British travel group Thomas Cook issued its third profit warning in less than a year on Thursday.
The alert sent its shares tumbling to a 6½-year low as the company said discounting and higher fuel and hotel costs would take a toll during the peak summer season.
Thomas Cook said it had received multiple bids for its airline unit, but this was overshadowed by what chief executive Peter Fankhauser called a "difficult trading environment" despite a delay to Britain's exit from the European Union.
"With a lot of holidays left to sell across the market, there are high levels of discounting at this early stage of the season . . . [and] this is putting further pressure on margins," said Mr Fankhauser. He added that a Brexit delay from March 29th until October had brought no respite.
"There's no doubt that we have [had] a decline in consumer confidence during this whole Brexit phase in the run-up to March. But we have seen no material change to booking patterns in recent weeks since the delay to Brexit was announced," he added.
Thomas Cook warned that second-half underlying earnings before interest and tax would be below the same period last year. And the company added it had agreed a £300 million bank facility to provide more liquidity for the 2019-20 winter season.
Shares fell as much as 23 per cent in early deals to their lowest level since November 2012, taking the value of the company below £300 million.