Blue Label Telecoms’s share price shot up 13.6% to R5.00 yesterday after the holding company of Cell C said its headline earnings per share was expected to increase by between 73% to 77% for the year to May 31.
Headline earnings per share was expected to be between 72.80 – 74.48 cents a share, from 41.97 cents a share. The share price is well up from R3.33 a year ago on the same date.
Core headline earnings amounted to R679 million compared with R402m at the same time last year, equating to core headline earnings of 76.08 cents per share compared with 45.55 cents per share the previous year.
Excluding the positive contributions of R66m in the current year, and the negative contributions of R523m in the comparative year, primarily resulting from the recapitalisation of Cell C, core headline earnings fell by R312m (34%) from R925m to R613m.
Consequently, core headline earnings per share on this basis also dropped by 34%, from 104.83 cents per share to 68.66 cents per share.
On exclusion of the positive and negative contributions from both the current and comparative years, earnings per share and headline earnings per share declined by 35% to 65.07 cents per share, and 66.22 cents per share, respectively.
BUSINESS REPORT