POND ISLAND–The TelEm Group and its subsidiaries have registered a consolidated profit of NAf. 5 million after tax for the financial year 2016, the company’s Public Relations Officer (PRO) Joe Dominique told The Daily Herald last night.
The company announced in a press release on Monday that it had posted a profit for the year 2016. The actual figures have been presented to the company’s Supervisory Board of Directors and the Government shareholder representative in recent weeks for their consideration and review.
The announcement was also made to TelEm Group’s personnel in a brief internal announcement Friday in which Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kendall Dupersoy and Chief Financial officer (CFO) Helma Etnel praised management and staff for the positive financial returns for 2016 in the face of the trend of decreased revenues in the telecommunication industry generally.
Dupersoy said he has followed the company’s financial progress as a former member of the Supervisory Board of Directors and, most recently, from the start of the year 2017, as the company’s CEO, and is “pleased with the figures for 2016, considering the challenges that were faced.”
He intends to continue to put things in place at TelEm Group to maintain the company’s sustainability by rolling out new products and services based on investments made in the past two years that will soon be coming to fruition, it was stated in the release.
Dupersoy told staff he will be meeting with them to outline the company’s achievements in the past financial year and to look ahead to what is taking place in the current financial year with projections for the year.
“We are already making some fundamental changes in the way we have been doing business and the persons we have been doing business with, and we are also forming new friendships and partnerships for the future,” he said, noting that amongst these new “friends” is MER Group of Israel, which will be starting work on the company’s massive fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) roll-out island-wide within the next few weeks.
Amongst the achievements outlined for the financial year 2016 are the company’s high standard of completing its financial statements for the year on time; its high ethical standards based on a 95-per-cent Corporate Governance compliance rating; a new loan with more attractive financing terms; strategic decision-making, including the purchase of St. Maarten Cable TV; installation of a new state-of-the-art switch for international and local fixed services; new prepaid platform; new international network infrastructures for mobile voice and data; a new Internet infrastructure; and the final phases of soon-to-be-introduced products and services, including FTTH, LTE/4G and IPTV.
Dupersoy also pointed to other important developments for the community in the past year, including the laying of the groundwork for a Camera Surveillance Project in the Philipsburg area in collaboration with the police and the Ministry of Justice, a multi-million-dollar project to provide redundant broadband capacity to St. Maarten in the event of damage to the company’s main submarine fibre cable SMPR-1, and the upgrade of mobile cell sites to improve quality of service for customers.
Etnel said the net profit made by TelEm Group for the financial year 2016 is evidence of the sound business practices and strategies that were put in place to counter decreased revenues resulting from new trends in the local telecommunication industry.
She said traditional revenue streams for the past few years have been severely affected by free voice and data services, including social media such as Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger, etc., leaving TelEm Group to find new ways and means to sustain the company and ensure its survival in a competitively tough and oversaturated tiny local telecommunication market.
“Our purchase of St. Maarten Cable TV, added to other strategic decisions we have taken in the area of a new fibre infrastructure for St. Maarten, and the installation of a new Internet platform, and our investment into the soon-to-be-launched LTE/4G mobile voice and data network have all put us in a great position to continue to ride what has been a very challenging wave for the past few years,” she said.
Etnel thanked the Supervisory Board of Directors and the shareholder representative for their continued support of the company plans, and TelEm Group staff, the management team and her executive colleagues for their hard work, dedication and contribution in successfully completing the many ongoing projects, realising a profit for 2016.
“I am pleased that we were successful in building a very solid foundation for the future of our telecommunication company, even though I would still remind that we are still left to take some crucial strategic decisions that are pending with the shareholder, at some time in the future,” Etnel said.
She said TelEm Group personnel have good cause to be proud of their achievements in the last financial year and she counts on everyone for their continued support and commitment as the company continues to move forward.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/68119-telem-group-makes-naf-5m-profit-in-2016
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