Energia Group’s earnings rose almost 17 per cent on the year in the three months to the end of December, in advance of the all-Ireland power company’s upcoming sale to French private equity firm Ardian.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) rose to €94 million for the period, Energia’s financial third quarter, according to its latest financial statement, posted on its website.
The group’s three different business arms – a renewable energy generation business, a flexible generation unit that can be called upon when additional supply is needed for the national grid, and customer supply division – have each been affected by different dynamics in the energy market in recent years. However, they have proven to be highly complementary as a whole, leading to less volatility at group level.
US investment group I Squared, which has owned Energia for a decade, agreed in early October to sell the business to Ardian. While the price was not disclosed, the deal is believed to have put an enterprise value on the business, which was once known as Viridian Group, of about €2.5 billion.
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The European Commission approved the transaction last month, paving the way for it to close by the end of June.
Ebitda in the group’s electricity and gas supply business, which has about 895,000 household and business customers, saw its Ebitda jump more than 50 per cent in the quarter to €23.9 million amid a recovery in earnings margins, according to the latest results. However, its earnings were down 15 per cent for the first nine months of the financial year.
The renewables unit, which owns 358 megawatts (MW) of wind assets and purchases electricity from 1.19 gigawatts (GW) of third-party green energy producers, delivered a 3.4 per cent increase in Ebitda, to €36.7 million for the quarter. This reflected higher wind output, though it was partly offset by lower energy prices.
Energia, led by chief executive Ian Thom, is currently developing a pipeline of almost 1.6 gigawatts (GW) of solar and onshore wind projects and was assessing “a number of other opportunities to acquire and develop further renewable development projects”, as power demand is forecast to grow strongly over the coming decade amid the green transition and data centre boom.
Ebitda in the flexible generation division, mainly made up of two combined cycle gas turbine plants in Huntstown in north Co Dublin with a total capacity of 747MW, dropped 13 per cent to €33.4 million. While one of the plants was available and called upon more to add to national supply during the quarter, the other was affected by an unplanned 22-day outage.
An Bord Pleanála gave Energia’s flexible energy business permission last March to build a data centre in Huntstown in partnership with tech giant Microsoft.
