Avanti: “2018 results show growing demand”
June 10, 2019
By Chris Forrester
Avanti Communications has released its audited results for the 18 month period, and confirmed that its ’end of year’ would now be December 31st each year.
The satellite operator says that its total revenue for the period was $73.7 million (the previous 12-month period to June 2017 saw revenues of $56.6 million).
Avanti says that during the first 12 months of the 18 month financial period new business was extremely slow as customers considered the state of the Company’s balance sheet and then latterly absorbed the impact of the debt for equity swap. “However, during the final 6 months of the period we executed against our new strategy, closing significant contracts in the wholesale and government sectors, more than doubling the value of our backlog.”
“Whilst HYLAS 4 is our main satellite to serve the government and carrier markets in Africa and the Middle East and has seen encouraging early business signed up since its launch, the consumer broadband sector has continued to be subject to aggressive pricing competition, resulting in a lower average yield, which has resulted in our need to impair the carrying values of HYLAS 2 and 2B,” the company added in a statement.
Revenues for the 18 month period were $73.7 million of which bandwidth revenues were $41.2 million, and for the 12 months to December 2018 were $31 million (the difference being the recovery of $20.1 million of debt from the Gov’t of Indonesia). Bandwidth revenues are exclusive of low margin project and equipment revenues. Total revenues are forecast to increase by 67 per cent in 2019 and a further 30 per cent in 2020. The growth is anticipated to come from Government business on HYLAS 4 and HYLAS 3, once operational.
Avanti has $3.1 million of cash stuck ion a bank account in Zimbabwe, and seems trapped by local exchange controls.
Avanti says that its contracted backlog now stands at $166.4 million. Its declared loss for the 18 months to December 31st was $38.2 million ($65.7 for the 12 month period to June 2017).
Kyle Whitehill, the company’s CEO, said: “We can look forward to a positive future. We have an enviable network of assets, demand in our coverage is growing and the actions taken in the last 12 months to re-focus the business and to bring in new commercial talent to the executive team should bring rewards in the near term.”