Austrian company Kapsch TrafficCom, which has a majority share in the Gauteng e-tolling consortium, reported a boost in its 2010/11 financial year, partially thanks to its involvement in the province's controversial e-toll project.
In its latest available annual report, for the year to March 2011, the company says its business was boosted by its annuity-based services, system extensions and component sales unit and its road solutions projects (RSP) segment.
RSP handles large-scale projects and is the entity under which the South African Road Agency's (Sanral's) e-tolling project falls. Revenue in the unit grew 247% year-on-year, to EUR158.9 million.
“This positive development resulted largely from electronic toll collection system implementations in SA and Poland,” states the annual report.
Sanral awarded the contract for e-tolling implementation to ETC, which is 56.81% owned by Kapsch and 35% held by SA-based Traffic Management Technologies. It tendered R6.22 billion for design and construction of the toll system.
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In total, the company reported turnover 80% higher year-on-year, to a record EUR388.6 million, while earnings before interest and tax almost doubled, also an all-time high, it says.
CEO Georg Kapsch writes in the report that the year to March 2011 was the “most successful fiscal year to date in the corporate history of Kapsch TrafficCom”.
Kapsch says the company can “look back to an eventful fiscal year in which we were awarded a large contract in Poland, extended our presence in SA, took important steps in the US in connection with our continuing global expansion and received our first contract in Russia”.
The controversial Gauteng tolling system will kick off at the end of next month. Motorists with e-tags will pay a discounted rate of 30c a kilometre.
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