Gore Street Energy Storage Fund PLC NAV Update and Dividend Declaration (4093E)

TIDMGSF

RNS Number : 4093E

Gore Street Energy Storage Fund PLC

28 February 2020

28 February 2020

Gore Street Energy Storage Fund plc

(the "Company" or "Gore Street")

Quarterly NAV Uplift and Acquisitions Update on 140MW Portfolio

Gore Street, London's first energy storage fund and a listed impact investor managing an international portfolio of assets to help support the continuing increase in renewable generation and meet global climate objectives, is pleased to announce continuing good operational progress has led to further growth in the Company's Net Asset Value ("NAV").

NAV Update and Dividend declaration

As at 31 December 2019, the estimated NAV increased to 96.1 pence per share, representing an uplift of 0.6 pence per share (+0.63%) over the previous quarter (after paying a dividend of 2.0 pence per share on 18 October 2019). The increase in the latest quarterly NAV in respect of the period from 30 September 2019 to 31 December 2019, is attributable to both the strong performance of the Company's UK assets and continued progress in the construction of the Company's Irish assets which is progressing well as planned.

The Board of Directors (the "Board") of GSF has today declared an interim dividend of 2.0 pence per ordinary share for the period 1 October 2019 to 31 December 2019. The ex-dividend date will be 12 March 2020 and the record date 13 March 2020. The dividend will be paid on or around 27 March 2020.

Over the four reported quarters of 2019, the Company's NAV appreciated from 92.9 pence per share to 96.1 pence per share, an increase of 3.2 pence per share (+3.4%). During this period, it has announced 7.0 pence per share in dividends.

Portfolio Update

Further to the 9.0MW Port of Tilbury's operational start in October 2019, the Company's 10.0MW asset at Lower Road, Essex, is expected to be energised next month. This will be commissioned in tandem to deliver against a valuable Fast Frequency Response contract that has been secured and which begins in April.

The Company's investment pipeline continues to grow with a number of earnings accretive opportunities for new investments identified and currently under due diligence that satisfy the Company's investment criteria. The active pipeline includes more than 140MW of assets across Great Britain currently being considered under exclusivity, which subject to completion will add further scale and geographical diversification to the Gore Street portfolio. In order to fund the build out of these potential projects, Gore Street expects to continue to utilise the Company's current placing programme as required.

Alex O'Cinneide, CEO of Gore Street Capital, the Company's investment adviser commented:

"We are pleased to have achieved strong NAV growth for shareholders over 2019 including this latest quarterly uplift. As investment in intermittent renewable energy generation increases to meet ambitious goals to reduce global carbon emissions, the important role that energy storage has to play in global energy security continues to grow.

As outlined above, we are evaluating a number of investment opportunities, including a portfolio of more than 140MW in the near term, subject to due diligence. We expect this portfolio to represent our first investment in Great Britain since 2018 where we have held back from investments as the market did not meet our return targets. We are happy to see our discipline rewarded through both the size of the assets and the availability of additional revenue streams which we expect to allow us to deliver our target IRRs of +10% as we first set out in our IPO prospectus.

We remain focused on cost advantage, revenue optimisation and leveraging our ability to invest in multiple markets to deliver excellent returns to our investors. Since IPO we have delivered 10.3% total return and announced 10.0 pence per share of dividends with the share price trading at a premium to both NAV and the IPO price. Our pipeline of high-quality energy storage assets continues to grow substantially and we see a number of highly attractive near-term acquisition opportunities."

The Legal Entity Identifier of the Company is 213800GPUNVGG81G4O21.

For further information:

 
Gore Street Capital Limited 
Alex O'Cinneide                                                        Tel: [phone] 
 
 
Shore Capital 
Anita Ghanekar / Darren Vickers / Hugo Masefield (Corporate Advisory)  Tel: [phone] 
 Henry Willcocks / Fiona Conroy (Corporate Broking) 
 

Media enquiries

 
Buchanan 
Charles Ryland / Steph Watson / Henry Wilson  Tel: [phone] 
                                              Email: [e-mail] 
 
   JTC (UK) Limited, Company Secretary                                   Tel: [phone] 

Notes to Editors

About Gore Street Energy Storage Fund plc

Gore Street is London's first listed energy storage fund and seeks to provide Shareholders with a significant opportunity to invest in a diversified portfolio of utility scale energy storage projects. In addition to growth through exploiting its considerable pipeline, the Company aims to deliver consistent and robust dividend yield as income distributions to its Shareholders.

The Company targets an annual dividend of 7.0% of NAV per Ordinary Share in each financial year, subject to a minimum target of 7.0 pence per Ordinary Share. Dividends are paid quarterly.

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February 28, 2020 02:00 ET (07:00 GMT)