{"id":12935,"date":"2012-05-20T11:25:41","date_gmt":"2012-05-20T09:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=12935"},"modified":"2012-05-22T13:21:15","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T11:21:15","slug":"preview-vodacom-expecting-earnings-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/12935\/preview-vodacom-expecting-earnings-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: Vodacom expecting earnings rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vodacom Group<\/a> says it expects headline earnings per share for the year ended March 2012 to be between 5% and 10% higher than HEPS<\/a> of 656 cents per share in 2011, when the group reports its results on Monday (21 May).<\/p>\n

It also expects basic earnings per share to be between 20% and 25% higher than 561 cents per share, as a result of the high impairment charges impacting the prior year EPS.<\/p>\n

\u201cVodacom Group delivered a strong performance with Earnings before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA)<\/a> growth of approximately 10% for the year ended 31 March 2012,\u201d the group said in a statement earlier in May.<\/p>\n

It noted that basic and headline earnings were negatively impacted by an effective tax rate of 36% mainly due to STC on higher dividends paid and the movement in net deferred tax assets derecognised; and higher depreciation and amortisation from higher capital expenditure including non-cash capital additions.<\/p>\n

For the year ended March 2011, Vodacom reported revenue of R61 .197 billion and an operating profit of R13.696 billion.<\/p>\n

Customers increased 9.0% to 43.5 million across the group, with South Africa contributing 61.0% of the total base.<\/p>\n

Vodacom’s market cap is at about R148.6 billion, and the group announced a\u00a0year-end dividend of 280 cents – bringing its total dividend for 2011 to 460 cents.<\/p>\n

Shares in the group have undergone a dramatic turnaround in fortunes in recent weeks amid ongoing woes for its operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/em><\/p>\n

Having peaked at just over R110 a share on the JSE at the beginning of April, shares in the group have declined more than 10%, closing at R99.86 on the local bourse on Friday.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg reported that Vodacom may lose its entire shareholding in a wireless unit in the DRC after a court ordered the confiscated stock be auctioned in June if a $21 million dispute with a consultant wasn\u2019t settled.<\/p>\n

The court issued an order on 14 May to auction Vodacom\u2019s 510,000 shares in its 51% held Vodacom Congo SPRL unit, in order to enforce its January judgment that Vodacom pay Moto Mabanga\u2019s Namemco Energy a $21 million consulting fee.<\/p>\n

It said in the announcement that \u201cin the case of failure of payment of the amount due to the plaintiff,\u201d it would continue with a sale of the seized shares on 3 June.<\/p>\n

Mabanga started legal proceedings against Vodacom in 2011, seeking a $40.8 million success fee for work done during 2007 and 2008.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, investors also reacted negatively to a price war waged between Vodacom and Cell C<\/a> after the former announced the launch of its Freedom 99 prepaid tariff, offering calls to all networks at 99 cents per minute mere minutes before Cell C said it had also reduced its prepaid call rates to 99 cents.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vodacom shares dip below R100 as Congo weighs<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom restructures to boost operations<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom shares slide amid price war<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom cuts prepaid call rates<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vodacom Group says it expects headline earnings per share for the year ended March 2012 to be between 5% and 10% higher than HEPS of 656 cents per share in 2011, when the group reports its results on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":5766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,27],"class_list":["post-12935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12935"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12993,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12935\/revisions\/12993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}