Cable & Wireless Seychelles hosts 2023 AGM |02 May 2023

• R127.5 million to be paid as dividend

Shareholders of Cable and Wireless Seychelles (CWS) have agreed to pay the sum of R127.5 million as dividend with each share receiving R21.25.

This came out during the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) held on Saturday April 29, 2023 at the International Conference Centre Seychelles.

It was the first public AGM hosted by the telecommunications provider after being listed on the MERJ Exchange. It was an opportunity for the company to engage with its new shareholders for the first time.

The company’s chairman, Andrew Bainbridge, provided an overview and reported on CWS’ accomplishments for the year 2022.

He noted that, throughout the pandemic, Cable and Wireless, did not take a penny of public sector support, did not lay off a single colleague and contributed 50% of the cost, alongside the Seychelles Pension Fund, of the purchase cost of the first PCR testing equipment for the country.

“We upgraded our 2G platform last year, reducing the incidence of call dropping in more remote areas. We also increased the number of 5G sites from 12 to 26 and both of these are evidence of the strong capital investment into the future of the business and the quality of customer service that we think is critical to our future success,” shared Mr Bainbridge.

He also spoke about the expansion of physical network of customer service centres, making it easier for clients to do business with them, and the introduction of their new unlimited packages, which were big steps forward in terms of offerings to their customers.

The director of Finance, Petros Kambadzo, presented the 2022 financial statements and elaborated on the company’s financial position and decisions that were made in the past year.

In his speech, the chief executive of CWS, Georges D’Offay, stated that they are thankful to their customers for continuously pushing them further as CWS strives to meet their demands, especially now that telecom services are no longer a luxury but more of an essential service.

Mr D’Offay added that delivering the highest level of customer experience is one of the company’s main strategic pillars and that he was grateful to all those who have entrusted their faith into the company, particularly the CWS employees who also make up the shareholder base. Ultimately, CWS remains committed to delivering on their financial and strategic objectives and providing value to all their shareholders.

“One of our biggest drivers and accomplishments has been the implementation of our fibre roll-out and our coverage expansion plans. We are nearly at 100% completion on our three principal islands and which will generate a higher quality service for customers by reducing dropped calls and providing more network accessibility as we want to provide better value for money. I would like to point out that this development goes hand in hand with better customer services, an increased number of customer centres in districts as we wanted to move closer to our customers,” stated Mr D’Offay.

To note during the course of 2022, CWS board saw the resignation of two directors due to other responsibilities – Jamshed Pardiwalla and Francis Chang-Leng. New directors joined the board, with Rohit Khanna, Michael Awori, Mr D’Offay, and Annabelle Pillay as new members of the board of directors prior to their listing on MERJ. The board also has two advisors – John Ndego and Joram Madnack.

The other directors who have maintained their post are Marc Houareau, Jacquelin Dugasse and  Gregory Albert.

Vidya Gappy

Photos contributed