GreenPacket P1: Loses due to WIMAX Investments

strawberrypear — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:48:05 +0800

PETALING JAYA: Green Packet Bhd saw a net loss of RM55 million for the year ended Dec 31, 2008 (FY08), from a net profit of RM30.2 million a year earlier due to its investments in its WiMAX business, its managing director and chief executive Puan Chan Cheong said.

Speaking to reporters in a media briefing here yesterday, he said the company would incur total capital expenditure (capex) of RM1 billion over a four-year period beginning last year to establish its place as a WiMAX service provider. Puan said that the investments, which will be a major contributor in the future, would start to see results in the current financial year ending December this year.

“Currently we are having more than 15% coverage and are planning to reach 40% by end of the year. The phase one rollout will have about 600 sites. Contracts worth some US$72 million (RM259.2 million) have been awarded to Alcatel-Lucent. We hope to award the second phase with another 400 sites before end of this quarter (March),” he said.

The two phases, costing about RM450 million, would see the company build 1,000 sites out of which 700 will be built before the end of this year and another 300 next year. The balance of the capex will be used in 2010 and 2011.

“We have the cash ready for it and we also see cash flow coming in. We estimate the peak funding to be around RM750 million, and hence we still require about RM250 million. We planned to fund either through raising capital or by bank loan where we have steady cash flow where we can demonstrate,” he said, adding that the project would include sites building in the two capital cities of Sabah and Sarawak by the second half of this year.

As at Dec 31, 2008, the company had cash of RM280.8 million and bank facilities available of RM38.1 million.

The Sinking Of Japan

strawberrypear — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:13:50 +0800

NEC Corporation has started a trend that will forever change Japan. The nation's largest personal computer maker said at the end of last month it would fire more than 20 000 employees.

That announcement would have been shocking enough had it not opened the floodgates. Since then, Panasonic has said it would cut 15 000 jobs, while Nissan Motor is slashing 20 000.

Even during the darkest days of the 1990s - deflation, bank failures, public bailouts - firms avoided mass lay-offs.

NEC's precedent seems to have made it fashionable to do just that.

What's next? Sony firing 50 000 people in Tokyo? The psychological blow to already sceptical Japanese consumers is sure to deepen the recession at a speed few thought remotely possible just two months ago.

"Japan's recent economic decline is faster than that of the US, which has been experiencing its worst financial crisis in a century," Kazuo Momma, the head of research and statistics at the Bank of Japan, said on Monday.

Momma said the world's second-largest economy might have shrunk at an "unimaginable" speed last quarter.

Gross domestic product plunged at an annual 11.7 percent pace in the fourth quarter of last year. That would be the steepest decline since 1974.

There would be only one way to describe such a figure: Wow!

Remember Japan was supposed to avoid the worst of the global credit crisis. Its cash-rich banks were expected to help recapitalise Wall Street. Its firms were set to go on a merger-and-acquisitions tear.

Now, prospects for Japan are sinking like, well, the Titanic.

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSection...ticleId=4842309

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GreenPacket P1: Loses due to WIMAX Investments

The Sinking Of Japan