MORE than £200 million was wiped off the value of holiday giant MyTravel Group after the group issued its second profits warning within five months.

The share price slumped by 36 per cent to a new low of 81.25p within hours of a statement that the company, formerly known as Airtours, would not meet its profits targets.

MyTravel, with more than 600 people at Rossendale and Accrington and includes the Going Places chain of travel agents, has also warned that dividends may be cut.

But David Crossland, chairman and founder of the tour operator which started life as one small shop in Burnley, has thrown his weight behind the management team.

He denied the company was starting to look 'accident prone' after its second profits warning of the year and gave chief executive Tim Byrne and his executive team a vote of confidence.

"As largest shareholder in this group, they have my total support," said Mr Crossland who, together with his family, still owns about 11 per cent of MyTravel.

Overnight, his personal family fortune dropped by £20 million. The company, which had headquarters in Holcombe Road, Helmshore, until moving to purpose-built premises in Rochdale recently, said a change of auditor and accounting policy had prompted the shock earnings alert.

The news came in a pre-close trading statement, which also revealed the company is selling its Eurosites camping holidays business for £29.9million to Holidaybreak PLC.

At the same time, it said late-booking markets in Sweden and Germany remained weak.

It is the second warning of the year for UK's largest quoted holiday group, which said in May that it would be unlikely to meet expectations as a result of the downturn in world travel caused by the September 11 terror attacks. Analysts were forecasting pretax profit of between £80 and £117 mlllion, compared to the £81.3 million last year.

MyTravel said its auditors had told the company it was no longer correct to recognise sales relating to insurance policies at the time of booking.

"While we are very disappointed that we had to make this change to expectations at this late stage in the year, we continue to believe that the fundamental underlying strengths of the existing business and our future growth prospects are good," said chief executive Tim Byrne.