The AGL Energy Limited (ASX: AGL) share price will be on watch this morning.
That's because the energy giant has just released its FY 2023 results. How did it do?
AGL share price on watch amid big statutory loss
- Revenue up 7.1% to $14,157 million
- Underlying profit after tax up 24.9% to $281 million
- Statutory loss after tax of $1,264 million
- Final dividend more than doubled to 23 cents per share
What happened in FY 2023?
For the 12 months ended 30 June, AGL was on form and reported a 7.1% increase in revenue to $14,157 million and a 24.9% lift in underlying profit after tax to $281 million.
Management notes that after a challenging first half due to a combination of volatile energy market conditions and outages, it experienced a strong improvement in the availability of its generation assets in the second half. This lifted its overall performance and underlying earnings.
Also supporting its performance was continued organic growth in customer services across both energy and telecommunications during a period of heightened market competition. AGL finished the year with an increase of 56,000 customer services from FY 2022, with a total of 4.3 million customer services.
However, this couldn't stop AGL from posting a large statutory loss after tax of $1,264 million. This includes a loss of $655 million after tax treated as significant items and a loss of $890 million after tax from the changes in the fair value of financial instruments.
Pleasingly, this didn't prevent AGL from increasing its dividend in FY 2023. The AGL board lifted its final dividend by 130% to 23 cents per share. This took the AGL dividend to 31 cents per share for the year, which represents a 19% increase year over year.
How does this compare?
Potentially good news for the AGL share price today is that the company has achieved the top end of its guidance range in FY 2023.
Management provided underlying profit after tax guidance of between $255 million and $285 million for the year. This compares to its actual result of $281 million.
In addition, the team at Macquarie was forecasting a 31 cents per share dividend in FY 2023, which is exactly what the company has delivered.
Outlook
There has been no update to the company's guidance for FY 2024. As a result, it appears to still be targeting an underlying profit after tax between $580 million and $780 million.
This represents a whopping 105% to 177% increase year on year.
Overall, a strong result from AGL on an underlying basis. However, we'll find out at the open if the market is more focused on its statutory loss than its underlying profit.
