By Chris Fournier

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Cogeco Cable Inc., Canada's fourth- biggest cable-television operator, said net income tripled in the latest quarter after the company paid less tax and added subscribers by buying a Portuguese television company.

Profit in the fourth quarter ended Aug. 31 rose to C$34 million ($29.9 million), or 85 cents a share, from C$11.04 million, or 27 cents, a year earlier, Cogeco said today. The company had about C$20 million in gains after Canada's government cut corporate taxes. Sales rose 25 percent to C$174.9 million.

Cogeco's subscribers grew by almost a third after the purchase of Cabovisao-Televisao por Cabo SA, Portugal's second biggest cable operator, in August. Cogeco also added more than 20,000 telephone customers, compared with 1,400 a year ago. Cogeco joins rivals such as Rogers Communications Inc. in seeking more phone customers to avoid depending on cable for revenue.

``We're very pleased with how things are going,'' Chief Executive Officer Louis Audet said during a conference call. ``There's a huge growth opportunity ahead of us.''

Excluding items such as the tax gain, earnings at the Montreal-based company were 35 cents a share, higher than the 33- cent estimate of Scotia Capital analyst John Henderson.

Cogeco Cable shares rose 34 cents, or 1.3 percent, to C$27.45 at 4:10 p.m. on the Toronto Stock Exchange. They have gained 12 percent this year.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization from the Portuguese operations should grow between 15 and 17 percent a year, according to Cogeco. That compares with an estimate of 15 percent from Greg MacDonald, a Toronto-based analyst at National Bank Financial.

Portugal Telecom

Cogeco has no plans to bid for the cable unit of Portugal Telecom SGPS, said Audet, 55. Last month, Portugal's competition authority told Sonaecom SGPS SA it would have to sell its fixed- line telephone system or the cable operations to carry out a 10.7 billion-euro ($13.6 billion) hostile takeover of Portugal Telecom.

Revenue from the Portuguese operations should exceed C$215 million in fiscal 2007, Cogeco said today. The company also reiterated that revenue from the other operations will be C$880 million to C$885 million in that period, equal to 10 to 12 percent growth for Canada.

Bloomberg.com: Canada