The good news continues to flow for shareholders in takeover target Energy Developments Limited (ASX: ENE) with the company reporting strong growth in full year profits.
Here are the highlights:
- Revenues increased 6% to $448.7 million
- Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) leapt 20% to $218.2 million
- Profit after tax jumped 26% to $57 million
- Net operating cash flow gained 9% to $148.4 million
At the operating level results were impressive as well:
- 21 megawatts (MW) of additional installed capacity were added through the acquisition of Upstream LNG assets
- 13 MW of projects are under construction
- There is a strong pipeline of new and expansion opportunities
- EBITDA gained 24% in the Australian Clean Energy division; EBITDA increased 20% in the Australian Remote Energy division; EBITDA soared 46% in the US division; with only the European division acting as a drag on group performance with an EBITDA decline of 5%.
The strong set of profit results from Energy Developments come less than one month after the international provider of safe, clean, low greenhouse gas emissions energy announced a proposal by gas and electricity distributor DUET Group (ASX: DUE) to acquire the company for $8 per share.
With major shareholders who control 85.7% of shares already indicating their support for the proposal it appears that it is just a matter of formalities before DUET acquires the company. As part of the scheme implementation deed entered into, the board of Energy Developments was precluded from declaring or paying a final dividend.
With the stock gaining a further two cents on Monday morning to $7.90, some shareholders may choose to incur brokerage charges, sell out and move on; other shareholders will prefer to wait for the full $8 to be paid; while investors looking for an arbitrage opportunity may be inclined to purchase stock and pocket the 10 cent price difference.
