The Board of Directors of IREN S.p.A. today approved the consolidated financial statements as at 31 March 2025.
Luca Dal Fabbro, Chairman of the Group, said: "We are very satisfied with the results achieved in the first quarter of 2025, which confirm the validity of the strategic choices made: by bringing forward the consolidation of Egea, from January 2025, we have successfully increased EBITDA for the quarter by more than 20 million euros. In addition, the purchase of the minority stake in Iren Acqua had a positive impact of approximately 6 million euros on net profit. These extraordinary transactions were made possible by the issuance of the hybrid bond, which strengthened the capital structure and ensured adequate financial flexibility. We can therefore confirm our guidance with a year-end EBITDA of between 1,340-1,360 million euros (including the approximately 55 million euros per year expected from the EGEA consolidation), a net profit of between 300-310 million euros, and a net debt/EBITDA ratio in line with last year's and expected at around 3.2x”.
Gianluca Bufo, Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of the Group, said: "We start 2025 with a solid quarter of growth, with EBITDA and Net Profit up 9% and 8% respectively, RAB up 6%, +20MW of renewable capacity and +500,000 inhabitants served in waste collection compared to Q1 of the previous year. Thanks to technical investments of 185 million euros, up 12% over the period, we were able to achieve the targets set in the Business Plan for this first quarter of the year, and we will continue in the coming months with the planned investment plan to increase our asset base, with more than 900 million euros of investments we will make over the course of the year on all businesses.
Moris Ferretti, Deputy Chairman of the Group said: "The first quarter of 2025 confirms with facts how much ESG criteria are an integral part of our strategy: eligible investments for the European Taxonomy stand at 70%, in line with the Business Plan, carbon intensity is stable at 307 gCO2/kWh, while separate waste collection grows by 1.3 percentage points to 70%, marking the territories served by the Group - 660 municipalities, up 35% - as a national best practice. Technical performance was also positive, with a 12% reduction in the duration of power outages and a 7% increase in wastewater treatment capacity”.
IREN GROUP: CONSOLIDATED RESULTS AT 31 March 2025
Consolidated Revenues as at 31 March 2025 amounted to 2,092.8 million euros, up +33.5% compared to 1,567.7 million euros of the first quarter of 2024. The main factors contributing to the rise in sales were energy revenues, which were impacted for more than 200 million euros by higher commodity prices and for more than 180 million euros related to higher energy volumes sold. The consolidation of the EGEA group companies as of 1 January 2025 contributed approximately 120 million euros to period revenue.
Gross Operating Profit (EBITDA) amounted to 418.5 million euros, an increase of +9.2% compared to 383.2 million euros for the first quarter of 2024. The period was characterised by a favourable energy scenario with rising commodity prices (PUN +50% and PSV +64.5%), organic growth, overall positive regulatory effects on networks and the environment, and the persistent weakness of treatment plants in the environmental area. As far as the energy scenario is concerned, the increase in prices led to contrasting but overall positive effects (+10 million euros), improving electricity production margins (+17 million euros), partially offset by lower heat production margins (-7 million euros). As far as volumes are concerned, the positive contribution to the electricity and heat production margin (+14 million euros) is mainly due to the higher quantities of hydroelectric production (+22.8%), due to the hydraulic levels recorded during the period and the end of 2024, thermoelectric production (+67.2%), due to the full availability of the plants, and heat production (+5.9%), due to a favourable winter season. The energy commodities marketing business decreased (-10 million euros), mainly due to lower margins on gas sales, a business that in the first months of 2024 had benefited from an extraordinary positive margin and therefore not replicable, while margins on electricity sales were essentially in line. A positive contribution to the margin was generated by organic growth related to tariff increases as a result of investments made in the Networks BU in recent years (+4 million euros) and tariff revisions (+5 million euros) of Networks and the Environment. Within the Environment BU, there was a decrease in waste treatment activities due to reduced plant operations related to maintenance and accidents in the second half of the previous year (-3 million euros), which reduced the full availability of the plants, a situation that remains to date, offset by the positive contribution made from the full availability of the waste-to-energy plants. The Energy Efficiency segment also declined (-3 million euros) due to lower margins on some orders. Finally, the change in the scope of consolidation related to the consolidation of the EGEA group companies as of 1 January 2025 (+21 million euros) contributed to the improvement in the margin.
The change in the margin with reference to the individual business units is broken down as follows: marked improvement in the Energy business unit (+28%), Networks +5.8%, Environment +4.1% and Market essentially in line (+0.1%).
Operating Profit (EBIT) amounted to EUR 223.9 million, an increase of +5.4% compared to EUR 212.5 million for the first quarter of 2024. Amortisation and depreciation for the period rose by approximately 17 million euros, due to the start-up of new investments and expansion of the consolidation scope (8 million euros), higher allocations to the provision for doubtful debt for approximately 4 million euros, higher allocations to the provision for risks for approximately 1 million euros and lesser provision releases for approximately 1.5 million euros.
Group net profit attributable to shareholders amounted to 135.6 million euros, an increase (+8.0%) from the result recorded in Q1 2024. The growth reflects the trend in EBITDA and benefits from the reduction in minority interests related to the acquisition of the minority stake in Iren Acqua.
Net financial debt stood at 3,972 million euros as of 31 March 2025, down by more than 110 million euros (-3%) compared to the 31 December 2024 figure. In this regard, the operating cash flow amounted to more than 300 million euros, largely covering the technical investments made of 185 million euros, while the 500 million euros raised through the hybrid bond issue was, as planned, entirely used for the financial investments for the period of 532 million euros.
Comprehensive investments made in the period amounted to 717 million euros, up compared to 2024, of which 185 million euros in technical investments (+12%) and 532 million euros in financial investments attributable to the acquisition of the minority stake in Iren Acqua (283 million euros), the exercise of the call and the consolidation of Egea (249 million euros). It should also be noted that around 70% of investments are European taxonomy aligned and directed towards sustainability projects in line with the business plan forecasts.
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