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LONDON (Alliance News) - HICL Infrastructure Co Ltd on Wednesday reported a fall in pretax profit, but said its performance over its financial year had been "ahead of plan", reflecting rises in investment valuations and a strong portfolio performance.
The infrastructure investment company posted a pretax profit of GBP157.4 million for the year ended March 31, down from GBP231.0 million a year earlier, whilst earnings per share fell to 11.9 pence from 18.6p.
HICL said this was because its previous financial year had benefitted from "certain one-off revaluations of investments", including the sale of Colchester Garrison Ministry of Defence project at an 88% premium to its book value. HICL said another contributory factor was the actual UK inflation running at a rate below the assumption of 2.75%.
As such, HICL said its total income for the year was GBP182.9 million, down from GBP253.6 million, also noting that fund expenses and finance costs were higher at GBP25.5 million compared with GP22.6 million in the prior year.
HICL said it was offering a full year dividend of 7.65 pence per share for the year, comprised of four quarterly dividends, up from 7.30p per share a year earlier. HICL raised its target dividend for the year to end March 31, 2017 to 7.65 pence per share and gave new guidance on a target dividend of 7.85p per share for the following year.
HICL added it was continuing to seek "suitable" investment oppitunities in the UK, Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.
"The group made three new investments, one conditional investment and six incremental acquisitions in the year, investing GBP242.1 million. The investments were funded by value accretive tap issues in July 2015, December 2015 and March 2016, and the group's newly refinanced revolving credit facility," said Chairman Ian Russell.
"The board remains confident of acquiring further attractive investments for the portfolio in spite of continued competition for infrastructure investments. Our disciplined pricing coupled with thorough due diligence is key to delivering our strategy and I am pleased to report that the investment adviser continues to deliver on both fronts," Russell added.
Shares in HICL were down 0.2% at 164.16p on Wednesday morning.
By Hannah Boland; hannahboland@alliancenews.com; @Hannaheboland
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