NTR to return €100 million to shareholders and focus on late-stage wind investments

Shareholders in the Irish unquoted investment group NTR are set to share a windfall of up to €100 million after the company decided to seek approval to return capital to them via a share redemption scheme.

The main beneficiaries will be chairman Tom Roche and his family who will earn about €39.6 million and investment group One51, which will net €23.5 million.

NTR intends to redeem up to 108.7 million ordinary shares at a price of 92 cent and will seek shareholder approval at an extraordinary general meeting on September 10th. The company needs to achieve a 75 per cent approval rate from shareholders.

To facilitate this distribution, and given that it has a deficit in its retained earnings of €31.4 million, NTR plans to cut its share premium account by €180 million.

Pretax loss
This will require the approval of shareholders and the High Court.

Accounts published yesterday show that NTR made a pretax loss of €16.2 million in the year to end of March 2013. This compared with an €88.8 million loss in the previous 12 months.

The improved performance reflects a major restructuring of the business that has enabled it exit the waste business in Ireland and sell recycling, ethanol and solar assets in the US.

Its bottom line was also flattered by a €16.4 million profit from discontinued operations.

Group revenue from continuing operations increased to €35.2 million from €24.9 million a year earlier.

Its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation amounted to €19.3 million last year, up €4.5 million in the previous 12 months.

This reflected growth in earnings from wind projects and cost reductions throughout the group. NTR’s assets stood at €775 million at year end, of which €504 million represented tangible assets and €150.9 million was cash.

The board has decided to refocus its strategy on later-stage wind energy investments in Ireland and the UK to complement existing wind assets in the US.

NTR said it had delivered the “key components of its three-year strategic plan a year ahead of schedule by successfully building cash reserves and consolidating the group into a slimmer, renewable investment and asset management group, with particular focus on wind energy”.

Wind projects
NTR chief executive Rosheen McGuckian said that it would seek to invest in wind projects over the next three to four years that could deliver up to 150 megawatts (MW) of capacity. These could range from five to 40 MWs per project.

Ms McGuckian said NTR was “open” to co-investing with other groups on these projects.