We also have some information about Internode's revenues.
Internode last filed its corporate accounts with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in April 2010, for the financial year ending 30 June 2009. At that stage, the ISP had 421 employees and annual revenues of $134.9 million '” up a healthy 17.1 percent on the year before. After all the costs were taken out (and we'd be curious to know what marketing expenses of $685,000 went on, given that Internode rarely advertises), the company's net profit before tax was $6.45 million.
Now, let's assume that Internode has been growing even faster since that point '” say 25 percent a year '” there are fewer players in the market, and everyone loves the 'Node. This would mean that the company made revenues of $168.6 million for the year through June 2010, and then a whopping $210 million to the end of June this year.
We can conservatively estimate iiNet's ongoing annual revenues at this point to be approaching, if not exceeding $700 million '” given that it pulled in $330 million in the six months to the end of 2010, and that its revenues will grow again in this current period due to the full accounting of AAPT's revenue. What this means, is that it is possible '” if Internode is doing well, and if iiNet's organic growth is fairly stable '” that Internode is pulling in revenues of somewhere very roughly near a quarter or a third of iiNet's.
There's also this interesting little media release filed back in 2008, which puts Internode's revenues even higher '” at $170 million. This contradicts the ASIC results '¦ but it would mean Internode is even larger than I expected, although they're outweighed by this further Advertiser story in March 2010, putting Internode's revenues at that point at $168 million.
I've shot off an email to Internode MD Simon Hackett asking for the company's actual figures '¦ I'll let you know if he chooses to make them public.
Now for some other metrics.
According to Internode's 2009 financial results, the company didn't have a huge chunk of cash in the bank '” just $15 million worth of current assets. However, it also didn't have any real major debts '” just $7.7 million worth of borrowings. All up the company had some $11.1 million of net assets. This is consistent with Internode's strategy of ploughing its earnings back into building more infrastructure (DSLAMs don't come cheap).
For purposes of comparison, iiNet had $85 million worth of loans at the start of this year '” money which likely mostly went on its AAPT and Netspace acquisitions. It did, however, have a substantial amount of current assets '” $65 million. iiNet's total net assets were worth $228 million.
