Turning now to other news about BTL, last night, we showed an excerpt of the remarks which Mark Lizarraga, the Chairman of BTL, made to the shareholders at the company's 15th Annual General Meeting.
Yesterday, 7News attended the AGM, which was held virtually due to COVID regs. Daniel Ortiz has that story on the company's cutbacks in expenses, losses in revenue and gains in profit:
For yesterday's Annual General Meeting, the BTL Chairman reflected on the business climate in this fiscal year, and what the new norm is, now that the world is grappling with COVID-19 for the second year now.
Markhelm Lizarraga - Chairman, BTL
"The lockdowns demonstrated the need and value of fast modern networks that enable our customers to stay connected with loved ones, facilitating business continuity and distance learning. The sudden change in social and business behaviors was supported by the need for broadband services. The resiliency of both our Mobile and Fiber to the Home networks was proven under this "stress test," which increased traffic volumes."
Despite BTL's adaptability to this hostile commercial environment, its business was affected, and the company's revenues fell by just under 29 million dollars. But, operational costs were also reduced by 36.2 million dollars - leading to a strong rebound in profitability.
Ivan Tesucum - CEO, BTL
"There was a 17% decline in revenues, however, the management, the staff, and the board of directors also contributed to ensuring that we were able to optimize our cost, and we had a 21% decline in expenses. And that resulted in a 605% growth to net income of 8.7 million this year."
Markhelm Lizarraga - Chairman, BTL
"Our strategic initiatives implemented yielded substantial savings of $24M. These savings were achieved by aggressively seeking discounts from local and international vendors, renegotiating contracts, in-sourcing where possible, and reducing operational expenses countrywide. These initiatives will continue."
And to keep the momentum going, the management team wants to play to BTL's current strengths, such as the size of its customer base, and its quality of service - played against the COVID context:
Our 3-year strategy is called the Digi 2023 Strategy.
Ivan Tesucum - CEO, BTL
"Our first goal is a customer-centric workforce. What does that mean? Well, that means an improved customer experience that will be done via simplifying the way how you, customers, interact with us, whether it is digital channels, whether it is in-person, and also by looking at how we can give you better value as a customer. The other one as we mentioned was an engaged workforce, and that not only includes engaging the workforce for them to be more productive. But it also looks at how do we improve the way how we do marketing and sales?"
"The third goal speaks to looking at how do we create toppling growth. Our path is that we want to begin seeking to gain a revenue growth of 5% year on year, with our EBITDA margins being over 40%. And what is the strategy for that? Well, that is monetizing the assets. We have invested in the 4G LTE Advanced network. We have 146 cell sites at the moment. We've invested in our fiber to the home network, which covers 90% of the country. So, it's about what other services we can provide over those same networks."
And if that strategy allows the company to return to previous years of 8 figure profits, the management team has a 5-year plan that they want to achieve.
Ivan Tessecum - CEO, BTL
"We're looking at growth in revenues from 145 million at end of March 2022, or in this fiscal year that we're in, to 163 million by the end of 2026. And that will result in net income, in the first year of about 16 million in this year to be ended March 2022, and in 5 years time, to about 30 million, based on a 163 millions-worth in revenues."
The Board declared a dividend to shareholders in the amount of 6.2 cents per share.
Inside its full report on the company's performance for the fiscal year, BTL's management team said, quote, "Digi is the nation's largest contributor in business taxes…Over the past 5 years…we have contributed to 74% or $104M of the total business taxes and fees collected from Belizean utilities." End quote.
