The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) share APA Group (ASX: APA) has been remarkably resilient in the last few weeks amid global volatility. There are a few reasons why the business ticks the boxes as a defensive ASX share.
The fund manager, Wilson Asset Management (WAM), described APA Group as a leading energy infrastructure business. It manages a $27 billion portfolio of gas, solar, and wind assets and several electricity transmission assets.
APA is part of the WAM Leaders Ltd (ASX: WLE) portfolio, which is aimed at large, quality Australian businesses and actively invests in them.
Why does the fund manager like the ASX 200 share?
WAM said that in February 2025, APA delivered a "strong" result for the first half of FY25, with positive momentum continuing into the second half.
The fund manager also noted that market concerns about the balance sheet have been alleviated, with management providing "reassurance that the company has sufficient funding to support its dividend, its committed pipeline of projects and additional growth opportunities.
The investment team at WAM Leaders believe APA is "well positioned in the current environment, offering current environment, offering a highly defensive investment profile due to its contracted capacity and CPI-linked revenue streams."
Impressively, the APA share price has been almost flat since 2 April 2025, whereas the ASX 200 has fallen 5.3%.
How big could the ASX 200 share's passive income be?
Impressively, APA has grown its annual distribution every year since 2004, which is one of the most impressive records on the ASX.
APA has provided guidance that it expects to grow its FY25 annual distribution by 1.8% to 57 cents per security. That translates into a forward distribution yield of 7.2%.
The underlying operating profit (EBITDA) guidance for FY25 is between $1.96 billion and $2.02 billion.
Growth projects
APA is working on several growth projects that could help grow the cash flow and distribution of the ASX 200 share in the coming years.
When it announced its FY25 half-year result, APA CEO and managing director Adam Watson said:
Our growth pipeline in the Pilbara also continued to progress. Construction of the Port Hedland Solar and Battery Project was completed in December and we were awarded Priority Project status for two electricity transmission projects.
We also continued to progress growth in our core gas transmission and storage business. In December we executed an agreement to build, own and operate the Sturt Plateau Pipeline, which will ensure Beetaloo gas is available to support energy security in the Northern Territory, and today we announced our plans to deliver material infrastructure capacity expansion in our East Coast Gas Grid. We will continue to progress these plans with our customers.
Today's result demonstrates the continued delivery of strong earnings and distributions, alongside organic growth.
Things look promising for the ASX 200 share for the foreseeable future, it seems.
