{"id":6529,"date":"2012-02-22T21:47:35","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T21:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=6529"},"modified":"2012-02-22T21:50:38","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T21:50:38","slug":"blue-label-talks-up-cash-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/6529\/blue-label-talks-up-cash-resources\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Label talks up cash resources"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brett Levy<\/a>, joint CEO of Blue Label Telecoms<\/a> (BLU), has underlined the group\u2019s \u201cvery positive\u201d cash position for 2012.<\/p>\n

The group announced on Wednesday (February 22, 2011) a 44% rise in headline earnings per share to 36.74 cents – for the half year ended November 2011 – from 25.45 cents before.<\/p>\n

Revenue improved to R9.25 billion, from R8.64 billion – with operating profit up to R392.3 million, from R251.81 million.<\/p>\n

The group announced a dividend per share of 14 cents, from 12 cents in 2010.<\/p>\n

Levy said that the R72 million net increase of cash on-hand, boosted accumulated cash resources to R2.3 billion at November 30, 2011. \u201cThis cash generated puts us in a very strong position,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cash flow of R795 million, generated from operating activities, was applied to the funding for the additional shareholding in Oxigen; the acquisition of starter pack bases; the pre-payment of Microsoft\u2019s 12% shareholding in the group; and a dividend payment of R107 million, the group said.<\/p>\n

Profitability was enhanced by a once-off other income receipt of R79.4 million. \u201cThe disclosure of the source and circumstance of the payment are prohibited by a confidentiality agreement,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n

Levy noted that Blue Label spent R14 million on the acquisition of Multiserve in January 2012, with the objective of utilising its 169 stores, located nationally, as a platform for Blue Label’s strategy of marketing its products and services on a retail basis.<\/p>\n

The group also said, regarding its arbitration with MultiLinks in Nigeria, that a date is set for November. Blue Label decided to terminate its business in Nigeria in June last year, following the cancellation of a contract with MultiLinks contract.<\/p>\n

Blue Label has a 36,7% stake in African Prepaid Services Nigeria (APSN) through a 72% shareholding in Africa Prepaid Services.<\/p>\n

In 2010, however, MultiLinks terminated its 10-year contract with APSN for the exclusive distribution of its wireless products to the Nigerian market.<\/p>\n

Blue Label has laid a claim for $481 million, but MultiLinks had laid a counter claim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brett Levy, joint CEO of Blue Label Telecoms (BLU) has underlined the group\u2019s “very positive” cash position for 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1656,1653,1654,26,169,1655,1657,1637],"class_list":["post-6529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-african-prepaid-services-nigeria","tag-blue-label-telecom","tag-brett-levy","tag-headline","tag-microsoft","tag-multilinks","tag-multiserve","tag-oxigen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6529","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=6529"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6553,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6529\/revisions\/6553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}