Enel closes 2018 with consolidated revenues up by 1,3% to 75,6 billion, Ebitda up by 3,8% to 16,2 billion including extraordinary operations without which the gross margin would have stopped at 15,6, 41,1 billion. Financial debt rose to 10 billion, an increase of almost 37,4% compared to 2017 billion at the end of 2017. A leap forward determined by the acquisitions of Enel Distribuçao Sao Paulo and Enel X North America, explains the press release released by the group, which also includes the payment of dividends for XNUMX, investments for the period and the negative exchange rate effect.
The BoD approved the preliminary balance sheet data which closed with the full satisfaction of the CEO Francesco Starace who underlined:
“We closed 2018 with excellent results, which allowed us to hit our EBITDA target for the year. We continue to pursue the objectives of the Group Strategic Plan, with particular attention to the sustainability of our actions on the markets aimed at growth in renewables, electricity distribution and advanced energy services. In 2018, we connected more than 3 GW of renewable capacity to the grid globally and recorded an increase in revenues driven precisely by renewables and acquisitions in distribution, including Enel Distribuição São Paulo which made us the sector leader in Brazil. Enel X's advanced energy services segment provided a further contribution to the Group's revenue growth. Thanks to the improvement in cash generation capacity, we contained net financial debt, against greater commitments of resources by the Group in organic growth and acquisitions and in spite of the persistent unfavorable exchange rate effect throughout the period”.
If these are the initial estimates, the Board of Directors will meet again on March 21 to approve the final financial data for 2018. It is on that occasion that the profit and dividend will be published. In the 2019-21 business plan, Enel has in any case ensured a minimum payout of 70% and guaranteed a minimum coupon of 0,28 euros for 2018 which will €0,32 in 2019, €0,34 in 2020 and €0,36 in 2021 with weighted annual growth of around 9 per cent. The group confirmed a dividend at the higher of the 70% payout and the guaranteed 28 cents in the first nine months data, with interim dividend of 14 cents paid in January, up 33% from a year earlier.
The preliminary data are favorably affected by the higher sales of electricity from renewable sources in Italy, Spain and South America and on the free market in Italy."These positive effects - underlines the group's note - more than compensated for the unfavorable trend in interest rates exchange rate, mainly due to the depreciation of currencies in South America”.
Preliminary balance sheet data were communicated on the same day in which Enel Green Power has started construction of the largest wind farm in Latin America in Brazil: a 716 Mega Watt field in the northeastern state of Piauí. Of the total capacity, Enel Green Power added 510 MW "associated with twenty-year energy supply contracts with a pool of distribution companies operating in the Brazilian regulated market, while the energy produced by the remaining 206 MW will be directed to the free market for sale to retail customers".
