B.T.L. Loses $2 Million in Revenue in 2015

Steadily declining profits, stagnant revenues, declining dividends….That’s what shareholders and senior management at Belize Telemedia Limited are facing six years after the utility company was nationalized.  On Tuesday night, at the Best Western Belize Biltmore Plaza Hotel, the company convened its Ninth Annual General Meeting. The financial reports were about a two-million-dollar drop in profits for the financial year 2015 and the lowest in years. But the Board Chairman, Net Vasquez, believes that there is a bright future. But the dollars and cents are still not quite adding up.   Vasquez blames the drop to depreciation. 

Nestor Vasquez

Nestor Vasquez, Chairman, Belize Telemedia Limited

“Regarding the financial statements, which are included in the Director’s Report, I’d like to comment further on them to you. The fiscal year 2014/2015, B.T.L. earned gross revenues of one hundred and forty-three point two million [dollars] as compared to one hundred and forty-two point six million [dollars]—a slight increase we had in revenues as compared to the previous year. Now, all mobile data revenues over the past year increased by almost thirty-five percent and the launch of our 4G mobile service resulted in an increased in mobile 4G revenue by fifty-five percent. The combined impact in the various revenue streams results in gross revenues being increased by six hundred and sixteen thousand dollars. You may have observed that our profits for the year ending March thirty-first 2015 dropped by two point one million dollars. The chief reason for this drop was because of the increase in depreciation which moves by three million; it jumped from twenty-nine point eight million [dollars] to thirty-two point eight million [dollars]. That three million dollars is really what brought down the profit by two point one million. In other words, it was not a cash expenditure. Note that if the depreciation had remained the same as in the previous fiscal period, our profit would have increased. It would have been twenty-point four million dollars.”