Telecoms firm Cable & Wireless (C&W) saw full-year profits fall by 13% after it took a hit on the costs of a revamp and integrating a recent acquisition.
It saw pre-tax profit of £233m in the year to the end of March, as it absorbed £189m of exceptional losses.
Stripping out those one-off losses, earnings rose by 37% to £422m.
Shares in C&W, the UK’s second-biggest telecoms company, fell by 9% as analysts said the firm’s forecasts for 2009/10 were not as strong as hoped.
But C&W, which upped its full-year dividend by 13%, was upbeat about its growth prospects.
“We’re well aware that the recession provides a degree of uncertainty but our current view is that we have a robust set of plans that will allow us to progress further in 2009/10,” said C&W chairman Richard Lapthorne in a statement.
He added the firm expected “a substantial increase in cash generation” and pointed to earnings of over £1bn for the year ahead.
C&W said its results included six months of earnings from Thus Group, which it bought in October last year, and it also saw a positive foreign currency impact on its unit which includes businesses in the Caribbean, Panama and Macau.
The exceptional charges it faced included restructuring costs related to a revamp of its London office, where it cut more than a quarter of its workers.
Its ‘One Caribbean’ programme and the cost of integrating Thus into its existing business also ate into profits.
