TEP Telecom Plus Plc

30 April 2024

Telecom Plus PLC

Year End Trading Update and Notice of Results

Record customers, profits and dividend; customer growth rate continuing

Telecom Plus PLC (trading as Utility Warehouse or UW), which supplies a wide range of utility services focused on domestic customers in the UK, today issues a trading update for its financial year ending 31 March 2024 (FY24).

Highlights

●     Continuing strong organic customer growth (14.1%), against a background of normalised competition and falling energy prices

●     We passed the 1 million customer milestone in Q4, demonstrating the ongoing strength of our unique multiservice business model

●     FY24 adjusted PBT expected to be towards the upper end of market expectations

●     Continued strong interest in our Partner income opportunity

●     Total dividend of 83p for the full year (FY23: 80p)

Financial

Full year adjusted pre-tax profits for FY24 are expected to be towards the upper end of market expectations⁽¹⁾.

We anticipate the FY24 year-end leverage ratio will be at around 1.0x net debt/EBITDA, demonstrating a robust balance sheet and continuing strong underlying cash generation notwithstanding customer growth of just over 14%. Consistent with our restated capital allocation policy, the full year dividend will increase in line with inflation to 83p.

Trading

Customer numbers continued their strong growth trajectory, increasing during the year by just over 14% to 1,011,489 (FY23: 886,579), with the number of services provided increasing by c.12% to 3,127,097 (FY23: 2,798,148).  We have now delivered compound double-digit percentage customer growth for each of the last 5 half-year periods, demonstrating the continuing ability of the business to grow its customer base organically in all market conditions.

Alongside our multiservice customer offering, our word-of-mouth route to market remains a key competitive advantage; this combination uniquely enables us to acquire high quality customers with market-leading lifetime values. Continued strong interest in the part-time income opportunity that we offer resulted in a 14% increase in the number of Partners to over 68,000.

Outlook

While energy prices have fallen from their 2023 peaks they remain at an elevated level, with broader inflationary pressures feeding through into price rises across our other core services in the broadband, mobile and insurance markets. Against this backdrop, our unique multiservice business model has demonstrated its resilience, enabling us to offset the impact of falling energy prices whilst maintaining market-leading pricing across all our services.

As we embark on the next phase of our growth, scaling towards two million customers and beyond, we have seen our customer growth rate continue into the start of the new financial year; the business remains well positioned to create considerable further shareholder value over the years ahead. 

We look forward to providing a further update with our full year results for the financial year ended 31 March 2024, which we expect to announce on 18 June 2024.

Stuart Burnett, Co-CEO said:

"Our innovative multiservice customer proposition, together with our unique word of mouth route to market, has put us firmly on track to deliver another set of record results. We are delighted to have passed the 1 million customer milestone, and that our recent customer growth rate has continued into the start of the new financial year.  

By helping households to stop wasting time and money on their essential bills, whilst supporting tens of thousands of Partners to earn an additional income, we expect to continue delivering record customer numbers, profits and returns to shareholders over the years ahead."

1.         Consensus adjusted Profit Before Tax for the year ending 31 March 2024 is £113.6 million, with a range of £110.1 million to £116.3 million.

For more information, please contact:

LEI code: 549300QGHDX5UKE58G86

About Telecom Plus PLC ("Telecom Plus"):

Telecom Plus, which owns and operates Utility Warehouse (UW), is the UK's leading multiservice utility provider, offering a wide range of essential household services - energy, broadband, mobile and insurance.

Customers benefit from the convenience of a single monthly bill, consistently good value across all their utilities and exceptional service levels.

Customers sign up through a national network of local UW Partners, who recommend UW's services to friends, family and people they know by word-of-mouth.

Telecom Plus is listed on the London Stock Exchange (Ticker: TEP LN). For further information please visit telecomplus.co.uk

Cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements

This Announcement may contain "forward-looking statements" with respect to certain of the Company's plans and its current goals and expectations relating to its future financial condition, performance, strategic initiatives, objectives and results. Forward-looking statements sometimes use words such as "aim", "anticipate", "target", "expect", "estimate", "intend", "plan", "goal", "believe", "seek", "may", "could", "outlook" or other words of similar meaning. By their nature, all forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty because they are based on numerous assumptions regarding the Company's present and future business strategies, relate to future events and depend on circumstances which are or may be beyond the control of the Company which could cause actual results or trends to differ materially from those made in or suggested by the forward-looking statements in this Announcement, including, but not limited to, domestic and global economic business conditions; market-related risks such as fluctuations in interest rates; the policies and actions of governmental and regulatory authorities; the effect of competition, inflation and deflation; the effect of legislative, fiscal, tax and regulatory developments in the jurisdictions in which the Company and its respective affiliates operate; the effect of volatility in the equity, capital and credit markets on profitability and ability to access capital and credit; a decline in credit ratings of the Company; the effect of operational risks; an unexpected decline in sales for the Company; any limitations of internal financial reporting controls; and the loss of key personnel. Any forward-looking statements made in this Announcement by or on behalf of the Company speak only as of the date they are made. Save as required by the Market Abuse Regulation, the Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules, the Listing Rules or by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward looking statements and will not publicly release any revisions it may make to these forward-looking statements that may occur due to any change in its expectations or to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this Announcement.