LONDON (Alliance News) - Manx Telecom PLC Tuesday said it will declare its maiden interim dividend with its half-year results, although pretax profit for 2013 was hit by write-downs of its 2G and 3G mobile assets in its first results since floating on AIM in February.
It intends to pay a total dividend with a 7% yield calculated against its initial public offering price of 142 pence per share.
The Isle of Man focused telecoms company posted a pretax profit of GBP364,000, down from GBP3.2 million in the previous year, as revenue rose to GBP76.0 million from GBP72.4 million, although this was offset by a GBP2.7 million write down of its 2G/3G mobile network assets.
The company wrote down these assets after it started a project to roll out a 4G mobile network across the Isle of Man.
Revenue was driven by good growth in its Off-Island and Data Centre business. In its mobile division revenues were broadly flat at GBP19.2 million, as growth in mobile phone contract revenues, sales of higher value handsets and increased inbound roaming revenues offset the slow down in pay-as-you-go revenues.
Manx Telecom's 4G network launch is planned for the second half of the year, and the company is progressing with establishing its third data centre.
The company said its trading in the first quarter of 2014 had been in line with expectations.
Shares in Manx were trading down 0.2% at 163.65 pence Tuesday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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