Orange Details Strategic Plan Until 2025
December 04 2019 - 1:51AM
Dow Jones News
By Kim Richters
Orange (ORA.FR) on Wednesday issued a new strategic plan for the
period to 2025, including earnings targets and the potential
formation of a new mobile-towers business.
The French network operator said it is aiming for growth in
earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization
after leases of between 2% and 3% per year for the period between
2021 and 2023.
It also expects to increase organic cash flow for telecoms
activities to between 3.5 billion and 4 billion euros ($3.88
billion and $4.43 billion) in 2023. In 2019, it was more than EUR2
billion, the company said.
The company also targets a net debt/EBITDA after leases ratio
for its telecoms activities of around 2.0 times in the mid-term and
net savings of EUR1 billion by 2023.
On infrastructure, Orange will sell 1,500 non-strategic sites in
Spain to Cellnex Telecom S.A. (CLNX.MC) for EUR260 million, it
said.
It will also create local tower entities in European countries
to improve operational efficiency of the sites among other things,
with the first projects starting next year in France and Spain. The
local tower holdings could be consolidated into one business, which
Orange will keep majority control of and which could be considered
for consolidation opportunities in the European tower market, it
said.
"We are going to grow our core business--connectivity--by adding
to our competitive edge and by making the most of our network
infrastructure," the company's Chief Executive Stephane Richard
said, adding that the company will also support growth in areas
besides European connectivity.
The company said it will pay a minimum annual dividend of
EUR0.70 per share over the period and invest over EUR1.5 billion in
a skills-building program for employees.
Write to Kim Richters at kim.richters@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 04, 2019 02:36 ET (07:36 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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