GO sees operating profit of €22.8m

Go plc said today that it registered an operating profit of €22.8 million last year as against €7.4 million in 2009.

However, whilst 2010 includes immaterial one-time adjustments, the performance of 2009 was negatively impacted by various one-time material transactions for voluntary retirement schemes,impairment loss on non-operational receivables, provision for pensions and financial liabilitieswritten back.

Normalised operating profit for 2010 amounted to €23.1 million as against €18.6million in 2009. Normalised EBITDA amounted to €49.1 million, an increase of €6.6 million(15.4%) over the previous year.

"In spite of a challenging economic environment and increased competition, the Group managed t oincrease its turnover from €123.7 million in 2009 to €132.3 million in the year under review,representing growth of 7.0%," Go said.

Revenue from mobile voice and data services remained stable whilst growth achieved in broadband and digital TV services more than offset the reduction the Group continued to experience in traditional fixed-line voice services.

The Group also experienced growth in data hosting and related activities, in part due to the fact that the comparative figures were for aperiod of eight months.

"The Group continues to strengthen its presence in the local market and during 2010 it grew its subscriber base across all main product lines, surpassing the 500,000 customer connections milestone. In 2010 the Group increased its customer connections by almost 38,000, an increase of 8.0% over 200," Go said.

It said that control over expenditure remained one of the Group’s main focus areas and during 2010 most discretionary cost items either experienced a reduction or remained stable. Of significance were savings in employee benefit expenses amounting to €3.6 million, representing a reduction of11.9% over 2009 cost.

During the year the Group had a headcount level of 1,053 FTE, a reduction of 21.7% in the headcount level a year before.

The positive operating performance of the Group was negatively impacted by the Group’s share of the results of Forgendo Limited. Forgendo is the entity that GO jointly owns with its parent through which both companies invested in Greek telecommunications service provide rForthnet S.A.

As at 31 December 2010 Forgendo held 40.99% of Forthnet’s share capital. During the year under review the investment in Forgendo negatively impacted Group results by €28.3million. During 2010 Forthnet’s performance suffered as a result of the economic environmen tcurrently prevailing in Greece.

"Whilst the company continued to grow its telecommunicationsbusiness, this growth did not make up for the reduced profitability of the TV business.Furthermore, both Forthnet and Forgendo recognised impairment losses on the value of their investment as this has been revalued to reflect the current Greek economic environment and its impact on the company’s outlook," Go said.

The Go Group recorded a loss before taxation amounting to €9.1 million (2009: €3.2 million).Loss per share amounted to €0.19 (2009: €0.07).

The Board of Directors is recommending the payment of a final dividend of €0.05 net of tax pershare for the approval of the shareholders at the next Annual General Meeting to be held on 8June 2011 which dividend will be payable on 11 June 2011.

This net dividend will be payable toshareholders who will be on the register of shareholders as at 9 May 2011