09
March
2020
|
09:58
Europe/Amsterdam

Excellent year for Eneco

  • EBITDA rose by 10% to € 464 million, net profit rose by 14% to € 115 million (normalised)
  • 150,000 customers transitioned taking sustainable measures
  • € 343 million in investments in sustainable capacity (2018: € 248 million)

2019 was a dynamic and also an excellent year for Eneco.

Dynamic because the sale of Eneco's shares attracted a lot of attention within and outside the company and obviously demanded a lot of time and attention of the management and employees. The new shareholders Mitsubishi Corporation and Chubu Electric Power submitted the best bid with the best conditions.

Excellent because Eneco continued to implement its strategy and help customers with taking sustainable measures in the energy transition. This is reflected in the good progress of our business activities. The financial results, excluding the non-recurrent sale-related expenses and changes in corporate income tax, are in line with this positive picture.

Ruud Sondag, CEO of Eneco, states: ‘I am proud of Eneco's performance in the past year. We continued to operate as usual during the sale, with a good operational performance as a result. Customers are being served better and better in the transition, also due to the increasing digitalisation and internal chain-wide collaboration. The new shareholders, Mitsubishi Corporation and Chubu Electric Power, support and strengthen our sustainable strategy. Eneco is making an excellent new start with them!

Financial

The revenue increase of 4% (2019: € 4.3 billion, 2018: € 4.2 billion) can mainly be attributed to the acquisition of Robin Energie and the acquisition of E.ON which was now included for the whole year. It is positive that the revenue increase occurred in the delivery of electricity, gas and heat, but also among Eneco's (new) services, such as e-mobility.

When the financial figures are normalised for non-recurring sale-related expenses and the changes in corporate income tax, the company has performed very satisfactorily. EBITDA rose 10% to € 464 million (2018: € 421 million), the operating profit (EBIT) remained stable at € 168 million. Profit before tax rose 13% to € 153 million (2018: € 136 million) and the net result rose 14% to € 115 million, (2018: € 101 million).

The company's operating performance is thus satisfactory and is completely in line with the expectations that were expressed to current and future shareholders.

Effect of the sale and corporate income tax

Where the future change in the corporate income tax rate added € 40 million to the net result in 2018, there is now a deduction of € 8 million. The costs in connection with the sale of Eneco's shares amounted to € 36 million before tax in 2019 (2018: € 6 million), including project and advisory costs and costs for a gratuity payment.

Reported EBITDA rose 3% to € 428 million. Reported net profit amounted to € 80 million in 2019.

Investments

Eneco aims to double the number of megawatt of its own installed capacity of sustainable production assets. In four years’ time, we plan to expand from 1100 MW to 2200 MW. This means that more and more new wind farms and solar parks will be taken into production. Besides the large wind farm Norther off the Belgian coast, this concerned in 2019, for example, the Dutch wind farms Nieuwe Waterweg, Slufterdam and Hogezandsepolder, and Cordona and Louwind in Belgium and several solar parks.

Eneco invested € 343 million in sustainable production assets in 2019, which is a significant increase compared to 2018, when Eneco invested € 248 million. The largest share was spent on the construction of new wind farms (in total € 187 million), including Seamade, Borssele III & IV, Delfzijl, Libeccio and Verda. Eneco also invested € 23 million in the expansion of solar parks. In addition, Eneco invested substantially in the expansion and maintenance of the heat grids (€ 69 million) and the production of heat (€ 39 million), in particular in the BioHeat Installation in Utrecht that was recently put into operation.

Controlling costs

A large-scale change process was announced in June 2018 directed at an improved customer experience, also by means of digitalisation and an integrated customer experience. One of the objectives of the change process was a structural results improvement. This totalled € 70 million at the end of 2019. The ongoing attention for controlling costs in 2019 also led to a decrease in the costs for permanent employees by € 29 million (normalised) and a decrease in the average number of FTEs by 215 to 2775.

Continuing to transition

Over 150,000 customers took sustainable measures in 2019. For example by switching to Eneco HollandseWind, by profiting from the revenues from solar energy produced by a Dutch solar park by purchasing a ‘StukjeZon’, by generating sustainable energy themselves by purchasing, for example, solar panels, or by switching to an electric car. This demands offering various and integrated services and products to customers, which requires better collaboration internally within the chain. In this manner, we are better able to help customers make the necessary shift that the energy transition demands.