Tele Performance

Nov 28, 2008 (LBO) – Profits of Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) group, the island's largest fixed access carrier, fell 31 percent to 1,235 million rupees with revenues growing 4 percent to 11,691 million in the quarter ended September 2008. The stand alone fixed access unit, which excludes the cellular subsidiary Mobitel, saw profits fall 45 percent to 993 million rupees, indicating that the bulk of the balance consolidated profits came from the celco, analysts said.

In the 9-months to September group profits were 4,339 million rupees, flat from 4,335 million rupees in the same period last year, interim accounts filed with the Colombo Stock Exchange showed.

Revenues for the nine months were up 10 percent to 35 billion rupees from 31.9 billion rupees. The firm's top line was hurt by a court order which asked it to reverse a tariff increase.

SLT is an affiliate of Malaysia's UT group, though still majority controlled by the government of Sri Lanka.

SLT said it had invested one billion rupees in Mobitel through 10 rupee 12 percent cumulative preference shares and 500 million rupees through 14 percent preference shares, in the latest accounting period.

SLT had invested 107.9 million rupees in Sky Networks (Pvt) Ltd in w