Western Australian companies, Mermaid Marine and Amcom, have provided evidence of the buoyant status of the state's economy with both forecasting significant earnings growth in the second half of 2006.
Western Australian companies, Mermaid Marine and Amcom, have provided evidence of the buoyant status of the state's economy with both forecasting significant earnings growth in the second half of 2006.
Fremantle-based diversified marine group Mermaid Marine has announced a significant earnings increase in the six months to June 2006, and forecasts a full year pre-tax profit of $12 million.
Telecommunications player Amcom Ltd has forecast a sixth consecutive half-year of growth with revenue expected to be up to $30 million.
Its revenue growth is forecast to generate record earnings, with EBITDA increasing to between $7 million and $8 million, and pre-tax earnings increasing to a range of between $3.3 million to $3.8 million.
Mermaid's pre-tax operating profit has been revised, and is now expected to be around $5.5 million for the second half.
Combined with a profit of $4.4 million on the sale of its manning operation to the Integrated Group, the company is predicting a strong year end profit result - of about $9 million after tax.
This equates to earnings in the order of 6 cents per share.
Mermaid chief executive Jeff Weber told WA Business News that the company had been building its strong position over the past three years.
The anticipated strong results are based on additions to its fleet and the sale of its manning business.
"The new infrastructure we taken on is just starting to hit the bottom line," he said.
"The biggest news for us is the $5.5 million trading profit for the second half and we believe we can continue this type of growth."
Mermaid's core vessel business has benefited from the addition of the newly constructed Mermaid Investigator, and five other vessels acquired through the Integrated transaction.
Mr Weber said it was an exciting time for the company and that the vessel business was operating very well with utilisation levels up.
Mermaid will start work on a supply base at Broome in the next month to support upcoming off-shore drilling programs in the area, due to commence in September.
The Broome supply base will be developed through an alliance with the Toll group.
The additions to its fleet along with infrastructure improvements at the company's Dampier supply base provide a solid foundation for further growth in the coming year.
Mermaid also has a new $13.3 million vessel under construction which will be deployed at the Woodside $1.5 billion Enfield project early next year, and it expects it to begin making an impact of the company's bottom line in the second half of next year.
THE FULL ASX RELEASE FROM AMCOM APPEARS BELOW
STRONG GROWTH DELIVERS 42% EARNINGS INCREASE
Amcom Telecommunications Limited (ASX: AMM), is forecasting its 6th consecutive half-
year of growth with revenue expected to be in a range between $28M to $30M. The
revenue growth is forecast to generate record earnings with EBITDA increasing to
between $7M and $8M and pre-tax earnings increasing to a range of $3.3M to $3.8M.
Underlying business continues to perform
Amcom s forecast reinforces the benefit of its infrastructure ownership and its ability to
pursue growth as an independent carrier in the data market. With a fibre optic network
spanning the metropolitan areas of Perth, Adelaide and Darwin Amcom continues to
grow its customer base of government, corporate and other carriers.
Amcom achieved strong growth in DSL broadband by leveraging its existing fibre
network reach to provide a broader range of telecommunications products over DSL and
fibre. These services are delivered over Amcom s own infrastructure providing a strong
cost advantage over DSL re-sellers.
Outlook
Amcom expects growth in profitability to continue in FY07. The growth will be delivered
by increasing utilisation of its fibre optic network by corporates, carriers and government
agencies. We are also experiencing strong take up of broadband DSL services from
both SME and consumers.
The construction of the 92km fibre network (Sabrenet) in South Australia is on track for
completion in December 2006. This new infrastructure based-network will now extend
Amcom s reach from the CBD to most of the greater metropolitan area of Adelaide. This
will provide additional revenue to the Amcom core fibre business from as early as
February 2007.
Reporting Date
Amcom will release its Appendix 4E Preliminary Final Report for the year ended 30 June 2006 by 13 September 2006.
About Amcom
Amcom Telecommunications Limited operates two principal divisions, the Fibre Division which provides a range of services over its extensive fibre optic network and the Amnet Division which targets the SME market and principally offers DSL and voice services.
The Fibre Division commenced its fibre rollout in 1999 and has since deployed over 800 km of high-speed metropolitan networks in Perth, Adelaide and Darwin, accessing over 660 buildings. The Fibre Division has established extensive last mile networks servicing large blue chip corporates and government customers in strategic uncontested regional metropolitan centers. The division s networks are maturing rapidly and this is being reflected in a comprehensive range of data and broadband products, faster connection provisioning times and excellence in customer service.
The Amnet Division leverages the Company s physical fibre network to provide DSL and voice services to Corporate, SME and residential clients over the Company owned fibre and DSL networks. The Amnet Division also provides sophisticated Information Technology (IT) services, including LAN/WAN, data centre and ISP services to larger corporate and government enterprises.
