28th Mar 2019 17:21
LONDON (Alliance News) - Foresight Solar & Infrastructure VCT PLC on Thursday said its net asset value grew in the first half of its current financial year on increased portfolio value.
The investment company said that after the payment of 3.0 pence a share interim dividend, its NAV per share stood at 97.3p on December 31 compared to 93.0p reported at the end of June 2018.
The increase in NAV was largely driven by the increase in valuation of the UK portfolio, the company said, with production 7.7% above expectations at 34.5 gigawatt hours of electricity, sufficient to power 11,000 UK homes for a year.
As at the 2018-end, the fund held positions in 12 UK solar assets, with a total installed capacity of 74.7 megawatts.
On December 31, the fund also held positions in three Italian solar assets with a total installed capacity of 2.3 megawatts.
During the period, existing portfolio companies completed the acquisition of five UK solar assets, Basin Bridge, Stables, Dove View, Beech Farm and Hurcott, adding a total of 25.8 megawatts of capacity to the portfolio.
During the first half, 663,597 shares were repurchased for cancellation and no new shares were issued.
Foresight Solar said it has decided to change the accounting year end to March 31 from June 30 to better align itself with the tax year-end.
The stock closed untraded on Thursday, last quoted at 90.00p a share.