The 3.3% progress achieved in the quarter at EBITDA level is evidence of Hera’s sound and visionary business-model approach, which was also able to leverage internal and external growth drivers, creating value and offsetting both the negative impacts of the macroeconomic scenario and the WACC cut set by the Regulator.

Despite the increase in net working capital due to the rise in energy prices and the pursuit of an intensive investment programme, Hera managed to maintain a solid financial structure, capable of supporting both customers in need, with bill payment in instalments, and the forthcoming distribution of dividend of 12-euro cent per share, confirming its growing shareholder remuneration policy.

In 2021, Hera achieved a 9% increase at EBITDA level, which exceeded expectations despite an external scenario still affected by COVID-19. A result that is also valuable from a qualitative point of view, given the wide range of organic factors that have fuelled the growth.

Thus, Hera has once again proven how crucial it is to have a multi-business portfolio to leverage, when one is an operator able to guess new trends in demand and promptly satisfy them. This is what happened, for instance, with the significant contribution that in 2021 energy efficiency and plastic recycling provided to Group’s 2021 EBITDA. The involvement in those businesses, moreover, confirms Hera’s active role in pursuing the environmental sustainability targets that Europe has set.

The results of the first nine months of 2021 show a significant growth in terms of EBITDA, around 9.6%. A growth that is significant also for its strong organic component.

Leveraging on a proactive approach in non-regulated business, today Hera can fully benefit from the recovery in volumes compared to the period of restrictions imposed by the pandemic while it is reaping the attractive returns from the energy efficiency solutions developed under the incentive system provided by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

Hera achieved significant half-yearly growth in terms of both size and quality.

A more favourable scenario than that of the first part of 2020, with regard to the effects of the pandemic and the climate, only partly explains the 10.4% progress in EBITDA: organic growth continued indeed, together with that driven by M&A. Comparison with pre-Covid levels of the first half of 2019 indicates even greater progress, in the order of 13.2%.

In liberalised areas, Hera has proven its ability in leveraging higher volumes as well as the incentives for energy efficiency included in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, achieving significant returns, also in terms of sustainability.

First-quarter results demonstrate Hera’s ability to post healthy growth rates in an improving scenario. The increase of 3.7% in EBITDA indicates that around 70% of the negative impacts related to Covid-19 and mild temperatures, which affected the first quarter of 2020, have been recovered. The Net Profit growth of 6.2% – therefore higher than that at EBITDA level – proves the positive contribution of both financial and fiscal management.

Strong cash flow generation allows for a 159-million-euro reduction in Net Financial Debt and makes Hera’s potential to fund additional growth through M&A even more visible.

Given the results achieved in these first months of the year, Hera’s competitiveness comes out even stronger. A key premise, also in view of the forthcoming tenders in regulated businesses.

Despite the pandemic scenario, 2020 proved to be a year of reassuring results in many regards. Behind the performance of financials, which exceeded forecasts, we boast a solid business model, a proven successful growth strategy, as well as a thorough execution of stakeholder-supporting policies that can be shaped by the needs of the moment.

Such an evidence provides higher visibility to the 2024 targets of the Business Plan and encourages the distribution of a dividend of 11 euro cents, meaning 0.5 cent higher than the amount originally indicated.

The Business Plan to 2024 fully intercepts the opportunities of the new economic policies, which promote energy transition and technological development. The new Plan declines these opportunities in a way that is consistent to the specific business model of the Group, with the aim of designing the next steps of a growth path that has continued uninterruptedly since 2002.

Strong of a 2020 that testifies the ability to grow resiliently even in challenging contexts, Hera is ready to confront the priorities of the external scenario. Counting on a true vocation for sustainability and on a solid financial capacity, in the new scenario the Company does not see discontinuity, but attractive opportunities.

Despite the current scenario deeply differs from that assumed in the Business Plan to 2023, Hera continues to follow the strategic design.

While investments and new business initiatives continue, a careful approach to gain efficiency at organic level and extract value in the integration process of acquired companies allows Hera to post a 2.6% growth at EBITDA level.

Strong cash generation succeeds in covering investments and dividend payment, while the Debt-to-EBITDA ratio continues to improve, declining to 2.97x at the end of September 2020.

In the first half of 2020 Hera continues to growth organically, leveraging on a deep-rooted “culture of efficiency”, and promptly captures the synergies from recent acquisitions, which are proving to be absolutely strategic.
This way, in the first six months of the year we have already absorbed by a comfortable margin the amount of 30 million euro that represent the total Covid-19 impact on the P&L, as shown by the EBITDA growth of 2.5%.
In the next months, with the progressive easing of restrictions that were needed in Italy to contain the virus outbreak, we will be in a position to resume both investment and marketing activities. Hera will then be able to demonstrate the full potential for profitable growth embedded in a business portfolio that has always been managed in this forward-thinking perspective.