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BigAir First Post-IPO Result A Ripper |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Thursday, 14 September 2006 |
The fixed wireless broadband carrier and mobile wireless
broadband reseller posted its first end of year results after floating on the
Australian Stock Exchange in April. Growing partly through acquisition, the
company has delivered investors revenue growth in excess of 1100%.
That's a nice number for CEO Jason Ashton to bring down for
the first year as a public company, but the real number that matters is probably
the Gross Profit increase of 419 per cent to $2 million.
That was well gobbled up in float and acquisition costs
driving EBITDA loss to A$1.07, but that's 15 per cent better than last year's
pre-float loss for the company of $1.25 million.
Consolidated revenues of A$6.9 million were above guidance
and represent an increase for the year of 1132 per cent.
This thanks to a 150 per cent increase in subscriber numbers
in part driven by the A$1.5 million in acquisitions the company made since its
share capital injection.
A major component of this revenue growth was related to the
acquisition of the Veritel Wireless business during the year which was acquired
as at 1st July 2005. After net proceeds of A$6.3 million from the IPO capital
raising, the company still had in excess of $5 million in cash at 30 June 2006,
despite investing more than A$1.5 million during the year on capital equipment
and acquisitions.
In addition to the Veritel buyout,
BigAir made a IPO-delaying acquisition of OzEmail's
iBurst subscriber list, bought WHome giving it access
to high rise apartmenrts predominantly in Sydney and Melbourne and acquired the
iBurst subscribers from Pacific Internet
subsidiary T3 in June 2006.
The acquisitions have given the company considerable critical
mass in the mobile Internet reseller market, bolstering its fixed wireless
network roll-out which targets mainly business customers in outer metro areas
of Sydney.
Subscriber numbers increased 150 per cent for the year, to
more than 10,000 as at July 2006 positioning it well in wireless broadband -
one of the fastest growing segments of the telecommunications industry.
BigAir Group CEO, Jason Ashton in commenting on the result
said "Having successfully bedded down four acquisitions and expanded our
customer base by 150 per cent over the past year, the company is exceptionally
well positioned to build a major presence in the wireless broadband
market."
BigAir is the only Australian wireless provider that offers
both high speed business-grade fixed wireless services and mobile wireless data
services. Since BigAir controls its own network, it owns the critical
"last mile" customer connection and is wholly independent of
Telstra's network infrastructure and associated costs.
In the current year the company says it expects to boost its
penetration of the Sydney commercial market for high speed broadband, further
develop the residential broadband opportunity provided by its WHome business
unit, review the roll-out opportunities for its wireless network infrastructure
and business model in other capital cities and to consider further targeted
acquisitions.
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