DRAX3 May 2019 17:00
Bought in today after watching for a while. Happy to add on further drops.
I see AlphaValue changed their rating to a buy (26/02/19) from sell (24/07/18).
"The group reported a 9% growth in adjusted EBITDA, translating the ramp-up of the wood pellet production activities (EBITDA up £15m), partly offset by technical issues in the Biomass generation division in Q1 and lower dark spreads in the UK.
The Power Generation division (93% of EBITDA) posted a £6m decline in EBITDA, to £232m, translating good underlying growth in the biomass generation business (fourth unit converted in August – 75% of generation from biomass) offset by weaker margins from coal generation due to higher carbon and coal prices. Consequently, electricity output was down 8%, to 18.3TWh. The group was able to reach a good overall biomass availability in Q2-Q4 which helped to offset a technical outage in Q1 (91% availability in 2018 vs. 79% in 2017).
The B2B Energy Supply business posted an EBITDA of £28m, broadly in line with last year (£29m). The group was able to increase its market share by 1% and its overall margin per meter and benefited from an additional month of Opus trading. This is slightly below target but remains a decent performance in such a competitive market.
The Wood Pellet business delivered strong growth in EBITDA (+£15m, to £21m) driven by increased output and a reduced cost per pellet (-10%). Total output was up 64%, to 1.35m tonnes, reflecting the postcommissioning ramp-up of Drax’ third pellet plan (LaSalle), which is now producing at full rate. Despite the 10% decrease in cost per tonne, biomass generation still has to rely on subsidies to be profitable. However, the group gave a few hints at what could be done to shift to a subsidy-free model. This includes reducing the cost further, notably thanks to the procurement of cheaper wood residues, new rail spur linking as well as a colocation agreement with a sawmill operator at the LaSalle facility.
At 31/12/2018, net debt/EBITDA was down 0.3x, to 1.3x, ahead of the 1.5x guidance although not including the impact stemming from the acquisition of Iberdrola’s generation assets as the deal was completed on 2 January 2019. Net debt/EBITDA should reach 2x by the end of 2019. "