case the renewables and aviation businesses will benefit from long term strategic owners with access to capital to support growth ambitions, while offering stability and certainty to the staff, customers and suppliers," it said.

In its results for the year to 28 February, the company said its directors had "exercised a significant degree of judgement in concluding that the group remains a going concern". This is assuming that the disposal of the renewables business completes before the end of August, with the timing of completion and forecast consideration "both significant judgements".

The company posted a narrowing of its pre-tax losses for the year to £27.7m from £35.7m a year earlier, with total revenue up 14.7% to £120m.

At 1100 BST, the shares were down 24% at 2.80p.