The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

CABLE Bahamas said yesterday that it was “pretty pleased” with the growth level on its recently acquired Florida business, its president and CEO telling Tribune Business that the the communications provider had already contracted its 2014 growth in the first quarter of this year.

Anthony Butler, the BISX-listed communications provider’s CEO and president, told Tribune Business yesterday that Cable Bahamas, which has acquired four telecom and broadband providers in Florida was “going beyond” growth projections set for this year.

“We have all of our 2014 growth already contracted in the first quarter of the year. We are going beyond our projections we had set for this year. The contracted work that we have will actually take us into Q1 of 2015 and we still have three quarters of the year to continue building and selling,” said Mr Butler.

Mr Butler noted that the company had taken up 44 per cent of the hotel rooms in Orlando, the second larger hotel market in the United States. “We have increased that from about 24 per cent four years ago,” said Mr Butler. “There are about 9,000 businesses in Orlando and we serve 400. We have about seven per cent of the market so that’s a growth opportunity. We serve only two per cent in South West Florida so that’s where the growth is.”

Mr Butler also said that he was pleased with the progress being made on the integration of the company’s Florida operations.

“We closed the final price of the Florida acquisition at the very end of November which was Summit Broadband – the Orlando based company. The key component of our Florida expansion is that Orlando is going to be our hub for the rest of the properties in the region. There is a bit of integration to be done. We’re doing well with that. We’re pleased at where we are with that. Our core video product is coming out of Orlando and actually feeding as far as Marco Island, so the team is doing an excellent job.”

Apart from Summit Broadband, an Orlando-based telecommunications provider, the company’s acquisitions included Marco Island Cable, NuVu LLC and US Metropolitan LLC.

Addressing the Bahamas’ cellular market, Mr Butler reiterated that the company was looking to enter it, telling this newspaper that the company had proven itself to be a player in the voice market which it entered with in 2010 with its ReVOICE land-line offering.

“I think that we have proven ourselves to be a voice player in the market. We are certainly going to be at the forefront looking at it. We’re very much interested in it,” said Mr Butler.