27th Sep 2019 11:25
(Alliance News) - Zegona Communications PLC on Friday reported growth in first half profit on improved performance of investee Euskaltel, a Spanish telecommunications company.
The investment firm said pretax profit totaled EUR33.7 million for the six months to the end of June compared to EUR26.8 million a year earlier, thanks to growth in finance income.
A positive movement in Euskaltel's share price to EUR8.15 at June 30 from EUR6.99 as at December 31 generated a gain on the fair value of Zegona's investment of EUR30.0 million, the company noted. Zegona also said it has received EUR3.8 million of dividend income from Euskaltel during the period compared to EUR3.4 million last year.
Zegona highlighted that it is working constructively with the Euskaltel board of directors to improve the performance of the business. This has resulted in Euskaltel making a number of changes, that Zegona believes are advantageous for the business.
"In addition to supporting Euskaltel's performance improvement through our representation on the Euskaltel board, we continue to see many attractive investment opportunities both in Spain and the wider European TMT market. These are driven by a number of underlying trends that create attractive opportunities across a broad range of assets which Zegona believes it is well placed to capitalise on," said Chair & Chief Executive Eamonn O'Hare.
Zegona has made two dividend payments in 2019, with 2.5 pence per share paid in March and a further 2.5p per share in September.
The stock was untraded on Friday in London, last closing at 93.00p a share.
By Evelina Grecenko; [email protected]
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