NTR on course for payout

NTR – the wind farm, water treatment and roads investment conglomerate — has said it is still on course for another tens of million-euro payout to its warring shareholders later this year —after completing the sale of wind turbines in the US.

NTR annual meetings in recent years have featured rows about the company’s investment strategy and returning cash to its main shareholders — Dreamport, controlled by chairman Tom Roche and his family, investor One51 and Pageant Holdings, controlled by the Furlong family.

NTR’s full-year earnings to the end of March showed net profit rose to €35.73m from €31.37m a year earlier.

But it said the main drivers of profit were benefits it received from favourable foreign exchange movements from a strengthening dollar (€8.8m) and profit from the assets it operated in the US, but which it has since sold (€8.4m).

NTR also said it benefited from an income tax credit of €8.1m linked “to a deferred tax liability” from the sale of the West-Link toll road and the ending of “potential historical claims” (€10.8m).

It said Ebita earnings excluding the US assets totalled a loss of €4.2m, compared with a loss of €3.5m a year earlier.

It held cash of €38.2m at the end of March, a sum which did not include the receipts from the disposals in the US.

Revenues from the US discontinued wind farm operations totalled €45.5m in the 12 months to March, almost unchanged from €45.6m posted a year earlier.

“NTR has successfully accumulated significant cash reserves as a result of its sale of US wind assets in May 2015, and expects a receipt of $45m for the sale of Osage in June of this year together with a further receipt of $20m in 2016 from the sale of its US Greenstar Recycling assets,” it said.

“The group is in a favourable position to provide further liquidity for shareholders and augment the almost €100m returned to shareholders at the end of 2013,” the company said.

NTR earlier this year had said it would discuss how to distribute cash to shareholders once it had sold off its US win assets.

“The exact format of any proposed liquidity event is yet to be decided and any such liquidity event would likely comprise a return of capital, either by way of a dividend to shareholders or a share redemption programme,” the company said yesterday.