International Public Partnership Ld Full Year -3-
March 26 2015 - 3:01AM
UK Regulatory
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100% Risk
Capital(2)
Strathclyde and 100%
Police Training Strathclyde, Police senior
Centre Scotland Authority Operational debt 2.34% 2.99%
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Tower Hamlets London, 100% Risk
Schools England Education Operational Capital(2) 1.99% 2.46%
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(1) Lincs OFTO was acquired by the Group in November 2014.
(2) Risk Capital includes both project level equity and
subordinated shareholder debt.
(3) Northern Diabolo project revenues are dependent on
availability but also include an element of linkage to passenger
numbers. All other investments receive entirely availability based
revenues.
Dear Shareholders,
It is with great pleasure that I am able to report to you on
another successful year for the Company.
The year has been an active one with all our assets performing
well and record levels of new investment being made. The Company's
market capitalisation at year end of over GBP1.1 billion very much
reflects the ongoing positive development of our portfolio of
infrastructure projects.
Dividend Growth
The Board understands that the Company's ability to deliver
consistent and growing dividends is a key factor in many of our
shareholders' decisions to invest in the Company. It is therefore
pleasing to report to you that the Company was again able to
deliver its dividend target for the year of 6.30p per share or
c.2.5% growth, a rate of growth that has been consistent since the
Company's inception eight years ago.
We remain focused on the ability of the Company to continue to
grow fully covered cash dividends and we are confident that this
can be achieved. The Board have therefore once again published a
minimum dividend target being 6.45p per share for 2015 and new
guidance of 6.65p per share for the 2016 dividend, an average
increase of c.2.5% per annum, to give additional clarity to
shareholders as to our intentions in the future.
Investment Activity and Capital Raising
The markets in which the Company operates continue to be very
buoyant. This is positive for our existing assets as the rates at
which comparable assets are traded provide evidence of the value of
our own assets. However, as we have previously noted, the strength
in the market also provides a challenge for sourcing
value-enhancing investments on an ongoing basis. This is
particularly the case for assets which are traded in the 'secondary
market' where competition for such assets has pushed pricing to
levels that we believe would not be accretive to our portfolio.
The Company believes that its differentiated strategy of
preferring to acquire investments off-market, by exercising
pre-emption rights in existing investments and via the origination
activities of its Investment Adviser, Amber Fund Management Limited
('Amber') continues to be the most effective way to secure new
assets for the portfolio - these avenues often have reduced levels
of competition and through these better value can be achieved for
shareholders. Indeed the five investments made during the period,
representing investment of GBP188.2million (2013: GBP36.5 million),
were all made on this basis. A further GBP18.2 million has been
committed to the first two of five batches of schools being
delivered through the Priority Schools Building Programme's
'Aggregator' funding vehicle earlier this month.
This preferred access to new opportunities should be further
enhanced through the recently announced link up between Amber and
the Hunt Companies (more details of which are referred to below).
This has resulted in the grant to the Company of additional rights
of first look in respect of certain new investments, of a type
consistent with our existing portfolio, within the United States
and we look forward to an enhanced flow of projects from this
source in the medium term.
New investments in 2014 were funded through a mix of the
Company's existing resources, including its corporate debt
facility, together with share capital raised (by means of a tap
issue) in November 2014. This capital issuance was extremely well
supported and closed oversubscribed with a mix of existing and new
investors, raising GBP95 million, well in excess of the GBP70
million originally targeted. The capital was immediately fully
deployed in reducing the balance of the Company's revolving debt
facility. We would like to thank all those shareholders who
participated in the offer for their support.
Despite the record level of investment in 2014 the Company
remains very focused on adding to its portfolio in a measured way,
choosing to do so only where it considers an investment represents
good value. The addition of such a large volume of investment in
2014 contrasts with the position in 2013 and is reflective of the
many years of work that are often required to develop and execute
these transaction opportunities. The timing of the completion of
these projects is often difficult to predict.
In addition to the acquisitions made during the period, the
Company disposed of a number of minority interests within its
portfolio generating proceeds of GBP22.3 million (being
substantially in excess of the carrying value of these stakes at
the time of their disposal). While the Company does not expect to
trade assets regularly, preferring instead to retain the long-term
income generation potential of its holdings, these 'secondary
market' pricing levels validate the increased popularity and
attractions of the asset class in which the Company is
invested.
Portfolio Performance
The operational performance of the Company's portfolio continues
to be excellent. Significant progress was made during the year in
the ongoing management of the portfolio where we continue to focus
on delivering our expected returns, managing our public sector
customer relationships and enhancing the investments through
efficient management and contract variations requested by our
public sector clients.
Our control over the operational performance of our investments
is a key point of differentiation - other investment vehicles in
the sector often outsource responsibility for such asset level
management activity to unrelated third party
construction/facilities management contractor parties. However, we
believe that strong asset-level relationships with public sector
clients are a key factor in both protecting our reputation and
safeguarding investment performance. The Company continues to
benefit from our relationship with Amber in this respect,
particularly for the majority of investments where Amber is
responsible for the detailed day-to-day delivery of management
services and relationships with our public sector clients. Evidence
of this is the successful conclusion of a number of construction
projects, which were finished on budget and on time, in part
because of Amber's oversight of key contractors.
The macro economic environment continues to be of relevance to
our performance. Long term inflation expectations continue to run
at levels above our base case assumptions but short term inflation
rates are low and the prospect of deflation exists in some Eurozone
countries. We receive regular enquiries from investors as to how we
estimate our portfolio would perform in various inflationary or
deflationary scenarios. To assist shareholders we have provided
some additional sensitivity forecasts focusing on this point in
this report (refer page 24). I am pleased to say we estimate our
performance is likely to remain robust in such scenarios.
We are very aware that most of our investors hold our stock with
a view to the long term income that we expect to generate and we
continue to focus on improving the certainty and quality of this
income as much as we can.
Corporate Governance and Regulation
The Board is required by the UK Corporate Governance Code to
commission periodic external assessment of its procedures and
corporate governance. The first such formal review took place in
2014 and I am pleased to advise that the Board was found to be
performing extremely well. Only minor improvements were suggested
and all have been implemented.
Two new Board Committees were formed during the period - the
Investment Committee and the Nominations and Remuneration
Committee. Previously these functions were performed by the full
Board (absent the representative of the Investment Adviser as
appropriate). However, the new committees reflect the increased
importance the Board believe should be given to the process
governing these matters and to provide additional transparency to
shareholders. Further details of all the Board's committees can be
found in the Corporate Governance section and terms of references
are available on the Company's website.
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