August 2022

Maintaining a balanced and efficient financial structure over the Plan period is a strategic priority for Italgas.

Only in this way will it be possible to ensure both the resources to invest in growth and an attractive return to shareholders.

Italgas can already boast considerable financial efficiency, as first-quarter 2022 figures prove, with a cost of debt of less than 1% and a fixed-rate debt weight of around 92.5%, which protects the Group from possible interest rate rises.

Following the cash-out for the acquisition of DEPA Infrastructure, Italgas expects the Net Debt-to-RAB ratio to temporarily approach 65%. However, during the Plan period, given the substantial operating cash flow, this ratio is expected to fall back to around 61%: Italgas debt will thus continue to benefit from rating metrics in the solid investment grade area. The Net Debt-to-RAB ratio is expected to remain consistently below 70% over the 2022-2028 period.

Moreover, over the Plan’s period, Italgas expects that significant operating cash flow will fully cover organic capital expenditure and almost all dividend distribution, keeping the FFO-to-Net Debt ratio well above the 10% level – another discriminating threshold identified by rating agencies to define investment grade corporate debt.

Italgas would therefore continue to have adequate financial flexibility to pursue development along external lines – through M&A and tenders – and make shareholder returns even more attractive.

Considering the maturity profile of Italgas’ debt, with limited refinancing needs until 2024, and the actions that the Company expects to put into play in the coming years, it also appears possible to maintain the cost of debt at excellent levels, averaging below 1.2% over the Plan’s period.

The available liquidity, exceeding 1.2 billion euro, makes it possible to easily cover cash outflows in the short term while maintaining adequate margins for future needs.

Leveraging on the sustainability targets set out in the Plan for the 2020-2028 period, both in terms of reducing emissions (-34%, 2020-28) and saving energy used (-27%, 2020-28), Italgas can also aspire to have access to sustainable sources of funding to finance its investments in the energy transition.

At the presentation of the new 2022-2028 Plan, Italgas confirmed the dividend policy for the 2020-2023 four-year period that it had first announced in October 2020.

Therefore, it is planned that shareholders will receive a dividend equal to the greater of:

• a minimum base of €0.256, corresponding to the amount of the dividend per share distributed for fiscal year 2019, increased by 4% per year; and
• 65% of adjusted earnings per share. 

Italgas has already demonstrated for two years in a row that it can offer a remuneration higher than the minimum. For Financial Year 2020, Italgas distributed a dividend of 0.277 euro, up 8.2% from the previous year: at a rate therefore double that, of 4% per year, envisaged as the ‘floor’. For the 2021 financial year, Italgas then distributed a dividend of 0.295 euro, up 6.5% over 2020 and again above the floor identified at 0.256 euro.

In the new Plan, Italgas presented its targets over a four- and seven-year horizon, to 2025 and 2028 respectively. 

The achievement of these objectives will be driven by the planned investments and will benefit from the contribution of the new activities that will enter the perimeter – due to the acquisition of DEPA Infrastructure and the completion of the gas tenders – as well as the development of the energy efficiency business.