Macquarie Telecom profit down due to datacentre investment

Macquarie Telecom has announced a drop in net profit by 33.3 percent to AU$7.4 million for the last six months of 2012, down from $11 million of the last six months of 2011. It blamed the drop on capital expenditure on the company's datacentre construction.

The company's chairman Robert Kaye told investors yesterday that the result reflects "a year of investment for future growth, in which we are continuing the expansion of our datacentre footprint, growing our presence in Canberra, and further developing our cloud computing capabilities".

Macquarie Telecom said it saw growth opportunities in the completion of its Intellicentre 2 datacentre and through an expansion of capacity in Canberra to meet demand from the Federal government.

CEO David Tudehope said that capacity in both Sydney and Canberra would be increased in this financial year.

"In Sydney, customer demand has triggered the commissioning of the second mega watt of ICT load at Intellicentre 2, a AU$7 million investment, which is due to be completed in June 2013," he said.

"In Canberra, as part of our ongoing commitment to the Federal government, we will be investing approximately AU$14 million in FY2013 on capacity, networking and software, and product development to deliver to the Lead Agency Secure Internet Gateway program."

The total capital expenditure in this financial year would be approximately AU$48 million, the company said, including $28 million in Sydney and Canberra, and $20 million in business as usual capital expenditure.

Macquarie Telecom's hosting division saw a 9.3 percent drop in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) to AU$6.9 million for the half because it had put in additional staff in Canberra to meet Federal government demand.