Net profit soar 40% as customers head to TPG. The ISP on a broadband high after adding almost 100K new users to its ‘on net’ broadband service and posting a 40% jump in profit after tax to $78.2 million.
Group financial results announced yesterday for the year ended 31 July 2011 (“FY11”), painted a bright picture for the small ISP, which offers competitively priced ADSL, ADSL2+ and SHDSL broadband and domain hosting services.
Earnings before tax, depreciation (EBITDA) also increased 37% to $234.0m – above company guidance range of $225m-$230m.
“Strong organic subscriber growth” in consumer broadband led to a net increase of 59,000 subscribers comprising of 77,000 ‘On-Net’ users, offset by a decline in Off-Net customers.
The ‘On-Net’ broadband and home phone bundle which costs $29 was also singled out as a major growth driver, adding a impressive 98,000 subscribers during the year.
And the ASX listed ISP is also looking to the cloud announcing the completed purchase of IntraPower, whose “Trusted Cloud” will allow it offer cloud services to its growing subscriber base.
PIPE Networks, its optic fibre business has also continued to grow “strongly” and contributed $57.2m to the 2011 profit results thanks to “strong revenue growth.”
Its network rollout for the Vodafone Hutchison Australia contract, which will increase PIPE’s domestic fibre footprint by approximately 60%, is “on schedule,” the company said.
Other financial highlights includes: earnings per share increase of 33% to 10.1c per share, and strong cashflow enabled bank debt to be slashed by $100m.
TPG’s Board of Directors has declared a final FY11 dividend of 2.25 cents per share (fully franked), payable on 22 November bringing total FY11 dividends to 4.5 cents per share.
However, the directors have invited shareholders to reinvest in the company through its “dividend reinvestment plan.”
