According to Lastminute.com's fourth quarter results, the company made a pre-tax profit of £300,000 between July and September 2002. The company said its total transaction value for 2002 grew 98% year-on-year to £246 million, whilst year-on-year organic growth in Quarter 4 amounted to 55% across the Group. Finally, gross profit for 2002 grew by 93% to £33.3 and for Quarter 4 2002 by 129% year-on-year.
However, this pre-tax profit figures exclude one-off costs such as a £3 million charge for "fundamental reorganisation." With these charges taken into account, Lastminute.com made a loss of £9.55 million for the quarter.
The company attributed its improved performance to the acquisitions of the already profitable Destination Group and Travelselect.com in the UK and Degriftour in France. Lastminute.com also said that the takeover of another travel site, Travelprice.com, will be completed by February 2003.
BT has announced that it is now using the name of Sportal.com, previously one of the best known UK dot.coms, for a new on-line sports news portal available to UK broadband users –except those using AOL – for £4.99 per month.
According to BT, the sports rights that it has acquired restrict usage to the UK. Because of the technical issues involved in ensuring that non-UK residents cannot access the content, BT explains that "AOL users currently have to be excluded" but adds that, if AOL subscribers were issued with UK IP addresses, rather than being routed via the US, they would be able to access the service.
After financial difficulties, the original Sportal.com was bought by on-line bookmaker ukbetting plc in November 2001. Ukbetting bought the domain name and trademark of the site, paying £190,000 in fees and for the technology and just £1 for the Sportal.com and Sportal.co.uk brands. BT is re-launching the site under licence from ukbetting plc.