MONTREAL – On-going turbulence at its European operations helped to pull down fourth quarter profits at Cogeco Inc. by 16.2%.
Net income for the fourth quarter was $12.3 million, down from $14.6 million last year, despite a 5.5% increase in revenue from $316.2 million in 2009 to $333.6 as of August 31, 2010. For fiscal 2010, Cogeco’s revenues increased 5.5% to $1.3 billion, with a net income of $56.3 million, compared to a loss of $79 million a year earlier.
“Despite the slow stabilization of the global economic environment in fiscal 2010, Cogeco managed to achieve strong results, surpassing nearly all of our key performance indicators, notably RGU growth, both in Canada and Portugal”, said president and CEO Louis Audet, in a statement. “This is attributable to our focus on improving our service offering in Canada and the acquisition and retention strategies implemented in the second half of fiscal 2009 in Portugal.”
Net income for the company’s cable arm dropped to $39.7 million in the fourth quarter, from $44.7 million a year ago, however revenue also rose more than 5% to $324.3 million. Consolidated net income amounted to $157.3 million for the year compared to a net loss of $258.2 million in the prior year. Fiscal 2010 net income includes a favourable income tax adjustment of $29.8 million related to the reduction of Ontario provincial corporate income tax rates for the Canadian operations.
Revenue-Generating Units (RGU) grew by 64,303 net additions in the quarter and by 287,111 net additions in the fiscal year, for a total of 3,179,349 RGU at August 31, 2010.
Here at home, Cogeco Cable ended fiscal 2010 with 1,593,743 homes passed; 2,350,577 RGU; 874,505 basic cable customers; 559,418 digital TV customers; 559,057 high speed Internet customers; and 357,597 digital phone lines.
“In Canada, we focused on improving our service offering with new packages, faster speeds, expanded TV offering and technological deployments such as DOCSIS 3.0”, Audet continued.
Cogeco increased its quarterly dividend by 2 cents to 12 cents (Canadian), while Cogeco Cable raised its dividend by 3 cents to 17 cents. The Montreal-based company stuck to its 2011 guidance issued in July of revenue growth of 4.4% to $1.38 billion.
