MONTREAL – Growth in Cogceo Inc.’s cable and enterprise data services segment helped to drive up fourth quarter revenues by 5.6% and boost profits by 32.6%.
The Montreal-based company said late Wednesday that revenue for the period ended August 31, 2015 was $554.1 million, up from $524.5 million in Q4 last year. Profits of $78.5 million, of which $25.4 million is attributable to owners of the corporation, is due primarily to the improvement of adjusted EBITDA and the $27.4 million settlement of a claim with a supplier in the cable and enterprise data services segment, partly offset by increases in financial expense and income taxes.
Adjusted EBITDA increased by 6.6% to $244.6 million from $229.3 million year-over-year, while free cash reached $73.2 million compared to $18.1 million in Q4 2014.
Primary service units (PSUs), which represent the sum of its television, high-speed Internet and telephony service customers, were 2.50 million of which 1.93 million are in Canada and 571,160 are in the United States. PSU net additions amounted to 48,947 of which 57,746 came from the acquisition of MetroCast Connecticut by Cogeco subsidiary Atlantic Broadband in August, compared to net losses of 9,934 for the same period of prior year.
At quarter end, Cogeco’s Canadian television customers totaled 765,358; high-speed Internet customers reached 704,555; and telephony service customers were 456,629.
For the fiscal year ended August 31, 2015, revenue increased 4.3% to top $2.2 billion, profits jumped 26.2% to $265.2 million, of which $89.6 million is attributable to owners of the corporation, and adjusted EBITDA increased by 5.1% to reach $954.6 million compared to the prior year.
"We have closed the year with results that are in line with expectations, demonstrating our capacity to grow, while maintaining rigorous cost control discipline", said Cogeco Inc. president and CEO Louis Audet, in a statement.
