Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/714702
40 Events maltatoday, SUNDAY, 14 AUGUST 2016 HSBC Bank Malta recognised the invaluable contributions of a number of its employees for their outstanding dedication, compe- tence, and ingenuity throughout the last year. The recipients were honoured with the coveted Employees Ex- cellence Awards during the bank's annual employees' summer event held at Fort St Angelo. HSBC Malta is one of the largest private- sector employers in Malta, and these awards are a major initiative within the bank's internal engage- ment programme. More than 200 employees, managers, and their teams were nominated in this year's eight cat- egories. The winners of the excel- lence awards were the following – Customer Excellence Award: Ivan Galea; Cost Conscious Excellence Award: Marica Delia; Best Growth Initiative Excellence: Raymond Bugeja; HSBC Values Excellence Award: Joseph Attard; Protecting Our Business Excellence Award: Patrick Pace; Corporate Sustain- ability Award: Maria Rapinett; Outstanding New Recruit Excel- lence Award: Glen Mifsud. The Finance and Lending Ser- vices team won the Team Excel- lence Award. The members of the team were Dennis Gravina, Robert Ancilleri, Nathalie Abela, Doreen Cunningham, Brian Bal- dacchino, Andrea Gerada, Sonya Chircop, and John Heywood. HSBC Malta CEO Andrew Beane thanked the winners and all the nominees: "These col- leagues are a testament to the val- uable work done at HSBC Malta every day. The extraordinary commitment of these employees leads the way in creating a highly positive impact not just at the bank, but also in the community in which they live and work. HS- BC is honoured to recognise and celebrate such individuals and teams." Coin and silver foil stamp mark birth of Dom Mintoff The Central Bank of Malta and MaltaPost have launched a joint numismatic product to com- memorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of former Prime Min- ister Dom Mintoff, consisting of a silver coin and a silver foil stamp replica. The coin, struck at the Royal Dutch Mint, shows the emblem of Malta and the year of issue 2016 on the obverse, and Dom Mintoff 's portrait on the reverse. The silver foil replica stamp was also produced for MaltaPost by the Royal Dutch Mint and depicts the €3.00 postage stamp featur- ing a portrait of Mintoff. The coin, also available on its own, has a face value of €10. It is struck in 0.925 silver, has a weight of 28.28 grams and a dia- metre of 38.61 mm. It is struck in proof quality and the mintage is limited to 2,000 coins. The coin was designed and engraved by the Maltese artist Noel Galea Bason. This joint product is available in a presentation case and is lim- ited to 500 sets, which may be purchased from the Malta Coins Distribution Centre (MCDC) counter at the main building of the Central Bank of Malta, Cas- tille Place, Valletta or the MCDC e-shop on www.centralbank- malta.org, and from MaltaPost branches or online on www.mal- taphilately.com. For further information, the public should contact the Mal- ta Coins Distribution Centre via email on mcdc@central- bankmalta.org or by calling (+356) 2550 6006/7. GO registers profit before tax of €17.1 million, improves performance Continuing with its positive momen- tum, the GO Group released unaudited consolidated interim accounts for the six month period ended 30 June, 2016, with improvements in per- formance, enhanced revenues, profitability and EBITDA as well as underly- ing customer numbers. Group revenues for the six month period ended 30 June, 2016 amounted to €76.7 million (2015: €60.7 million), earnings before interest, tax, deprecia- tion and amortisation (EBIT- DA) increased to €29.9 million (2015: €25.1 million) while profit before tax increased to €17.1 million (2015: €13.0 mil- lion). During the period under re- view GO increased its share- holding in the Cypriot tel- ecommunications services provider Cablenet Communi- cation Systems Limited to 51% and also acquired 51% of the share capital of Maltese ICT services provider Kinetix IT Solutions Limited. The con- solidation of both these enti- ties has had a positive effect on Group results: for the first time Group revenues include the consolidation of €14.4 million revenue generated by Cablenet. On the other hand, Group results were also im- pacted by lease charges pay- able to Malta Properties Com- pany plc, which was spun-off in 2015. GO's strong results, which are in contrast to generally negative trends in the tele- communications sector across much of Europe, are due to a vision to internationalise and grow GO beyond Malta through acquisitions and a resilient performance in GO's domestic market, with initia- tives to grow retail revenues and manage costs. GO achieved stronger rev- enues from its own telecom- munications business, driven by growth in retail as well as wholesale activities. The roll- out of Fibre-to-the-Home is leading to growth in GO's Broadband and TV client base, as reach extends to new towns and villages. Fixed-voice con- nections have also stabilised. In June, GO completed the rollout of Malta's only fibre- connected 4G network. The enhanced customer experi- ence which this offers is lead- ing to a larger mobile custom- er base and growth in usage of mobile data. These investments, together with the ongoing improve- ment in GO's product port- folio, continue to strengthen GO's position and its over- all client base which exceeds 500,000 connections across the main retail products, a sig- nificant portion through bun- dled services notably its highly successful bundled Limitless mobile plans and Limitless Homepack. Stated Yiannos Michaelides, GO CEO, "GO's growth is driven by substantial ongoing investments in network infra- structure, superior customer experience and attractive mul- tiplay bundles that satisf y the telecommunication needs of our clients." GO Chairman Deepak Pad- manabhan said: "The Group is following a clear and focused strategy to grow its telecom- munications business in Malta as well as in other markets. Our consistently strong re- sults not only validate GO's strategy, as it continues to de- liver value to clients, employ- ees and shareholders, but also clearly augur very well for the future.'' Stars of HSBC Malta shine at Employees Excellence Awards Winners of HSBC Employees Ex- cellence Awards 2016 with CEO Andrew Beane at Fort St Angelo CENTURY 21 wishes luck to Maltese participants for the 2016 Olympic Games Thanks to its extended franchise organisation, CENTURY 21 en- joys a global reach which few other real estate agencies benefit from. In light of the summer games over the next few weeks, this world- wide brand took the initiative to wish countries the best of luck in the 2016 Olympic Games. Malta is no exception, with em- ployees from Century 21 Malta's branches meeting up in Porto- maso to film a feature of the re- spective country for a short video message to support the Maltese Olympic participants in Rio de Ja- neiro, Brazil. The CENTURY 21 Zenith Realty and Fortizza teams got together to shoot the video on a beautiful summer's day, where they spent most of their time running in and out of the sun to record seg- ments of the greeting. The feature was taken professionally by the in-house videographer and was scripted, filmed, edited and ready to go in 24 hours. When com- pared to other videos created by separate countries, Malta's video had outstanding quality and was noted to be one of the best!