Results round-up

British taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland more than doubled first quarter losses to £968m after paying out a £1.2bn dividend to the UK government.

Operating profits rose to £421m from £37m in 2015, although revenues slumped 13% to £3.06bn. RBS said

RBS is still 73%-owned by the UK government having been bailed out by the taxpayer to the tune of £45bn in the financial crisis.

“We continue to deal with a range of uncertainties in the external environment, not least those caused by the forthcoming referendum on the UK's continuing membership of the European Union,” the bank said.

It also warned it would still have to manage “conduct-related investigations and litigation”, including actions over sub-prime mortgages in the US, and that “substantial related incremental provisions may be recognised during the year”.

On Thursday, RBS said the disposal of its Williams & Glyn unit was taking longer than expected.

Restructuring costs were almost halved to £238m and the bank, 73% owned by the UK taxpayer, also made provisions of an extra £31m to cover litigation and conduct expenses.

Airline group IAG said first quarter operating profits were €155m before exceptional items compared with €25m in 2015. Pre-tax profits were up to €124m from a loss of €37m.

Results were boosted by a €181m contribution from Irish carrier Aer Lingus which was acquired in August last year.
Chief executive Willie Walsh said January and February revenues were in line with Q4 2015 trends.

March revenue was affected by the timing of Easter and the Brussels terrorist attacks with the latter continuing into the second quarter, which had led to a moderating of short term capacity growth plans, he added.

The group also expects to reduce its underlying ex-fuel unit costs for the full year by around 1% and expects to generate an absolute operating profit increase similar to 2015.

Passenger unit revenue for the quarter was down 3.5% and 4.7% at constant currency. Non-fuel unit costs for the quarter were up 1.3%.