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Profit up 2% on previous year
BT have announced an annual profit of £2.5bn for the year up until 31 March, but said that revenue had fallen by 5% to £18bn.
Commenting on the results Ian Livingstone, BT’s Chief Exectuive, argued that the results showed that the company had “a lot more to do but we are now a lot better positioned to do it”.
As part of the results BT said that:
-Results in line with or better than expectations
-Underlying operating costs1 excluding transit down 6%
-EBITDA up 2%
-Normalised free cash flow of £2.3bn
-Net debt reduced by £1,285m
-Proposed final dividend of 6.5p, up 14%, giving a full year dividend of 9.5p, also up 14%
“Our focus on improving efficiency across the business will allow us to continue to deliver strong financial results whilst making these investments. Our good performance this year is reflected in our dividend which is up 14% for the year” said Mr Livingstone.
Also announcing their quarterly results the company reported:
-Our key revenue measure3 was flat – a significantly improved performance
-Underlying operating costs4 excluding transit down 2%, despite our investments
-EBITDA1 up 4% and earnings per share1 up 22%
-Fibre available to more than half of UK homes and businesses and roll out accelerating in rural areas
-Fibre customer base more than doubled, now at more than 1.5m
-BT Global Services order intake of £2.0bn
Commenting on the next financial year the company said in a statement that they “expect an improved trend in underlying revenue excluding transit in 2013/14 compared with 2012/13”.
“We expect adjusted EBITDA to be £6.0bn−£6.1bn in 2013/14. The small decline compared with 2012/13 is despite underlying improvements in our business performance and is more than accounted for by our investment in BT Sport and the higher pension operating charge. The EBITDA performance in the first half of the year will be impacted by our upfront investment in BT Sport. We expect adjusted EBITDA to increase to £6.2bn−£6.3bn in 2014/15 and to grow further in 2015/16” the statement continued.
BT said that their restructuring programme to reduce their cost base by around £200m per year, with this run-rate largely achieved in 2014/15, contributing to an improvement in EBITDA and capital expenditure efficiency will involve around £400m of further specific restructuring costs, most of which will be incurred in 2013/14.
