EDP’s profit soars 45% to 146 million in the first quarter
The Portuguese company led by António Mexia says it "had a small impact from the Covid-19 lockdown." Net debt fell to the lowest value in the last 13 years.
EDP’s profit soared 45% to 146 million euros in the first quarter. Electric assumes a “reduced impact of the confinement period” due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Part of the significant increase in net profit at the start of 2020 had to do with the poor performance in the same period, “that was strongly penalised by an abnormally low hydro production (-48% below historical average in Portugal),” according to the press release presented to the Portuguese regulator (CMVM) this Thursday.
EDP says the profit could have reached 252 million euros if it had not recorded the negative impact of two events: a financial operation to buy back hybrid debt securities, whose impact was -45 million; and the extraordinary contribution to the energy sector in Portugal, which represented a burden of 61 million.
Even so, the results rose significantly, also due to the lower debt burden.
In operational terms, although installed capacity fell 2% between the first quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020, to 26,544 megawatts (MW), the production rose 2% in the same period to 18,286 MW, and with a greater preponderance of renewables: it weighted 79%, up 10 percentage points over the same period.
The gross margin grew by 8% to 1,475 million euros. EBITDA – earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization – rose by 6% to 980 million Euros.
EDP also highlights an 8% reduction in net debt to 12.7 billion euros, the lowest figure in 13 years. Net Debt/EBITDA ratio improved from 3.6x in Dec-19 to 3.4x.
Regarding the liquidity position, EDP had 6.9 billion euros at the end of March 2020, “covering refinancing needs beyond 2022”, it says in the statement.
