17 Dec 2015 07:00
17 December 2015
AVANTI COMMUNICATIONS GROUP PLC
Directorate Change and Pre-Close Trading Update
Avanti Communications Group plc ("Avanti" or "the Group"), a leading provider of satellite data communications services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, announces that Enrico Leonardi will join Avanti as Global Sales Director in February 2016 reporting to the Chief Executive.
Enrico's early career was with Ericsson, initially in technical roles and then progressing through business development and sales to be a General Manager in the Middle East. He was then Head of Regional Sales Middle East and Africa at Nokia. For the last three years Enrico has been VP Sales Middle East and Africa for AGT International.
Following completion of this succession plan, Matthew O'Connor, Chief Operating Officer, is to retire and will leave the Board in March 2016.
Pre-Close Trading Update
Avanti has had significant new order intake during the first half of the financial year, particularly in the Broadband and Government sectors, which will feed into the current financial year.
The Group is expected to show strong growth in continuing business revenue in the second quarter versus the first quarter and has visibility of further strong growth into the third quarter.
This underpins the expectation that Avanti will meet its full year target of approximately 50% growth over the 2015 recurring revenue of $60m. Non-recurring revenue opportunities that could augment this core business growth are targeted and assessed on their contribution to cash flows. This strong trajectory revenue growth supports our fully funded business plan to launch HYLAS 3 and 4 in 2017.
David Williams Avanti's CEO said:
"Matthew has been instrumental in defining our products, in building a strong sales force and developing a distribution platform that now includes many of the most important telecoms companies in our regions. He leaves us with a strong growth platform in place and we thank him for his dedication and achievements.
Enrico has a great depth of experience from an international career selling high value telecoms products and services to companies that are Avanti's core customer base or target customers in Africa and Middle East. He will bring valuable energy and perspective to the next phase of our development."
For further information please contact:
Avanti: Matthew Springett, +44 (0)207 749 6703
Montfort: Nick Miles / James Olley, +44 (0)203 770 7909
Redleaf: Hannah Nicolas, +44 (0)207 382 4734
Cenkos Securities: Max Hartley (Nomad) / Julian Morse, +44 (0)207 397 8900
Notes to editors
Avanti connects people wherever they are - in their homes, businesses, in government and on mobiles. Through the HYLAS satellite fleet and more than 160 partners in 118 countries, the network provides ubiquitous internet service to a quarter of the world's population. Avanti delivers the level of quality and flexibility that the most demanding telecoms customers in the world seek.
Avanti is the first mover in high throughput satellite data communications in EMEA. It has rights to orbital slots and Ka band spectrum in perpetuity that covers an end market of over 1.7bn people.
The Group has invested $1.2bn in a network that incorporates satellites, ground stations, datacentres and a fibre ring.
Avanti has a unique Cloud based customer interface that is protected by patented technology.
The Group has three satellites in orbit and a further two fully funded satellites under construction.
Avanti Communications is listed in London on AIM (AVN:LSE).
www.avantiplc.com