Power Assets shares surge 10.6pc on special dividend payment

Li Ka-shing’s multinational Power Assets Group surged 10.6 per cent to HK$75.40 on Friday, in its biggest gain since at least July 1997, after reporting a share dividend payment of HK$8.27.

That payment comprises a HK$0.77 per interim dividend and a HK$7.50 per share one-off special interim dividend to address shareholder expectations while keeping in view it’s financial capacity for future acquisitions, chairman Canning Fok Kin-ning said in a stock exchange filing after the market close on Thursday.

Power Assets – in which CKI Infrastructure holds a 39 per cent stake – said it’s profit attributable to equity shareholders was up 16 per cent to HK$4.02 billion (US$515 million) in the first half from a year earlier, while revenue was at HK$631 million compared to HK$629 million in the same period last year.

In the first half, the company acquired a 20 per cent stake in energy owner and operator Duet Group in Australia, with CK Infrastructure Holdings and Cheung Kong Property Holdings acquiring the remaining 80 per cent.

Last year, it earned 80 per cent of its profit from outside Hong Kong, mainly from the United Kingdom, Australia and mainland China.