Iren approved the nine-month accounts and the business plan to 2022 which sees an Ebitda of 950 million in five years (+170 million on 2016 data) with 70% of this result already achieved in 2020 and deriving, when fully operational, from regulated activities or nearly so. The synergies are estimated at 80 million (which add up to the 50 million already obtained between 2015 and 2016) and the net profit will rise by 50% to approximately 260 million. The dividend policy will be further increased with an annual growth of the dividend per share from the current 8% to 10%, 'landing' on a coupon above 10 cents in 2022.
The plan also confirms Iren "in the role of aggregator pole and development engine within the reference territories". As has already been done in the past, the contribution to the EBITDA of possible M&A transactions has not been planned but the chairman Paolo Peveraro estimates it at around 130 million euro. Finally, the cumulative investments will be equal to 2,5 billion (+15%) and the debt by 2022 is expected to decrease by approximately 300 million to 2,16 billion.
As regards the 9-month accounts, revenues rose to 2,614 billion (+17,3%), the gross operating margin reached 622,2 million (+11,3%) and the group's net profit 179,5 million, an increase of 42,3%. Ebit also increased, to 340,6 million (+21%) while net debt fell by 79 million (compared to the end of 2016) to 2,378 billion. The CEO Massimiliano Bianco, in a note, underlines the goodness of the results, which confirm "the continuous search for maximum efficiency which, in the current year, has led to the achievement of around 14 million synergies (in addition to the 50 million already achieved in the two-year period 2015 and 2016).
Speaking instead of the third quarter of 2017, the Ebitda amounted to 179,9 million euros, up by almost 30%, the Ebit settled at 82,9 million, more than doubled compared to the same figure in 3rd quarter of 2016 when it stopped at 38,6 million and 11,6% higher than analysts' estimates.
The net profit of the group jointly controlled by the Municipality of Turin and that of Genoa closed at 34,4 million compared to a forecast by analysts of 23,4 million. In terms of the balance sheet, net financial debt as at 30 September 2017 was equal to 2,38 billion, down by 5,9% compared to the same figure as at 30 September last year and substantially in line with the estimates of the analysts. In the three summer months of the current year, Iren's gross technical investments reached the figure of 97 million, an increase of 64,7% compared to the same period of 2016.
At Piazza Affari, the stock rose by 0,5% to 2,41 euros.
