29th Jul 2015 06:18
LONDON (Alliance News) - Sky PLC Wednesday sweetened its full year dividend as it posted a rise in pretax profit, a year after it agreed to acquire Sky Italia and a majority stake in Sky Deutschland and change its name from British Sky Broadcasting.
Sky posted a pretax profit of GBP1.52 billion for the year to end-June, up from GBP1.03 billion a year before, as revenue rose to GBP9.99 billion from GBP7.45 billion. The reported results include Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland following their acquisition in November.
On an adjusted basis, including the results of the Italian and German business for the full year and at constant currency, pretax profit rose to GBP1.20 billion, up from GBP1.13 billion a year before, on revenue of GBP11.28 billion, up from GBP10.78 billion.
According to consensus forecasts of 20 analysts provided by the company, analysts expected it to post group revenue of GBP11.3 billion.
The company proposed a final dividend of 20.5 pence, which takes its total dividend for the year to 32.8 pence, up from 32.0 pence a year before.
Sky said that across its five territories, being the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy, it added just under a million new customers during the year, 45% more than in the previous year. This included 158,000 new customers in the fourth quarter.
The company said its integration of the Italian and German businesses is proceeding well, and it is on track to hit its target of GBP200 million in run-rate synergies as it exits the financial year 2017.
"The past 12 months have been an outstanding period of growth for Sky. We've successfully completed a deal that has transformed the size and scale of opportunity for the business whilst delivering an excellent financial and operational performance as more customers chose Sky and took more of our products," said Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Darroch in a statement.
"Looking ahead, we see an expanded opportunity for growth by serving the market broadly with multiple products and services. The investments we have made have given us a strong platform on which to build and we have a clear set of plans to deliver long-term growth and returns for our shareholders," Darroch added.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
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