Telecom Plus Q1 Profits Down To £52 Million GBP
British utility company Telecom Plus said it would write down about 11 million pounds of unrecoverable bills at its gas unit and that it expected its full-year pretax profit to be significantly below market expectations.
Shares in the company fell as much as 26 percent to their lowest in about three years, making the stock the biggest loser on the FTSE-250 Midcap Index.
Telecom Plus said it expects an adjusted pretax profit of 52 million pounds to 53 million pounds ($77 million-$79 million) for the year ended March 31, after taking into account an about 6 million pound impact from higher-than-anticipated leakage and theft of gas.
Excluding this impact, the outcome will be below the level we were expecting to achieve, the company said in a statement.
The provider of landline, broadband, mobile, gas and electricity services had in October forecast a 2015 profit of about 63 million pounds.
Telecom Plus said the unrecoverable bills had accumulated over seven years between April 2007 and March 2014 and related to gas leakage and theft.
The company said it would restate its accounts for the previous years to reflect the impact of the writedown.
Telecom Plus said it expected adjusted pretax profit of between 54 million pounds and 58 million pounds in the year to March 2016.
The company also expects gas revenue to be 2 percent to 3 percent lower in future financial periods due to provision against the leakage and theft, it added.
Gas accounted for about 40 percent of total revenue, in the year ended March 31, 2014, bringing in 257.6 million pounds.
About Telecom Plus PLC
Telecom Plus is a multi-utility supplier based in the United Kingdom. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange. Trading as the Utility Warehouse, it supplies over 500,000 customers in the United Kingdom, working with 40,000 independent distributors, who operate on a multi-level marketing model.
The company supplies gas, electricity, landline, broadband and mobile services to residences and businesses.