Profits for Hutchison increase following its merger with Vodafone

Profits have now been posted for the first half of this year by Hutchison Telecommunications Australia LTD (HTA) following the recent official completion of its merger with network operator, Vodafone Australia.

The first six month running up to 30th July, which consist of results from HTA for the first five months and a single month VHA’s equity accounted results, recently saw HTA posting $552 million in net profits with a gain of $587.3 million gained from the merger.

When compared to the same period last year where the operator reported a loss of $77.6 million, this period saw HTA reporting a loss of $35.3 million once the merger benefits were removed.

Although the management for the two companies have been working together for the last two months the official completion date for the joint venture between Hutchison and Vodafone was 9th June.

The new equal partnership called Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) has been created by this merger and has placed the company just behind Optus and Telstra as the third largest telecoms provider in Australia.

A total of 6.31 million customers now subscribe to VHA with post-paid users accounting for 55 percent of its total customer base.

The results that were recently provided by HTA have given analysts a good idea of the early performance of VHA, although the figures for VHA have yet to be made public.

The combined efforts of both companies in cutting costs is set to save the new business around $2 billion according to Nigel Dews, the chief executive of VHA.

He also advised that a positive cash flow had been achieved by the operator for the first half of the year and that he expected this to be the case for the remainder of this year.

He went on the add that the maintaining of the Vodafone and Hutchison brands and the integration of the Vodafone and HTA head offices would currently be the main focus.

Source – Brisbane Times