‘Catchup’ dividend to be paid

TAURANGA: Trustpower has reported a 7% rise in earnings and announced a small ‘‘catchup’’ dividend, but gave no outlook statement while a review of its retail business continues.

The Tauranga electricity company said in the year to March 31, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation amortisation and fair value movements (ebitdaf) was $200.2 million, a 7% increase on the previous year.

Underlying earnings were up 25% to $94.2 million.

The increase came from the company’s retail operations, which reported a 33% rise in ebitdaf to $47 million.

Trustpower’s retail business was a leader in bundling products to offer to customers, adding mobile phone services this year.

Its generation business reported a marginal fall in ebitdaf to $154.1 million, a fall of $100,000.

‘‘Trustpower’s balanced portfolio of geographically dispersed assets, an ongoing commitment to asset enhancement, and astute placement of product to market has seen us recover from a reduced halfyear result to end the year in line with last year,’’ chief executive David Prentice said.

In January, Trustpower announced a review of its retail arm, which could result in the business being sold, a move supported by majority shareholder Infratil.

In April, Trustpower announced it had received indicative proposals to acquire the business and had progressed to due diligence.

Yesterday, it gave no update on the process.

It will pay a fully imputed dividend of 17 cents a share, as well as a special 1.5c dividend chairman Paul RidleySmith said was a ‘‘catchup’’ payment after Trustpower announced a slightly reduced dividend in May 2020. Its total dividend for the year is 35.5c.