Gresham House Energy Sto... Share Discussion Threads

[speedsgh] 13/3/2023 08:43

Trading Update -

~ Over 20% like-for-like growth in underlying portfolio EBITDA in 2022

~ Significant increase in expected operating capacity to 1GW in 2023 to drive growth in NAV and EBITDA

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2022 highlights

§ Full year EBITDA of the underlying portfolio exceeded £48mn, a like-for-like increase of over 20%.

§ 7p dividend to be paid in respect of 2022, covered 1.3x.

§ 155.5p per share unaudited NAV as of 31 December 2022 (31 December 2021: 116.86p).

§ Unaudited NAV total return of 39.1% in 2022 and 93.2% since IPO, representing an annualised return of 17.2%.

[continues]


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2023 outlook

§ Q1 NAV per share to benefit from incremental project revaluations of +3.3p.

§ Operational capacity is expected to reach 1GW in 2023 and around 1.5GW in 2024, representing growth of 80% and 170% respectively compared to capacity as of 31 December 2022. This is expected to drive NAV and EBITDA growth.

§ In light of the growth in EBITDA from increased operational capacity in 2022 and expected in 2023, the Board intends to pay a dividend of 7.35p per share for 2023, a 5% increase over 2022. The Board will periodically review the dividend policy to maintain a competitive dividend yield while also ensuring that dividend cover remains strong.

[marktime1231] 28/2/2023 15:48

The stagnant dividend and the doubts I expressed about execution and management have been gnawing at me, the premium no longer looks justified. I decided to crystalise gains this afternoon. GRID could excel again so good luck to those of you with the nerve to hold on.

[davebowler] 28/2/2023 10:29

htTPs://www.edisongroup.com/research/powering-on/31990/

[jonwig] 25/2/2023 11:05

The slowness to get grid connections is very real, the FT covered it recently, in addition to Edison highlighting it above.

Renewables groups sound alarm over UK grid connection delays
Solar, wind and battery storage developers say 13-year wait threatens investment and Britain’s net zero goals.



[I think if you copy the above text into a search box, you can bypass the paywall.]

[marktime1231] 25/2/2023 10:51

Puzzled by last year's jiggery pokery with the dividend timetable, at Christmas I wrote to Ben Guest accusing him of squeezing up NAV as part of planning for another big fund raising issue, something I had guessed had been imminent when the share price broke through 175p in September - that was my rough calculation of the point where a share issue was more economic than debt funding. Only for the market to take a sharp knock courtesy of Truss-Kwarteng and GRID subsequently announced £155M debt extension instead.

A blustering denial of course. But I am sure that was the game.

I also challenged him on project delays, was it really all down to waiting for grid connections, noting Harmony had just announced the commissioning of Pillswood claiming it was ahead of schedule. The GRID "NAV report" in early November was also a performance summary to end September except that details such as the portfolio status had been put in a separate Fact Sheet published at the same time. It confirmed my suspicions that there was slippage, and a bit of desperation eg putting things in the "live" column but with a note "in commissioning". A contrast to the bullish trading statements and outlook we have been treated to up until now.

Edison too have picked up on the slippages. By my reckoning 300-400MW which should have been energised by 2023 Q1 according to original plans at the time of fund raising or project acquisition is already late or will be very soon. Through a winter of extreme pressure on the grid, eg National Grid ESO paying households to switch off 4-7pm, and yet sometimes having to curtail surplus wind generation. I challenged Ben Guest to provide a transparent report and to reset the timetable to something investors can rely on.

Again more blustery denial, it was all other people's fault and they were working hard on getting connections. And yet the delays also come with increased delivery costs, at our expense, so it is not all or just third party problems. Never mind the loss of income.

So it was a bit telling that the 10 February announcement of yet another flat dividend came without a NAV or trading update. No announcements of sites being commissioned, the size of the ones overdue would represent a material increase to income and so worthy of an individual rns. Silence. Not at all like the bull story we have come to expect.

My conclusion is that GRIDs shifting strategy from acquiring live sites to acquiring earlier stage projects, in order to squeeze out more NAV gains, has backfired. They have not managed the execution risk well. An asset manager behaving like an asset manager rather than an income investment trust manager. Their fees are not suffering it is our income which is suffering.

The exceptional energy market situation and more aggressive asset-optimisation has probably saved the day, compensating for the lack of MWh versus plan. Here for example is how hard some of GRIDs smaller sites are working ...



... a splendid tracker of how UK BESS sites are performing. These smart people recently did their own analysis of GRID on twitter and concluded things are looking trickier.

The chance remains of course for GRID to put out a super report on 2022 and progress since, something we might expect to get in early April. Or they might wait a bit longer until there is really positive headline news. Funding remains healthy, they might have managed to complete some projects, new opportunities are available, etc. But I think NAV progress may have stalled and the missed surplus income opportunity means we might have to endure a flat or weakly improving divided. The future should still be bright but the current loss of momentum suggests a 10% premium over NAV-as-at-Sep-2022 is looking rich.

Should we give GRID a chance and wait for a report in April or should we take some profits if the share price rises to meet ex-div next Thursday?

[nickrl] 25/2/2023 10:14

@erstwhile2 thanks for posting that link very interesting. Batteries will come back into play as spring and summer come and renewables have a higher penetration as the ESO will need more frequency response services to manage the variable output.

[jonwig] 25/2/2023 08:20

Edison note published yesterday:

[spangle93] 10/2/2023 11:23

2021 Results were out early April in 2022

Wonder if there will be scope to increase the yield to make it more attractive?

This is what was said in the interims
"The Board reaffirms a target dividend of 7.0p for 2022 and expects full Operational Dividend Cover for the full year. The Company will balance future dividend target levels with increases in Operational Dividend Cover

[poggio] 10/2/2023 11:19

Q4 dividend announced today at 1.75p ps; XD 2/3/23 and pay 27/3/23

[igoe104] 11/1/2023 09:41

Ex dividend forecast at the beginning of March, payment end of March. Announced some time in February id imagine.

[willywonka12] 11/1/2023 09:13

When is next dividend announcement

[mrnumpty] 25/12/2022 09:08

In the Business section of the Daily Telegraph of Friday 23rd December , there was a large comment piece by Nina Skorupska , head of the Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology . Titled “ Sunak’s renewables tax hits our wind and solar plans “ , Ms Skorupska describes the irrationality of this tax , stating that the Electricity Generator Levy “ is a tax on revenues , rather than overall profit “ . She states that the EGL is more onerous than the fiscal treatment of oil and gas companies , which can offset revenues against new investment . On the announcement of this tax , I sold my holdings in renewables funds , such as JLEN . I suspect that some investors might also shun investing in Gresham House Energy Storage , wrongly thinking that the EGL will negatively imoact this fund . In fact , as Ms Skorupska concludes in her article , the EGL will make it harder to solve this country’s energy crisis . In other words , my belief is that this stupid tax will prolong the increasingly dire disparity between supply and demand in our energy market , which makes battery storage provided by Gresham House Energy Storage all the more important .

[spangle93] 22/12/2022 17:39

@JamTin

Just to close out the conversation last week, HL, having paid the first part of the distribution (dividend) on Friday 16, paid the remaining interest distribution into my account on Monday 19

[igoe104] 20/12/2022 15:02

Trig announced they have purchased a barrery storage facility, in the North East. I do like this barrery storage sector. I hold Grid and Trig.

[willywonka12] 16/12/2022 17:16

Is they an annual charge of 1.15 % from GRID on increase of net assets value .
Also pay the divi quiet late

[jonwig] 16/12/2022 17:13

The interest element of the dividend is a separate payment from the ordinary element. A broker might merge them before paying you the total, or (like ii) pay them separately.

If your shares are in an ISA, it's irrelevant; if not, they are treated differently for tax purposes.

[jamtin] 16/12/2022 16:42

thanks Spangle93. Makes some kind of sense - one of my other holdings paid this sort of split dividend recently as well and one part took significantly longer to come through than the other.

I'd just done what you did and before raising with HL I'd looked back at the previous dividend from GRID and saw it all came in one payment, so assumed it should be the same this time. Seems they have changed this time for some reason.

[alter ego] 16/12/2022 16:21

Likewise. I have a "dividend payment" in my hL account on 28 October and another today. Adding them together and dividing by the number of shares gives a dividend per share of 24p. Confused? so am I.

[spangle93] 16/12/2022 15:49

JamTin

The RNS on 31 Oct states "GRID is pleased to announce a dividend of 1.75p per Ordinary Share for the period from 1 July 2022 to 30 September 2022. The dividend will be paid on 16 December 2022 to Shareholders on the register as at the close of business on 25 November 2022. Of this dividend declared of 1.75 pence per Ordinary Share 0.65 pence is declared as dividend income with 1.1 pence treated as qualifying interest income."

I have a payment from HL titled "STDIV" equivalent to 0.65p/share. So, one would suspect the cash equivalent to 1.1p/share would show as a separate transaction

However,
The RNS on 27 Sept also stated "GRID is pleased to announce a dividend of 1.75p per Ordinary Share for the period from 1 April 2022 to 30 June 2022. The dividend will be paid on 28 October 2022 to Shareholders on the register as at the close of business on 7 October 2022. Of this dividend declared of 1.75 pence per Ordinary Share, 0.65 pence is declared as dividend income with 1.1 pence treated as qualifying interest income."

In my HL account for 28 Oct it just has a single transaction called STDIV of 1.75p

So, having looked at it for myself, I don't know what they are playing at either.

[jamtin] 16/12/2022 15:20

Anyone else's divi with HL come through too low? Mine's come in at an equivalent of only 0.65p per share. I've raised a query with HL support.

[cruelladeville] 16/12/2022 08:44

Divi day today.

[cruelladeville] 12/12/2022 14:33

Record all time electricity prices prese. I hope GRID are making the best of arbitrage opportunities. Country needs WAY more energy storage than we have.

[marktime1231] 07/12/2022 12:37

That's why.