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OK although I had expected a small profit rather than a small loss. Pity no mention of second half trend or exactly what the latest refinancing meant. I fear the share price will drift until year end results.
I fear you are correct Hounddog, There was no bone thrown to shareholders in there in terms of a positive outlook. Without this, and as long as the debt payments are bigger than operating income then we should not be surprised to see selling pressure.
...I refer to operating profit versus finance costs of course
Thanks 4kandles. My reading of the cashflow is that the outlook on being able to pay their interest is positive. There is now a comfortable margin of operating cashlow ($83m) being above interest paid ($67m). Operating cash flow very close to EBITDA. I can see them being self financing by end next year at which point interest costs should start to drop. One odd point in the accounts is that the recent refinancing is sort of explained at the end of the results and it seems to involve taking on/replacing about $250m of debt at c15%. In part this replaces debt of 12%. I wonder why they have not explained this better. I had expected the refinancing to be at much lower rates. I may be reading the note wrongly - it is a bit mangled. Generally, their explanation of their borrowings is poor. I think most of their borrowings are at floating rates but it is not absolutely clear.
The spend has to come before actual revenue generation so loss making expected imo given the heavy roll out. Construction recently and of now is progressing at its fastest rate. The generating revenue today for the period relates to a maximum 1075 MW of capacity. Trading update 24/7/17 = 1,119 MW in production with 624 MW under construction. In the space of 10 weeks a further 61 MW has entered production to a total 1,180 MW with a further 563 MW to come on stream (I presume staggered) by mid 2018 ie next 9 months and a total 1743 MW. From 10 weeks ago, that will be a further rise of 56% production capacity revenue to kick in and an overall 62% for this reporting period. While revenue might be pressured due to pricing, I expect economies of scale to kick in sooner or later and be able to pay down the most expensive debt packages sooner. Also with a Government transformer failure (now fixed) resulting in a lost 6% of revenue generation in the half, that might have covered the actual small loss.