Infratil’s half year profit buoyed by Tilt Renewables sale

Infratil made a net surplus of $1.086 billion for the six months ended September 30 – the largest in its 27-year history, with its financial performance boosted by the sale of Tilt Renewables which contributed a $1.015 billion gain.

“All told, the Infratil group has built 3530MW of solar, wind, and hydro generation capacity and we expect to more than double that over the next decade,” says Infratil chief executive Jason Boyes, adding the overall result shows the business performing strongly and demonstrating resilience despite ongoing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In September we announced the establishment of Singapore-based Gurin Energy to develop renewable generation in Asia with a commitment of US$233 million,” he says.

“This means we are now active in renewables in Australasia, North America, Europe, and Asia.”

Proportionate EBITDAF was $253.6 million, a 28.2% rise on the $197.9m for the same period the previous year – reflecting good performances across Infratil’s investments.

Proportionate EBITDAF for the year to March 31, 2022, is forecast to be between $500m and $530m (previous guidance was $505m to $550m), with the narrower range primarily reflecting the addition of Gurin Energy and Kao Data to the group, together with the estimated full year impact of COVID-19 on Wellington Airport and Infratil’s Diagnostic Imaging businesses.

“In terms of our returns to shareholders, we will pay an interim dividend of 6.5 cents per share, a 4% increase from the comparative period,” Boyes says.

“Infratil’s share price also rose from $7.13 to $7.96 over the period, with an after-tax return to shareholders over the last five years of 26.0% and 19.0% over the full 27.5 years since Infratil listed.

“Over the six months, we deployed $833.8 million across digital infrastructure, global renewables, and social infrastructure, including our $313.6 million investment in Pacific Radiology. Along with our investment last year in Qscan and our more recent purchase of a stake in Auckland Radiology Group, we expect to generate meaningful synergies and reinvestment opportunities from our health businesses in the coming years.”

Included in its portfolio during the period was Trustpower announcing the conditional sale of its retail business to Mercury Energy for $441 million, while its generation business produced a strong result driven largely by higher generation volumes and wholesale prices.

Longroad Energy completed construction of a further 530MW of utility scale solar and began construction of a 26MW distributed generation project in Maine.

Galileo Green Energy continued to expand its business development activities, resulting in a pipeline expansion over the half year to 2.1GW of dedicated projects.