HICL expects cash generation to beat forecasts after in-line trading

28th Jul 2014 12:01

HICL Infrastructure Company said on Monday it expects cash generation to be ahead of its forecasts for the first half as the portfolio continues to "perform well".The firm is confident of achieving the target dividend of 7.25p this financial year, according to a trading update for April 1st to July 25th."The company's performance continues to meet the board's expectations, driven by a quality portfolio and active asset management by the investment adviser's experienced team," said Chairman Graham Picken.During the period the group made £58.6m worth of new investments, including the acquisition of a 5.85% stake in AquaSure public-private partnership (PPP) in Melbourne, Australia for £47m. The project is the largest desalination plant in the Southern Hemisphere and is structured as a PPP contract with availability payments from the State of Victoria.Looking ahead, the firm is sourcing new investments which "meet the group's investment policy and strategy and which have similar risk reward dynamics to the existing investment portfolio". An additional 2.6m ordinary shares were issued on June 30th, as the take-up of the scrip dividend in relation to the second interim dividend of 3.6p per share for the year to March 31st 2014 was 8.3%.The company is moving to quarterly dividends with the first quarterly interim dividend of 1.81p per share declared on July 23rd 2014. RD