Why is Telstra (ASX:TLS) in news?

Highlights:

• Australian telco Telstra has released insights from its 2022 Annual General Meeting.
• The company looks back at its FY22 results, also announces the FY23 guidance.
• Telstra shares were spotted trading in the green zone after the ASX announcement.

Australian telecommunications company Telstra Corporation Limited (ASX:TLS) released the insights from its 2022 Annual General Meeting today (11 October 2022).

The shares of the company closed trading 0.261% higher at AU$3.830 apiece on ASX today.  

As per the company’s release, the agenda of this meeting revolved around Telstra’s corporate restructuring. The restructuring was a crucial element of Telstra’s T22 plan and continues to be so in its recently unveiled T25 strategy. This restructuring scheme is also a critical next step in the company’s effort to improve management focus on infrastructure and customer businesses while increasing the transparency of infrastructure assets. The release stated that this movement will give Telstra more flexibility in order to add more value to its shareholders in the future.

A glance at Telstra Telco’s T22 strategy

Telstra’s announcement on ASX mentions that the T22 strategy (launched 4 years ago) results were beyond expectations. Below are a few key achievements of the company under T22:

• Telstra was able to eliminate the frustrating lock-in contracts, excess data, and other related costs while cutting the number of in-market products and services available to its customers from 1,800 to just 20.
• The company states that its 5G network, which serves 80% of the population, is one of the biggest and fastest in Australia. Telstra’s entire network now spans more than 2.6 million square kilometres and reaches 99.5% of all Australians after being updated and digitalised.
• Telstra has added 1,500 new employees, enhancing its cyber security The company stopped more than 1 billion fraudulent emails and 200 million scam calls in the past year alone.

As the company marked the end of its T22 program, Telstra also shared its FY22 results.

A sneak peek into Telstra’s FY23 guidance

According to Telstra’s release, Digicel Pacific (completed in July) is included in the guidance for all metrics; the underlying EBITDA forecast will include a contribution from Digicel Pacific in addition to the company’s FY23 goal. Capex guidance, on the other hand, will include an increase in mobile investment, about AU$150 million for Digicel Pacific, and approximately AU$350 million in strategic outside-of-BAU investment for multiple infrastructure projects.

The company also plans to anticipate maintaining solid cash flow for allowing it to make growth investments and reward its shareholders. At the midpoint of the guidance, free cashflow in FY23 is anticipated to be around AU$1.1 billion lower than in FY22.

FY23 Guidance: