Posted: 03/07/2012The 2011 Annual Report of the JT Group is published today. For the financial year ended 31st December 2011, Group turnover was £107.9m, breaking the £100m threshold for the first time in the Group’s history. Profit before tax was £14.9m (£11.7m in 2010). A dividend of £6.1m (£4.5m in 2010) was paid to the Group’s shareholder, the States of Jersey.
JT Group Chairman John Boothman commented:
“Trading conditions continue to be challenging, but I’m very proud of what the team at JT has achieved as a local company within what is a highly competitive environment. As our financial results for 2011 show, JT has grown its turnover, profit before tax and the level of dividend we are able to return to our shareholder the States of Jersey. I would like to congratulate the staff and management team at JT on those achievements, and to thank our clients in the Channel Islands, and worldwide, for their continued support”.
In 2011 the JT Group took very significant steps towards achieving its current business strategy, which runs until 2016.
Perhaps most notably in 2011 was the development of a new point-to-point fibre-optic broadband network which is currently being installed with the support and cooperation of the States of Jersey, and which enabled the creation of a large number of new jobs. The first homes were connected to the new network in 2011, and JT published the ‘roll-out’ plan which will provide every address in Jersey with access to a fibre connection by 2015.
JT Group CEO, Graeme Millar, commented:
“2011 was a successful year in the history of the company, and a vital step forward in our five year strategy for growth; I would like to thank all my staff for their hard work and commitment to making that success happen. Perhaps most centrally, the £40m Gigabit Isles initiative will support our vision of turning the Channel Islands into a telecommunications hub for Europe, and put them well ahead of their global competitors; in this way it looks set to be a key factor in future economic growth. JT is very proud to be an integral part of that future economic strategy.”
2011 saw JT nearing completion of the £11m Next Generation Network project to replace the previous ‘System X’, which has served the Island since the 1980s. Connection to the NGN significantly improves the services available to customers, as well as the quality of their broadband connections, with the vast majority now being able to access speeds of up to 20Mb/s.
JT also invested once again in its mobile offering. By the end of the financial year it was well on the way to launching sites in Jersey and Guernsey to provide some of the fastest data speeds in the world.
One of our major recent acquisitions, eKit.com Inc, was fully integrated into the JT business through 2011, with the result that JT became a regulated telecommunications provider in the USA. That acquisition delivered a range of benefits for our customers such as a new international number product which reduces roaming charges. JT’s integration of eKit.com Inc also enabled a further acquisition, this time of a company called GO-SIM, which will help JT to provide innovative new roaming products.
JT continues to invest heavily in the talents of its workforce. The acquisition of ekit (which has offices in London, Melbourne and Boston) created new openings for staff across the globe. JT signed up the first three new apprentices in 2011, as well as providing bursaries to local students taking science or technology related degrees in the UK. Along with a new graduate scheme, these initiatives are a vital part of JT’s objective of being included in the UK’s top 100 ‘Best Companies’ to work for.
In March 2011, the then Assistant Minister of Economic Development, Senator Paul Routier, opened JT’s new state-of-the-art data centre at La Rue des Pres, making it the largest provider of data hosting services in the Channel Islands with six centres offering a total of seven hundred racks of equipment, following a £15m investment in this sector.
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