7th Nov 2024 09:38
(Alliance News) - National Grid PLC on Thursday raised its half-year dividend by 6% on a rebased basis, despite pouring money into capital investment and reporting a halved interim profit.
National Grid is a London-based electricity transmission and distribution provider in the UK and the north east US and is the UK electricity system operator.
It said pretax profit fell by 50% to GBP684 million in the six months that ended September 30 from GBP1.37 billion a year before, as revenue declined by 6.2% to GBP7.96 billion from GBP8.49 billion.
National Grid said the decline in profit and revenue related to timing movements in its role as electricity system operator in the UK. Operating result in this segment swung to a GBP213 million loss in the recent six months from a GBP443 million profit a year before.
On an underlying basis, pretax profit rose 26% to GBP1.44 billion from GBP1.14 billion, while operating profit was up 14% to GBP2.05 billion from GBP1.80 billion.
National Grid declared an interim dividend of 15.84 pence, down 18% from 19.40p a year before. However, taking into account the new shares from the company's recent GBP7 billion right issue, the 15.84p payout was up 5.7% from a rebased 14.98p.
The shareholder payout comes amid a GBP60 billion investment programme over five years. In the first half alone, National Grid said capital investment totalled GBP4.6 billion, up 17% from GBP3.95 billion a year before. It said financial 2025 capital investment will be about GBP10 billion.
"Over the last six months, the exciting momentum within National Grid has continued as we deliver an unprecedented step up in capital investment," said Chief Executive John Pettigrew.
He added: "In the UK, work on our 17 major onshore and offshore transmission projects is moving forward, in consultation with our communities and stakeholders, and we are well progressed in securing the supply chain for all these projects. In the US, we've made good progress on our USD4 billion 'upstate upgrade' in New York, and delivered further gas mains replacement and network reinforcement across our communities."
National Grid shares were up 0.5% to 988.40 pence early Thursday in London. The wider FTSE 100 index was up 0.1%.
By Tom Waite, Alliance News editor
Comments and questions to [email protected]
Copyright 2024 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.