Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Clare Chin, Head of Investor Relations at Axiata Group Berhad. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Axiata's fourth quarter results briefing. Today, we have present with us Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, Joint Acting CEO and CEO Telecom Business; Vivek Sood, Joint Acting CEO and CFO, as well as representatives from our operating companies. There'll be a short presentation followed by a Q&A session. Lastly, two housekeeping reminders. You'll be on mute throughout the presentation. Also note that we will end the call promptly at 5:30 P.M. Without further ado, hand over the call to Vivek, please.
Thank you, Clare. Very good afternoon to all of you. It's our pleasure to give the results of quarter four 2022 to all of you. Let me start with the executive summary. Briefly, I'll talk about the group per se, and then we will jump onto the individual operating companies, which Hans will start, and then I will take on the non-telco businesses at the end. Before I get into details around the performance, if you look at the Bursa announcement as well as the financial results, you would get a little bit confused because we report on the continuing businesses at the face of the P&L, and discontinued businesses are just shown as one line.
For ease of looking at the combined results, we suggest you have a look at Part B, Note 13 of the Q4 unaudited financial results in the Bursa announcement. Having said that, these results which we are gonna be talking about today are on a combined basis because Celcom was part of Axiata for a period of 11 months. The results includes Celcom's performance for the period of that 11 months. Reported numbers had a good outcome coming from the profits from the disposal of Celcom, which resulted in a MYR 13.5 billion one-off gain. Having said that, the performance on our revenue stayed re-strong for the group at 6.3% and EBITDA growth of 9% and EBITDA margin of 45.2%.
The profits which we've declared is MYR 9.8 billion, out of which MYR 13.5 billion came from the disposal of Celcom. Having said that, we had a few impacts. The larger one, offsetting that was the impairment of Ncell, XL and a small amount for Dialog. These impairments are consequent to the environment where the discount factor, the cost of capital has moved up on these assets, and also some of the market structure issues where we believe the long-term growth may not be as perceived in the past, specifically in the markets like Ncell. Underlying performance, which is basically on the constant currency basis, was extremely strong, with the EBITDA improved across all OpCos.
With challenge in Dialog mainly coming out of the overall macro environment before the exchange, dollar strengthening against LKR as well as the inflation factors, and continuing performance or not good performance coming from Ncell, which was the ones which pull the performance down. However, overall, the revenue ex-device has grew by 10.3% and EBITDA grew by 11.4% with an EBITDA margin of 45.2%, which is around 1% + ahead of last year's EBITDA margin. This resulted in an underlying PATAMI growth of 20.8%. The underlying profit numbers of around MYR 1.6 billion reported for the year are, after seven years, the highest.
Not only performance from a profit standpoint, but the company also delivered a very strong cash generation of adjusted OFCF. Adjusted is after taking out the right-of-use impact on the assets. Generated MYR 1.2 billion and gross debt to EBITDA of 2.9x. The OFCF came from a strong EBITDA performance as well as lower CapEx intensity. Intensity compared to last year grew up by around 4.1% to 23.8%. If I exclude EDOTCO, which we think is not a fair comparison to include because a lot of EDOTCO CapEx comes from the new build-to-suit towers which comes along with the contracts for future cash flows. If I exclude that, the CapEx intensity was 25%.
22.5%. This was basically came from the operational excellence and lower CapEx coming from Celcom, XL, Robi and EDOTCO. Gross debt to EBITDA of 2.9x, and the cash balance at the end of the year was around MYR 7.5 billion. I'll now hand over to Hans to just, you know... Or maybe we come back to Yes, we can come back. Yes. The operating companies at the end. I'll just jump onto the actual charts on the performance for the year. If I go to slide number six, which really splits between combined results as well as the continuing operations. Combined results, you can see a 6.3% growth in revenue, 9% growth in EBITDA, and also year-on-year strong growth of 2.7%.
EBIT lower here are coming because of our MYR 4.1 billion impairment as well as mainly coming from the MYR 4.1 billion impairment. PATAMI looks strong at MYR 9.8 billion. As I said earlier, MYR 13.5 billion coming from the gains from disposal of Celcom. Continuing operations, these are basically forward-looking numbers from your perspective, which excludes the Celcom, Digi. This is basically what we're using for our future guidance to the market. Continuing operations, 9.3% growth year-on-year on revenue. 8.7% growth on the year-to-date basis. A strong EBITDA growth on continuing business of 9.8%, 7.8% on year-to-date basis growth.
EBIT, strong growth, overall, if I adjust for the impairment, which I talked about earlier on, which shows a MYR 2.5 billion EBIT against the MYR 2.2 billion EBIT in the previous year. The underlying results, which as I said earlier, is on constant currency and excluding the one-off, which is the gain coming from Celcom as well as the goodwill impairment and some of the impacts coming from the Forex, unrealized as well as realized, but mostly on account of the balance sheet loan, which is there. If I maybe I covered the reported earlier, but maybe I'll just jump on with the underlying, which is the next slide.
Underlying results, 10.3% growth in revenue, 11.4% in EBITDA. A very strong profit growth of 20.8%. Growth essentially came from Celcom, though it looks negative 3.9%, because that's essentially considering only 11 months of revenue. EDOTCO, Dialog, Linknet, Robi all delivered a very strong performance for the year on the top line basis. EBITDA came from Celcom, XL did an extremely good EBITDA development. EDOTCO, a great performance. Robi, I think again, a 16.6% growth on a year-to-date basis on the EBITDA line. Even the quarter-on-quarter EBITDA performance of +5.3% has been extremely strong.
EBIT, if I exclude for the impact, which is on account of the impairment on goodwill impairment, then EBIT is grown on a year-to-date basis by 20.1%. Underlying PATAMI, as I said earlier, coming across from, mainly from a strong EBITDA growth and also a very strong EBIT development across OpCos. This is just a bridge to explain how the underlying PATAMI from 21 to 22 gets reflected. Impact came broadly by a higher EBITDA of around MYR 1.4 billion, but offset by increased depreciation coming from both the leases as well as the normal depreciation on plant and machinery, as well as increased finance costs.
I think we've seen that impact across markets with the interest rates going up and also a higher leverage, which we had to take for some of the new acquisitions which we made last year. A tax impact of MYR 127, mostly on account of the Cukai Makmur or the Prosperity Tax, which was levied this year in Malaysia. And others is basically minority interest associates, etc. If I look at reported versus underlying, as I explained earlier, a large part of that impact comes from the gain from Celcom disposal, offset by the goodwill impairment of MYR 4.1 billion and a Forex impact of around MYR 770 million. Was it inside or outside? Adjusted OFCF, which is basically cash flow.
If you look at the adjusted MYR 178 million in 2021, it's moved up to MYR 1.2 billion. As I said earlier, a strong cash generation for the year across opco. Dialog obviously impacted by the impact of Forex during the year. Linknet essentially coming out of the fact that we've accelerated some of the investments in Linknet during the year, which has resulted in negative cash coming out. On an adjusted basis, as I said earlier, MYR 178 million moves up to MYR 1.2 billion. Balance sheet overall, in the context of the year remains fairly strong at 2.9%, where around 56% or 40% of our dollar debt is hedged.
Some of it is not hedged because either it's too long, 30 years bond, or it's too short, which will be paid down over the coming quarters. Local currency at 44% fixed. Debt is around fixed interest rate is around 64% of our debt and floating is 36%. Large part of the debt here looks short term, but that's going to be kind of given the process being carried out, some of the outputs would be converted to long-term debt. As I said earlier, fairly strong cash position. Large part of the cash sits with the corporate center, which is MYR 2.3 billion, XL, which is around MYR 1.4 billion.
largely on account of the rights issue, which where they collected, which will be used for some pairing down on some of the debt and also EDOTCO. I'll now hand over to Hans to cover Telecom operations.
Thanks, Vivek. Good afternoon, everyone. Start with telco. Telco led from the front in 2022. A sterling performance, key lever being cost excellence, which resulted in double-digit EBITDA as well as PATAMI growth. As Vivek mentioned earlier, the results are not directly comparable due to the ongoing versus last activity reporting. In terms of EBITDA, telco grew 9.2% with a margin expansion of 5.7 points to 48.5 points. This was contributed mainly by operational excellence initiatives, lower sales and marketing costs, as well as improved debt recovery, and reversal of some of the regulatory charges. EBIT grew 63.3% with a margin expansion of 12 points, ending at 29.4% EBIT margin.
Resulting mainly from the higher EBITDA flow through and also the accelerated depreciation benefit, where there's an absence of the 3G accelerated depreciation in the year being reported. PATAMI recorded at MYR 1.4 billion with an increase of 43.2%. Cash flows likewise, resulting from higher EBITDA flow through and lower CapEx. The CapEx being constrained to MYR 700 million, which is a reduction of 31.5% year-on-year. Moving on to XL. The competitive environment in Indonesia has been substantially rationalized. We see moderate price hardening in the market, and this in addition to XL's organic efforts in market capture, has resulted in a 9% growth in revenue.
Also an increase in ARPU from 36,000 rupiah to 39,000 rupiah. XL did extremely well in with respect to its home business and convergence, and we're happy to report that 37% of XL Home subscribers are also dual play XL SATU subscribers. EBITDA grew 7.1% with the margins being flat to around 48.8%. However, EBITDA lagged revenue growth with the moderate margin compression being due to high OpEx and direct costs. EBIT grew 9.8% with flattish EBIT margins resulting from the higher EBITDA flow through. Notwithstanding the higher EBIT, PATAMI contracted by 13.9%, largely due to higher finance costs and also lower one-off gains in the previous year.
Cash flows grew 53.7%, resulting from higher EBITDA flow through and lower CapEx of around 10% less than the previous year. Robi had a extremely good year in 2022. Revenue grew 6.9%. All segments performed well, and growth seen in voice, data as well as in value-added services. Robi's EBITDA growth outstripped revenue growth at 16.5%, and the EBITDA margin expanded by 4.3 points to 44.9%. EBITDA's grew mainly due to higher revenue flow through as well as lower direct costs. The many cost excellence initiatives as well as operational excellence initiatives resulted in this growth in profitability.
Similarly at EBIT, 47.3% growth, resulting from high EBITDA flow through and also partially offset by higher D&A during the year. PATAMI's grew at 1.3%, resulting from higher EBIT flow through and lower tax expense. Was very much offset by the Forex loss on Robi's U.S. dollar loans and also higher net financing. If PATAMI were to be corrected for the Forex loss, The adjusted PATAMI would demonstrate a growth of 51.2%, which reflects a very strong performance by Robi in organic terms, at the level of profitability. Cash flows grew 63.2%, resulting from the higher EBITDA flow through as well as lower CapEx.
CapEx been contracting by close to 20% year-on-year. Dialog, operating in a very harsh environment in terms of macro, stabilized its performance, and revenues grew 26.1%, mainly driven by higher revenue contribution from international business as well as enterprise business. Mobile data also grew significantly year-on-year. Following from revenue growth, however, the impacts of inflation largely are driven by Forex denominated OpEx and Forex related OpEx. EBITDA contracted by 12.2% and margins contracted by 12.4 points. Higher staff costs, network costs, network AMCs in annual maintenance charges in particular, as well as electricity costs are driven by the multiple increases in tariff following the macroeconomic crisis hitting the country.
EBIT similarly declined by 90.6% with a 14.8 points contraction in terms of margin. The lower EBIT flow through compounded with Forex losses resulting in bottom declining by 400% year-on-year. Likewise for cash flows declining more than 100%. However, we see the environment in Sri Lanka stabilizing from a macro perspective. We see Dialog's organic performance in the last quarter also picking up very significantly. Provided foreign exchange remains stable, we are confident for a much better outlook going forward. Moving on to Ncell. As Vivek also pointed out earlier, we are challenged in terms of operational performance at this OpCo with revenues declining by 4%. Core voice revenues declined by 11% and ILD by 8.1%.
Data revenues grew by 10% year-on-year. EBITA has contracted by 12.6% and EBIT by 25.2%. Cash flows declined by 13% resulting from the lower EBITA flow through and... CapEx was also contained to a -10.6% . 11.6% year-on-year, which helped the cash flows to remain within the 10%-15% range year-on-year. Smart, very strong performance as always a revenue in increase of 6.9%, driven mainly by data revenues and also a one-off revenue from expired scratch cards. Even correcting for this, the one-off, the revenue growth has been extremely healthy year-on-year. At EBITA level, we had growth of around 1% resulting from the revenue flow through.
We have written down some of the regulatory costs rising from micro APs and energies on a retrospective basis for prior years. Correcting for these, the EBITA also would be high single digits year-on-year. EBIT grew by 5.1%, resulting from EBITA flow through and also contained performance at the CapEx level. Cash flows grew by 10.1%, resulting from the high EBITA flow through, as well as the offset due to lower CapEx, as I mentioned, by around 25% reduction year-on-year.
Linknet, the OpCo, which we consolidated since the second half, exhibits a transformation year, in that, we are concentrating now on consolidating the network performance, replacing and overbuilding the HFC network with fiber and also, bracing to face increased competition in the market from increased activity from ISPs in the Indonesian fixed broadband market. That said, Linknet grew its homes passed by 288,000 home passes to 3.1 million, consolidating its position as the number two fixed broadband player in the country. EBITDAs contracted by 16% due to lower revenue flow through and compounded by higher staff costs and bad debts. Likewise, EBIT and EBIT margin contracted to by 16 points year-on-year.
Cash flows, significantly reduced by more than 100%, resulting from the lower EBITA flow through and higher CapEx, as I mentioned, for the upgrading of the network as well as the acceleration of the fiber rollout in the face of competition and the great opportunity that is presented by the Indonesian market in the fixed broadband space. I'll pass on to Vivek to take the non-telco operations.
Thanks, Hans. Let me start with Boost first, which is our digital wallet credit business in Malaysia as well as Indonesia.
The business did well in terms of top-line growth with 87.5%, mostly coming from the wallet business, which is Boost Life, as well as the credit business. Our credit loan book at this point in time stands at around close to MYR 200 million. EBIT consequently improved by around 18.4%. It's still not out of woods. We still have losses being incurred in this business, which is being planned to be brought down over this year, 2023. GTV grew by 21.2% to around MYR 6.1 billion. We had improvement in the Boost Life users as well as merchants during the year. The EBITDA as well as EBIT improvement over the last year came around because of the OpEx control as well as improvement in revenue.
However, PATAMI doesn't look so attractive for the reason last year we had one-time grant, which had come from MDEC of around MYR 27 million. That is where the impact comes in. ADA had a very good performance during the year. This is basically the analytics and data advertising business, where the profit jumped to MYR 80 million for the year. This is the fourth consecutive years of profit coming in. The profit came from essentially the customer engagement, which has been the SMS A2P business and also e-commerce solutions or e-commerce enablement, which is coming from the acquisition we made last year in 2021, Awake Asia, which has been delivering good performance. However, our digital marketing business has seen a spend reduction by our clients, mainly because of the macro environment.
Overall advertising spends did come down, that has a consequential impact on the performance of this vertical in 2023. However, that's been offset by strict control over staff costs and also taking out data from a data extraction upgrades. That's what has resulted in around 49% improvement in profits during the year. EDOTCO I think was a very exciting year for the tower business. The performance was coupled by both inorganic as well as organic improvement. Inorganic, as you know, we did acquire towers in Philippines, where around 2,200 towers have already been transferred, and the balance should be transferred during this year. As well as the acquisition of around 1,000 towers in Indonesia.
That basically allowed us to pivot away from high dependency on the frontier markets. Having said that, the Bangladesh and Malaysia market, which has been the largest contributor of our performance, continue to do very well. We got colo improvement across these footprint to a substantial impact. That's basically resulted in revenue growth of 25.4% and EBIT improvement of 22.4%. However, profit got impacted because of forex impact in some of the markets where the currency did devalue against the dollar. As well as net finance costs, which came up out of the new debt, as well as increased interest rates during the year, and 1-off regulatory fees in one of the markets.
That's basically EDOTCO performance, good organic development on colo ratio. We are very happy to inform our investors a second dividend of MYR 0.05 being approved by the board yesterday. That takes the full year dividend to MYR 0.14, which includes MYR 0.04 special dividend, which we declared back in December after the completion of merger between Digi and Celcom. Explanations on impairment, you see in MYR 4.1 billion, is what we took an impact on our goodwill impairment, mainly coming from two markets, Ncell and XL. Ncell has been MYR 2.6 billion, which basically we've impaired the full goodwill, acquisition goodwill of this asset.
Mainly coming from the fact that there is an increase in the cost of capital with a much higher market risk premium, as well as in increase in the interest rates. That basically a discount factor. As well as we do see market structure in Nepal not conducive for future growth potential. The terminal growth assumptions in the value and use has also been resulted in the impairment of around MYR 2.6 billion in Nepal, Ncell. XL is essentially coming from the investments, upfront investments and a long pay back come from these investments in the form of cash flow. Which has resulted around MYR 1.5 billion impairment in of XL goodwill.
A small amount of MYR 55 million in Dialog essentially coming out of the current macro situation, resulting in much higher cost of capital, in the assumptions for goodwill calculation. That's the MYR 4.1 billion impairment which we've taken during the year. Our actual results compared to what was the guidance or the headline KPIs we had given at the beginning of the year, which were mid-single digit revenue growth and high single digit EBIT growth. If I adjust for the impairment on the EBIT line, improved by around 10.3% on revenue versus mid-single digit and 20.1% on EBIT, compared to the high single digit which we had guided.
In addition to that, the year, even though showed much better growth than what we had targeted or set up as our KPI, was delivered with around MYR 500 million lower CapEx coming in during the year. That's essentially, as I explained earlier, coming out of operational excellence as well as better procurement outcome with our vendors. Moving forward, I think, we stay on with the similar guidance, but given guidance here is, as I said earlier, related to the continuing business. This does not factor in the impact coming in from from the Digi Celcom in our guidance. That's basically mid-single digit revenue growth, high single digit EBIT growth. Mid-single digit, essentially I think we think all OpCos will continue to perform in line with their performance during this year.
We still believe there are headwinds, specifically in the frontier market, where the impact on the GDP growth as well as the affordability for consumers is going to have some kind of a pressure on the growth. Given that continues to focus on operational excellence, we think EBIT development would be stronger than the revenue growth. Our CapEx remains at the same level as last year, MYR 7.1 billion. Most of the CapEx would go into Indonesia for both fixed broadband as well as the mobile operations, and also the tower business where we, as you know, we will be acquiring new towers as well as new orders coming in in some of our existing markets.
That's, that's pretty much what we wanted to cover from a KPI guidance standpoint. Risks and opportunity. I mean, I won't dwell much on this because we still see macro headwinds. We still see. In fact, this year seems more uncertain than it was last year. Last year, as the Fed was increasing rates, it was very clear, you know, one direction. The fact that the rest of the currencies or the economic condition wasn't very good. We saw that impact of depreciation, but it was in single direction. However, this year has started with much more volatility around the currency, and that's where I think managing this kind of volatile exchange environment would be one of the risks or challenges for us to deal with.
We do expect interest rates to continue to increase, and also the lagging effect of the increases which have happened earlier in terms of the performance of the company is a risk which we will have to closely watch as we go. We are also seeing much higher regulatory intervention in most of the markets, specifically with respect to the quality of service requirement. I think all countries, regulators have been wanting telcos to deliver a minimum quality of experience in terms of speed. Also we do see some markets having higher taxes coming in because of the overall economic situation in these markets. I think changing industry landscape, again, would be a risk. The impact of consolidation in some of the markets is both positive as well as negative to deal with.
Our balance sheet, as you know, you've seen, is relatively stretched, and that's stretched for very good reasons of investing in future opportunities. Having said that, this stretched balance sheet will have some challenges on future strategic investments. We will have to balance well between the balance sheet per se, as well as the opportunities which come in front of us. I think that's something which we will be looking at from a risk management standpoint. Opportunities, I think, we have seen some of the markets getting a bit more rational in terms of the price. I think Hans did cover some of those. We expect that to continue in going forward in 2023. I think we haven't factored in the strategic benefits so far.
We haven't got the benefit into the books so far between the XL and Linknet synergies. I think we should, which we are working on, should start even seeing those benefits flowing in. Also looking at opportunities of monetization of some of the assets in which some of those activities are currently underway or in preparation. I think that's pretty much what we wanted to cover, Hans and I. I'll, Clare, open up for Q&A.
Okay. Thank you, Vivek. Thank you, Dr. Hans. We'll move on to the Q&A session. We have two options for you to pose your question. The option one is to ask your question verbally. Click on the Raise Your Hand button, wait for your name and organization to be called on. Unmute your line and please ask your question. The second option is for you to type the question in the chat box and we will come to you online for that. We do see a question coming through from Ranjan from JPM. Ranjan, please unmute your line and pose your question, please.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah, Ranjan, we can hear you.
Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you for the presentation. I have three questions. Maybe I can take them one by one. First one is conceptual. I saw the way you present free cash flow. Is that how you look at the free cash flow for the business? Is that how the KPI is for management? The way we have been looking at free cash flows also, we also deduct lease liabilities as well. The profile looks different for some of the companies.
Okay. Ranjan, we have pretty much three key elements of our KPI for all the OpCos as well as group on the profit line. One is the EBIT. Second is the normalized profit, as I said. Third one is the adjusted OFCF, which is excluding the lease liabilities. That's what we monitor at this point in time, because it's you know, that's closer to the actual cash generation and essential for us to monitor because of this whole lease liability, the OFCF definition, which has been used in the past, was quite distorting and never correlated well with the actual cash generation.
You exclude the lease liabilities, but that would incentivize management teams to sell more towers and fiber and convert the OpEx into leases. Because for some of the OpCos, if you start adding the lease liabilities, the free cash flow is negative.
No, no, we don't add, we deduct. That's what I said.
Yeah.
EBITDA minus CapEx, minus the lease liability payments, minus interest and taxes.
Okay.
We don't add back.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I think that makes, that is something. That aligns you further with the investors. The second question I have is like, which are the dividend generating assets at Axiata now?
We have dividend coming well from. Okay, let me put it this way. I think most of the OpCos have capacity to deliver dividend. They may be smaller amounts or higher amount, but all the OpCos are self-funded and have the capacity to deliver dividend. The larger dividend for us comes from still from Nepal as well as Smart, which is in Cambodia. The other assets at this point in time have lower level of dividend.
Right.
We see them also moving to dividend, in future.
Thank you.
The only asset where we do not have dividend coming in is really EDOTCO, because I think they're still in a growth phase with substantial investments being made. We do see this asset more a assets for value drive than essentially dividend at this stage of its development.
Celcom.
Sorry?
Celcom dividend.
Celcom dividend, I mean, you know, Celcom, if you ask me, we had set up a policy jointly with Telenor on dividend from Celcom based on not the profits of the year, but based on what should be the threshold of net debt to EBITDA at 2.5x. Initially we will see dividend coming in from Celcom better than what is the what is expected based on the payout ratio of profits for the year because there is a fair headroom as the company has from a leverage standpoint. I think we would expect that dividend to be more sustainable as we go along.
Got it. Thank you. The last question is... The last, again, coming back to the dividend question. The Axiata's group dividend, is it funded completely by the dividends coming from your various assets or do you need to take on more leverage for it?
No, no. No, no. We don't, I mean, we don't take leverage to fund our dividend. It's mainly coming from the assets, dividend flow from the assets. In the past, we were constrained by the retained earnings, now with the big profit which we got from disposal also helps us build the retained earnings.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
All right. let's move on to Luis from Citi, who's raised his hand. Louis, please unmute your line and ask your questions, please.
Hi. good afternoon and thanks for hosting the call. I just had two questions. The first one is regarding any potential guidance on the associate income or the trajectory from CelcomDigi or do we essentially need to have that conversation tomorrow during their call? The second question is just a housekeeping one on Linknet. The higher staff costs that you've mentioned, is any of that due to, you know, manpower retirement or that's all recurring type expenses?
Sure. I don't think we will be able to guide on the income from associate. I think you might have to wait for tomorrow's guidance from the CelcomDigi. I think that's fair at this stage for you to get that guidance from them. Linkn et, no, it's nothing to do with the manpower retirement cost.
Thanks a lot. Very clear. Thanks, gentlemen. Thanks, Clare.
Thank you. Okay, we have Foong from CIMB on the line. Please unmute your line and ask your questions.
Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for the call. Couple of questions from me. Firstly, Celcom had a really strong earnings year in FY 2022, while I understand Axiata will be accounting for a smaller 33% stake of CelcomDigi Berhad in FY 2023, you know, are you still expecting Axiata's net profit to be lower this year as what you were sort of guiding for in the Investor Day, December? Second question on your dividends. Hoping to get some additional color here, given what you just said with regards to dividends from CelcomDigi Berhad. Do you see Axiata's ordinary dividend per share sustained or even perhaps possible to raise it in FY 2023? My third question on the CapEx guidance.
Can you sort of just give us a breakdown by OpCos? Yep, those are my three questions. Thank you.
Sure, Foong. Maybe I can take the first one. I think, as we said earlier, yes, we will have an impact of CelcomDigi merger and our ownership in year 2023 on our net profit. Not because we don't think that company can deliver enough profit and our share of the profit still holds on to what the original profit share was. It's to do with the integration cost in the early part of the company's development. That's, I think, something which we will have to live with for next couple of years 'til the time synergies actually starts flowing in. Net synergies, positive synergies start flowing in after the integration costs have been adjusted. I think that would be a challenge.
That's why our guidance has been more around the continuing businesses, where we still see a strong high single-digit development on it happening on the EBIT side. As far as dividend is concerned, the intention is to sustain that dividend. I think going up from what we've kind of given this at this point in time may be counterproductive as we continue to invest in future opportunities. I think we will have to balance both growth as well as dividend expectations from the shareholders. I think we should be able to maintain our dividend at these levels for next two to three years before we start moving up on dividend. In the meantime, we will also have to balance on our investments in different opportunities as we see here.
CapEx.
CapEx.
Okay.
CapEx, I can give you in XL would be around. This is all in ringgit terms. XL would be around MYR 2.2 billion. Those are one of the large, Smart, Dialog, Ncell, Robi would be in the range of around half a billion MYR each, plus minus. EDOTCO would be MYR 1.2 billion, and that's largely to do with the build-to-suit. If those orders don't come, then that CapEx would not be spent. There will be some part of that CapEx is for existing maintenance, but mostly is for new orders coming in. Linknet would be around one and a MYR 0.5 billion . We are looking at significant investments going into expediting our fixed broadband opportunity in Indonesia. Others will be smaller sum of money.
If I can just quickly follow up, right, Vivek, on the dividends, right. For your OpCos, I think previously you were saying that, for the OpCos you try to aim for higher payout ratios going forward, 50% and payout ratio and above. Is that correct? For XL, now that the CapEx is starting to come down, do we see, you know, more opportunities to bring back cash from Indonesia or are we still really in the investment stage there?
I think our policy remains 50%. In fact, minimum 50% across all OpCos. And the maximizing dividend has been what has been stated policy across every operating company. Having said that, obviously, given the market situation, given the investment cycle, the boards of the respective companies would make a final decision on how much dividend would be declared. But that remains a policy as far as we are concerned. I think XL, I would still be a little cautious on getting more dividend from the XL, because if you see, the balance sheet is fairly stretched. I think, given the interest rate cycle at this point in time, if any, one is they're still in the investment phase.
I mean, if I gave the CapEx number of MYR 2.2 billion. Is still a very high CapEx intensity for that business, as well as stretched balance sheets. We would probably expect them to give the minimum dividend which we've mandated. I don't think we would look at higher dividend at this stage. Prefer to look at investments as well as paring down some of their debt.
Okay, understood. Thank you so much, Vivek.
Thanks. Thank you.
Okay, we do have a question in the chat box, coming through from Sharon from Bloomberg. Basically, her question is Axiata's guidance after deconsolidating Celcom, on a like-for-like basis?
That's right. That's right. It's both continuing business on the base as well as the guidance for next year.
Okay, we hope that answers your question. At this point, we don't have any further questions. Just a reminder, if anybody has any further questions, please raise your hand and/or put it into the chat box.
Maybe they asked all the 50 questions to Maxis, right? Early in the day.
Okay. It looks like there are no further. Oh, there is one? Okay. We have a question from Raman from Khazanah. Raman, please unmute your line and ask your questions.
Hi, team. Thanks for the call. Can you help me to understand why the associate line in 2022 is more negative compared to 2021? I would have thought that with, when deconsolidating Celcom and it becoming an associate, that number should be more positive, or is there something I'm missing in terms of the accounting treatment? Thank you.
I think, Raman, I mean, there's obviously some accounting adjustments being made by our post-merger in terms of asset life and all that, which is... And then the PPA amortization, et cetera, which would be there. I think you'll get, you'll get a better idea tomorrow when CDB, CelcomDigi Berhad, would announce their numbers. Because we just take the share of the reported numbers from their side into our consolidation. You will get a better idea on what are the real changes which have been made in their policies with respect to accounting, which has this impact. Yes, you are right. I mean, the one month, what we got as associate was, not a positive number.
Gotcha. Thanks, Vivek.
Okay, we do have another question on the chat box. unknown. How should we see the regulatory risk after the MCMC launching certain package and done consultation on wholesale pricing?
Well, I would say that it's still early stage. I think it's more on the fixed broadband at this point in time. I think it's still early stage for us to really conclude on that, the impact.
Okay. Thank you, Vivek. I think we don't see any further questions. Perhaps just another reminder, if you have any follow-up questions, please type it in the chat box or raise your hands. Okay, I think that should conclude our call. Perhaps, I hand over to Doctor for closing remarks.
Thanks, Clare, and, thank you everyone for joining us, for the Q4 annual year, call. look forward to, catching up, next quarter. Thank you.
Thank you.