The manager of Keppel Infrastructure Trust A7RU (KIT) announced in its 1QFY2023 ended March business update that distributable income (DI) has increased by 65.5% y-o-y to $73.9 million.
Ebitda was 40.5% higher y-o-y at $125.9 million.
The stronger DI and Ebitda were supported by higher contributions from City Energy, Ixom and new acquisitions completed in FY2022. New acquisitions and investments in FY2022 contributed $36.4 million or 38.5% of asset DI for 1QFY2023
Ixom continues to deliver a strong set of performance, but the trust will revisit strategic review when market improves.
The trust’s energy transition segment saw DI increase more than double to $48.7 million from $21.2 million a year ago, due to the favourable fuel over recovery at City Energy, contributions from Aramco Gas Pipelines Company (AGPC) and the windfarms’ assets. But Keppel Merlimau Cogen’s (KMC) full year computed DI is expected to be significantly negated by the mandatory debt repayment in June.
The environmental services segment saw DI gain 28.3% y-o-y to $23.3 million, mainly due to positive contribution from Eco Management Korea Holdings (EMK) as a result of increased unit prices of steam sold from its solid business sector.
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As for the distribution and storage segment, DI increased by 9.9% y-o-y to $23.5 million, thanks to continued strong performance across most business sectors, including Ixom.
As at end March, KIT has a “comfortable” debt headroom for growth of about $248 million to 45% net gearing level.
The trust is mitigating the impact of currency fluctuations by hedging 83.7% of its foreign distributions. About 75.2% of floating interest rates are hedged as at end-March (88.6% excluding bridge facilities).
KIT expects that a 100 basis points (bps) change in interest rate would have an about 2% impact to 1QFY2023’s DI or about 1% impact excluding bridge facilities.
Units in KIT closed at 52 cents on Apr 14.
