The Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) Group recorded a 9% increase in revenue at Rs.47,044 million for the year ended 31 December 2008 against the corresponding period the previous year. Despite a 21% increase in operating costs for 2008 over the previous year, SLT’s interim financial report shows the Group had a net profit of Rs.7,367 million for the period under review, a 31% increase from Rs.5,640 million in 2007.
According to the interim results released to the media, operating profit was down by 11% to Rs.8,199 million in 2008 from the previous year. Taxation was down by 21% to Rs.2,193 million in 2008 from Rs.2,759 million in 2007.
The interim report shows that SLT made several investments in its subsidiaries including a fresh capital infusion totaling Rs.2.1 billion into Mobitel which issued cumulative redeemable preference shares during the period. SLT also made a Rs.167.9 million investment into Sky Network (Pvt) Limited in which it has a 75% stake. Further investments of Rs.50 million, Rs.100 million and Rs.500,000 were made in SLT Publication (Pvt) Limited, SLT VisionCom (Pvt) Limited and SLT Manpower Solutions (Pvt) Limited respectively, all of which are fully owned subsidiaries.
The report states that the Department of Inland Revenue issued assessments for the years of assessment 1993/94 and 1994/95 charging tax, on deemed dividend, based on book profits of the company, with the total liability amounting to Rs.642,986,293. The company appealed against those assessments on the ground that deemed dividend tax should be calculated on tax adjusted profits. |
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