‘Investment costs have put Optima in an unfavorable situation’

Optima Telekom achieved an increase in total consolidated operating revenues of 78.2 million kuna last year, and the operating profit (EBITDA) is 76.2 million kuna, which for the first time in Optima Telekom’s operations covers net financial expenses, the company announced.

Revenues from telecommunications services in 2012 amounted to 543.6 million kuna, representing a growth of 16.4 percent. In absolute terms, the largest growth was achieved from interconnection revenues, amounting to 39.1 million kuna, or 38.4 percent compared to 2011.

In the segment of Internet service revenues, income amounted to 86.3 million kuna, representing a growth of 25.6 percent, while in the data services segment, revenue was 24.7 million kuna, reflecting a growth of 13.3 percent.
– The growth of multimedia and Internet services is a result of the focus of sales activities on service packages that include Internet and multimedia services (O2 and O3 packages). In the segment of private users, alongside contracting new users and transferring existing users who already use the CPS service, a special emphasis in 2012 was on expanding additional services to existing users, primarily OptiDSL and OptiTV services. The result of such activities is visible as an increase in revenue from the sale of services to private users and an increase in gross margin. In the business segment, with a 2.5 percent increase in the number of users, Optima has increased its presence in all market segments – the company states.

Optima Telekom’s capital investments last year amounted to 53.3 million kuna, of which 42.5 million kuna was invested in the development of the access optical network, expansion of the colocation network, customer equipment for providing IPTV services, and equipment for connecting business users. 4.3 million kuna was invested in the core network.
– By the end of 2012, Optima had established 276 colocation sites connected to its own infrastructure network, bringing the number of available connections to over 660,000, which is more than 46 percent of all connections in Croatia – the explanation of the results states.

– We played an important role in the liberalization of the telecommunications market and initiated a race to produce higher quality services, which abolished the market monopoly and reduced service prices, with Croatian citizens benefiting the most. We firmly established ourselves as the second operator in the fixed telephony market in Croatia and strengthened our position year after year with the trust of an increasing number of users and improving results.
However, despite successful business trends and achieving the best results to date, significant financial costs resulting from large investments have led the company into an unfavorable financial situation. Therefore, we decided to initiate the pre-bankruptcy settlement process, which will allow us to financially restructure and thus create a healthy foundation for the long-term regular operation of the company – said CEO Matija Martić.

He added that the pre-bankruptcy settlement will not affect the provision of services to end users, nor the further contracting and activation of new users.