telstra results...profits down...dividends up

....a one-off special dividend of 3c per share....


....an increased ordinary interim dividend of 12 cents from 11 cents in the prior half, bringing the total declared payment to shareholders for the half year to 15 cents per share; a total of $1.9 billion, which is an increase of 36 percent...

Both dividends will be fully franked at a tax rate of 30 percent.

...record date 21 March 2003 with the actual dividend payment being made on 30 April 2003.

.....free cash flow grew by 54 percent to $2.1 billion in the six months to 31 December 2002 as a result of cash received from the sale of properties, improved company operating activities, our careful capital and cash management, and a sustainable decrease in capital expenditure.

On a normalised basis, our half year results show that after adjusting for one off items, our sales revenue for the half declined by 0.1 percent to $10.2 billion, with total revenue excluding interest decreasing by 0.5 percent to $10.3 billion.

Underlying operating expenses, before considering depreciation, amortisation and borrowing costs, decreased by 0.1 percent to $5.2 billion, while our total underlying expenses before borrowing costs increased by 1.1 percent to $6.8 billion.

This resulted in our underlying earnings before interest and tax being $3.5 billion compared to the 2001 figure of $3.6 billion. This was a decrease of 3.3 percent over the previous half year.

Our underlying revenue result was flat, as predicted, and we expect this will continue into the next half.

.... our core domestic operating capital expenditure has declined by $136 million to $1.6 billion and I expect this trend to continue so that our full year investment will remain below $3.3 billion....

....profit after tax and minorities of $1.184 billion for the half year, which represents a decrease of 43.6 percent over the prior corresponding period due to our necessary write down of the investment in Reach of $965 million.