Solid first half puts Eir on track to meet annual targets
The diversified communications and media company yesterday reported a 2% year-on-year rise in underlying revenue, to €666m, for the six months to the end of December. In that first half, pre-tax earnings were also up 2% at €243m, while operating costs reduced by €8m year on year.
The three months to the end of December — Eir’s second quarter — showed a 4% rise in earnings to €121m and a 2% underlying revenue increase to €336m. This was Eir’s seventh consecutive quarter of earnings growth.
Chief executive Richard Moat said he was “very pleased” with the performance, adding it benchmarks well against Eir’s European peers and keeps the company on track to meet its full-year guidance.
Management is anticipating earnings growth of around 4% for the 12 months to the end of June.
“The business is performing in line with expectations, with continued underlying revenue, and EBITDA growth,” said chief financial officer Huib Costermans.
“This is supported by growth in operational KPIs [key performance indicators], including broadband connections along with increasing take-up of our bundled offerings. We remain committed to delivering efficiencies and have reduced our operating costs by 3% for the first half of the year.
“As a result, we are on track to achieve full-year guidance on single digit year-on-year EBITDA growth, as well as further cash generation.”
Mr Moat also reiterated it is likely Eir — predominantly owned by US hedge fund Anchorage Capital — will see a return to public ownership, via another stock market flotation, in the coming years, but no sooner than 2019.
By the end of 2017, Eir should reach the 80,000-home mark in its rural broadband roll-out, well on track to meet its 300,000 homes target by the end of 2018. It is also on track to reach 1.9m premises with high-speed broadband by the end of next year and has reached 95% population coverage with its 4G coverage, three months ahead of schedule.
Eir’s total broadband customer base stood at 880,000 at the end of December, up by 26,000 year on year.
Mr Moat said Eir is seeking to win as many contracts as possible when the Government awards under the National Broadband Plan.
It also plans, over the next decade, to start scrapping its traditional copper landline infrastructure network and replace it with a more up-to-date fibre network.
