Friday, Hellenic Telecommunications Organization SA (OTE) reported a sharp decrease in its fourth-quarter profit, primarily reflecting one-off charges at OTE Globe and in Greek fixed-line operations.
Hellenic's fourth-quarter profit before income taxes decreased 67.7% to EUR 128.1 million from EUR 396.1 million a year ago.
Profit attributable to equity holders of the parent declined 56.4% to EUR 100.1 million from EUR 229.6 million in the prior-year quarter. Basic earnings per share were EUR 0.2042 compared to EUR 0.4684 in the year-earlier quarter.
Revenues rose 0.5% to EUR 1.64 billion from EUR 1.63 billion in the previous-year quarter. This slight increase was mainly due to strong performance from mobile operations, higher revenues from leased lines, services rendered and LLU in fixed-line operations. On a comparable basis, revenues grew by 1.3% in the recent quarter.
Depreciation and amortization increased by 9.1% to EUR 335 million in the quarter, which mainly reflects additional one-off depreciation charges of EUR 34.8 million at OTE Globe, resulting from the reduction of estimated remaining life of certain assets.
Fourth-quarter's total operating expenses rose 1.4% to EUR 1.43 billion from EUR 1.41 billion a year earlier. Operating income decreased by 5.5% to EUR 202.8 million, mainly reflecting the accelerated depreciation and amortization charges at OTE Globe and the one-off 'Youth account' charge in Greek fixed-line operations.
For the full-year, profit before income taxes amounted to EUR 844 million, down 26.9% from EUR 1.15 billion in 2007. Profit attributable to equity holders of the parent dropped 9.2% to EUR 601.8 million from EUR 662.6 million a year before. Revenue was EUR 6.4 billion, up 1.4% from EUR 6.31 billion in the prior year.
Moving ahead, based on current trends and barring any unforeseen developments, Hellenic expects full-year 2009 group revenues to be roughly in line with the past year level, with lower Greek fixed-line revenues and virtually unchanged revenues in mobile telecommunications, as gains in Romania offset a small decline in the increasingly competitive Greek market.
OTE ended Thursday's trading session at $7.77.
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