Chorus profit steady at $91m, CEO announces plan to step down
Chorus chief executive Mark Ratcliffe has announced he will step down from the role in about the middle of next year.
Ratcliffe was CEO of the company when it was a business unit within Telecom and led the demerger in 2011. He has since then steered Chorus’ role in the nationwide Ultra Fast Broadband initiative and fibre roll-out. The announcement came as Chorus yesterday reported a net profit after tax of $91 million for the year ended June 30, unchanged from a year earlier, and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) of $594m.
The fibre roll-out is 57 per cent completed. The company has recently said it has struggled to find qualified staff to cope with the rollout as well as regular winter weather interferences to its copper network.
Ratcliffe said Chorus’ financial result was affected by five and a half months of lower regulated pricing for copper services. The Commerce Commission’s review of regulated pricing for Chorus’ key copper services, completed in last December, provided a better pricing path to 2020 than the initial benchmarked pricing.
“Ebitda of $594 million is in the top half of guidance, reflecting continued good cost management across the business, and dividends were resumed in February 2016,” Ratcliffe said. Since the demerger, Chorus has invested about $2.9 billion in capital expenditure, with $593m of that dur- ing the 2016 financial year.
Chorus chairman Patrick Strange thanked Ratcliffe for providing a long notice period.
“Mark remains fully committed to his responsibilities as CEO and retains the full backing of the board. I have no doubt that he will continue to drive Chorus for the next year with the same passion and energy that he always has,” Strange said.
The company declared a final dividend of 12c a share, making 20c for the year, after it resumed payments for the first time since the original commission ruling on regulated pricing forced it to slash costs and seek changes to its broadband rollout contract with the government. Its guidance for 2017 is 21c.