Yatra’s Top Executives Collectively Buy 50K Shares From Open Market

Online travel aggregator Yatra, on Wednesday (September 16), announced that members of its senior management have collectively purchased 50K shares of the company from open market transactions in the last two days. The team of senior management includes CEO Dhruv Shringi and VP of investor relations and corporate development Manish Hemrajani.

The development comes a week after Yatra announced its unaudited financial and operating results for the first quarter of 2021 that ended in June. The company noted that it recorded a revenue of INR 19.2 Cr ($2.5 Mn) in Q1 of FY21 versus INR 225 Cr ($32.7 Mn) in Q1 FY20. The company had also managed to generate INR 23.62 Cr ($3.1 Mn) in adjusted revenue, representing a decrease of 86.2% YoY. 

Besides this, the adjusted revenues from each offering was also negatively affected. Adjusted revenue from air ticketing noted an 85.2% decline to INR 17 Cr ($2.3 Mn) and hotel and packages dropped by 94.9% to INR 1.19 Cr ($0.2 Mn). Meanwhile, gross booking fell to INR 20.5 Cr ($2.7 Mn) leading to a loss of INR 7,95 Cr ($1.1 Mn). Adjusted EBITDA increased by 50.3% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 30.94 Cr ($4.1 Mn). 

Meanwhile, its rival MakeMyTrip too started FY21 neck-deep in losses due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant restrictions. MakeMyTrip has recorded a 95.5% fall in its revenues to $6.4 Mn versus $141.7 Mn in the quarter ended June 30, 2019. The company highlighted that there was a 91.6% fall in revenue from air ticketing, fall of 98.4% from hotel and packages, 98.4% decrease from bus ticketing revenues and a loss of 88.9% from other sources.

However, it has managed to do better in terms of reducing its operating losses. MakeMyTrip reported an operating loss of $34.6 Mn, representing an improvement of $8.3 Mn from $42.9 Mn recorded in the same quarter last year.

The travel restrictions during the initial period of the pandemic affected both online travel agencies and aviation companies, who were stuck under the burden of hefty refunds without having any cash flow.  

Covid-linked travel ban left both OTA’s like MakeMyTrip and aviation companies under the burden to refund hefty ticketing amounts without having any cash flow.  During the travel restrictions between March 25 to May 3, additional tickets worth INR 180 Cr were booked across all private air carriers, according to media reports. Indigo contributed to almost 50% of tickets worth INR 90 to 95 Cr. Meanwhile, the train travel revenues continue to dry as full services are yet to resume.