It's Terna's day. The era of Luigi Ferraris, appointed CEO of the company that manages the national electricity transmission grid with 72.800 km of lines throughout the country, culminates today in Milan with the presentation of the 2018-2022 five-year plan. Terna's is the latest in a series of industrial plans launched at the beginning of 2018 by groups listed on the Stock Exchange, from Leonardo at the end of January via Poste Italiane, Telecom, Intesa Sanpaolo and Cattolica Assicurazioni.
Terna, which a few days ago also signed an important agreement with Prysmian for the upgrading of the national electricity grid (a project worth around 50 million euros, lasting three years), is also returning from a particularly positive 2017: preliminary accounts published a month ago showed an Ebitda rising to 1,6 billion, a growth in the asset portfolio but above all a net financial debt that fell below 8 billion, which gave way to a new boost in investments, which exceeded one billion euros compared to 900 million in 2016, in the context of a plan, that of 2017-2021, which envisaged a total of 4 billion investments in five years . The dividend rises to 22 cents (20,6 last year). Considering the down payment of 7,4263 cents per share already paid in November, the remaining 14,5737 cents per share, will be paid from 20 June and with ex-dividend date on 18 June.
Investments that are also the cornerstone of the plan presented today, Thursday 22 March, in the suggestive location of the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan: the leap is to 5,3 billion in Italy (+30% over the plan). As the CEO Ferraris has repeatedly hinted, the priority is the strengthening of the home network, to deal with new problems that have emerged in recent years and mainly linked to the increasingly massive use of renewable production sources. Many of the investments will therefore be aimed at accompanying the country's energy transition, and for this reason they will almost all be oriented towards the domestic market rather than foreign operations.
The other two key points of the plan are the increase in dividends and a particular focus on sustainability, which will take place on three fronts: the social one, to ensure the tranquility of local communities; the environmental one, to preserve nature and the landscape; and the systemic one. On the first point, a new guidance that provides a pay out of 75% and an average annual growth of shareholder remuneration of 6% during the five years covered by the plan. The Ferraris plan is also expected to be tested by the Stock Exchange, where Terna is going through a good moment: after a difficult start to the year, with the share having dropped from 4,8 euro at the end of 2017 to 4,4 at the beginning of February, the performance of the last month was +5,2%, in the wake of the positive accounts.
Immediately after the publication of the data, Terna's share fell by 1,9% in Piazza Affari (to 4,6 euros) while the presentation of CEO Luigi Ferraris in Milan has just begun.
(Updated Thursday March 22 at 10:44am)
