NTR profits soar by 34% to €169m

SOARING revenues from wind energy and waste management helped NTR record first-half turnover of €169 million, a 34% increase on last year, the infrastructure developer said yesterday.

Operating profits for the six months to June were around €3.5m higher at €12.4m. But pre-tax profits dipped from €12.6m to €10.1m as higher borrowing meant heftier interest charges kicked in.

The company, which began as a toll road operator, said its road operations now accounted for just 15% of total revenue and generated €26m during the period.

NTR collects tolls on Dublin’s Westlink and Eastlink bridges and near Drogheda on the motorway linking Dublin with the border on the way to Belfast. Chief financial officer Michael Walsh said the results were strong and that recently-commissioned windfarms helped drive the company’s operating performance.

Wind energy delivered 50% of total revenue, bringing in a total of €86m, or €26m more than the same period last year.

Airtricity, the company’s windfarm subsidiary, commissioned 113 megawatts of fresh generating capacity during the first half, which is equivalent to approximately a quarter of the power produced by Ireland’s biggest oil and gas-fired power stations.

Revenues at Greenstar, the company’s waste management business, grew 18% to €47.5m. Greenstar opened its second landfill facility at Knockharley, Co Meath earlier this year.

But NTR’s continuing investment programme meant its debt burden climbed almost €60m to €330m. The company’s interest bill almost doubled to €8.2m on the back of its higher debt.

Mr Walsh said the windfarm, waste and roads divisions were all profitable but that Irish Broadband, the company’s wireless internet access division, remained in start-up mode and would not deliver good news on the operating profit line until next year at the earliest.

But he was upbeat on the division’s future and said it was on track to meet its target of 20,000 subscribers by the end of the year.

The company also said it was committed to bringing in a new mechanism to improve liquidity in its shares by 2007. NTR is a plc but its shares are not quoted on the stock exchange.

Shares are instead traded infrequently through a grey market maintained by Davy Stockbrokers.

Chairman Tom Roche holds a 45% stake in the company, with a further 26% held by One 51, the former IAWS Co-Op.