29th Oct 2020 09:25
(Alliance News) - BT Group PLC on Thursday announced it will withhold its interim dividend after losing a fifth of its profit in the first half, but remains positive going forward, as reflected in the company upping its full-year guidance.
The London-based FTSE 100 telecommunications firm posted a pretax profit in the first half to September 30 of GBP1.06 billion, narrowing 20% from GBP1.33 billion a year prior. The company said this was mainly due to a reduced earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation.
Adjusted Ebitda fell 5.1% to GBP3.72 billion from GBP3.92 billion a year before.
Revenue was down 8.3% to GBP10.59 billion from GBP11.47 billion a year before. BT Group said this was primarily due to the impact of Covid-19 with the BT Sport division having suffered particularly from the decline in live sport.
Chief Executive Philip Jansen said: "BT delivered financial results in-line with expectations for the first half of the year, thanks to strong operational performance during exceptional circumstances. Customer demand during the pandemic has shown how critical our networks have become, and our significant network investments have helped us double the number of Openreach's fibre to the premises orders compared to this time last year and have seen our leading 5G network expand to 112 towns and cities across the UK."
BT Group did not declare an interim dividend, compared to the 4.62 pence paid theyear prior.
BT Group has raised the lower end of its Ebitda outlook range for the year to GBP7.3 billion, with the revised range now between GBP7.3 billion and GBP7.5 billion.
BT Group expects an Ebitda for the 2022 financial year of at least GBP7.9 billion.
"This growth will be driven by the continued recovery from Covid-19, enhanced by sales of our converged and growth products, and by significant savings from our modernisation and cost saving programme," Jansen said.
The company's "modernisation programme" delivered GBP352 million in gross annualised savings at a cost of GBP163 million. Announced in 2018, the programme plans to cut 13,000 jobs, in the three years following the announcement, from its approximately 106,000-strong workforce, The Guardian reported in 2018.
BT Group shares were were up 6.5% At 108.25 pence each in London on Thursday morning.
By Greg Roxburgh; [email protected]
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