Telecom plus increases 2014 interim dividend by 23%

DividendMax Ltd.

Telecom plus increases 2014 interim dividend by 23%

Financial highlights:

Revenue up 17% to £245.8m (2012: £210.0m) reflecting continued strong organic growth

Profit before tax excluding share incentive scheme charges up 10.1% to £13.7m (2012: £12.5m)

Adjusted earnings per share up 11.5% to 15.5p (2012: 13.9p)

Interim dividend increased by 23% to 16.0p per share (2012: 13.0p)

Operating highlights:

Total services supplied up by 165,714 for the period to 1,767,774 (2012: 1,488,745)

Customer numbers up by 33,908 for the period to 494,940 (2012: 438,146)

Further growth in average services per residential Club member to 3.92 (2012: 3.72)

Launch of new service bundles

Continuing improvement in customer quality

Commenting on today's results, Andrew Lindsay, Chief Executive, said:

"I am extremely excited by the continuing strong momentum being demonstrated by the business; we have now seen nine consecutive quarters in which service numbers have grown by more than 50,000 with a sharp acceleration to over 100,000 net services during our most recent quarter. This strong organic growth has been accompanied by a steady improvement in the quality of our customers, with 60% of new members joining during the period taking at least four major services.

"Since then, we have benefitted from the widespread publicity which has followed the recent price rises announced by most of the 'Big 6' energy companies, which contributed towards a further acceleration in growth during October to over 12,000 net customers and 50,000 net services for the month - taking our total base to over 500,000 customers.

"The anticipated acquisition of our own energy supply licences from npower, which we have announced separately today, enabled us to keep our recent price rises significantly below the average of those which had previously been announced by the 'Big 6'; we intend to maintain consistently competitive energy prices in future as we continue to grow, and look forward to passing on to customers the benefit of any reduction in the cost of the so-called green levies if this widely expected measure is announced by the Chancellor in his forthcoming autumn statement.

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