Power Assets plans overseas acquisitions after Hong Kong sale
Li Ka-shing's utilities firm will target overseas assets after selling stake in Hongkong Electric
Power Assets Holdings, an international utilities firm controlled by tycoon Li Ka-shing, says it will seek to buy assets in developed markets to plug a profit gap after it sold a large chunk of its Hong Kong power unit.
It posted a net profit of HK$11.17 billion for last year, up 14.8 per cent from 2012 and 11 per cent higher than the HK$10.1 billion average forecast of 14 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.
The growth was driven by a 40 per cent rise in profits from its British utilities units. Hong Kong earnings were 3 per cent higher.
"In the near to medium term, we will look for suitable opportunities to expand in Australia, North America and continental Europe in power generation, transmission and distribution," chairman Canning Fok Kin-ning said in a statement yesterday.
Power Assets last month sold a 50.1 per cent stake of its previously wholly owned Hong Kong unit, Hongkong Electric, to HK Electric Investments, a new trust firm separately listed in the city.
We will look for suitable opportunities to expand [overseas]
Although Power Assets will reap a one-off HK$52 billion gain from the disposal, Evan Li, head of renewables and utilities equities research at Standard Chartered, estimates its net profit excluding the gain will fall 30 per cent this year to HK$7.78 billion.