Sheikh Faisal bin Thani Al Thani, Chairman of Ooredoo
Doha: Ooredoo held its Annual General Meeting yesterday, where shareholders discussed and approved the company’s Corporate Governance Report and financial statements, following confirmation of final year results for 2021. During the meeting, shareholders approved the recommendation of the Board of Directors to distribute a cash dividend of QR0.30 per share.
In his address to the meeting, Sheikh Faisal bin Thani Al Thani, Chairman of Ooredoo, credited the Group’s strong performance in 2021 to its prudent strategy and ambitious transformation programme. Sheikh Faisal also cited several strategic milestones in 2021 as contributors to the Group ending the year in a stable financial position.
“Our solid performance this year confirms our corporate strategy is robust, effective and able to distinguish our performance in competitive markets. We have focused on driving group-wide initiatives to enable us to future-proof our business, introducing attractive new services in the business-to-consumer and business-to-business sectors,” he said.
Revenue increased by 4 percent year-on-year to QR30bn in 2021, with strong performances in Ooredoo’s home market of Qatar, as well as Indonesia and Tunisia.
Excluding FX impact, revenue increased by 7 percent.
Driven by growth in Indonesia, Kuwait and Algeria, Group EBITDA was QR13bn and the company improved EBITDA margin to a healthy 44 percent from 42 percent.
Our net profit increased by 61 percent excluding the FX impact and a one-off negative impairment in Myanmar that was partially offset by a gain from the Indonesian tower sale and leaseback transaction.
Ooredoo Group’s consolidated customer base exceeded 121 million with strong performances in Indonesia, Oman, Algeria and Iraq in particular. Ooredoo Group maintains healthy cash reserves and liquidity levels. Free Cash Flow – the anchor metric for our groupwide transformation programme – increased by 30 percent to reach QR8.2bn.
Operational highlights included confirmation of the merger of Indosat Ooredoo with CK Hutchison, creating Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison; a stronger number two operator in that important market. By consolidating the two networks, Ooredoo intends to achieve higher revenues and deliver significant operational and financial synergies.
The Group also secured a sale and leaseback of Indosat Ooredoo’s tower assets in 2021 – one of largest deals of its kind in Asia, with a valuation of $750m.
Institutional confidence in Ooredoo’s strategy and performance was demonstrated by the success of its $1bn bond issuance in April 2021. This was Ooredoo’s first issuance in five years and the market response was extremely positive.
Further confirmation of confidence in Ooredoo was seen in strong investment grade ratings Group maintained with leading ratings agencies on their long-term outlook on Ooredoo: Standard & Poor’s: A-; Moody’s: A2; and Fitch: A-.
During the company’s AGM, the following agenda items were approved: Hearing and approving the Board’s report for the year ended 31 December 2021 and discussing the company’s future business plans; Discussing the Corporate Governance Report for the year 2021; Hearing the External Auditor’s report for the year ended 31 December 2021; discussing and approving the company’s financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2021; discussing and approving the Compliance report of the QFMA Corporate Governance and Internal Control over Financials Reporting report for the year ended 31 December 2021; discussing and approving the Board of Directors’ recommendations regarding the distribution of dividends for the year 2021; discharging the members of the Board from liabilities and determining their remuneration for the year ended 31 December 2021; appointing the external auditor for the year 2022 and determining its fee.
