The Lemon Fool

£135m Revolving Credit Facility Refinance.

NextEnergy Solar Fund, a leading specialist investor in solar energy and energy storage, is pleased to announce it has refinanced its existing £135m short-term Revolving Credit Facility ("RCF") with AIB Group and NatWest which is due to expire in June 2024.

The new facility is available until June 2026 and provides two additional 12-month extension options at NESF's sole discretion to bring the maturity date up to June 2028. The RCF continues to benefit from attractive terms with a margin of 120bps over SONIA ("Sterling Overnight Index Average"). The banking consortium consists of the Company's existing counterparties AIB Group and NatWest in addition to a new counterparty Lloyds.

The Company is also on track to exercise its option to extend its current £70m RCF with Santander for another 12-months until June 2025 on similar terms and well ahead of its June 2024 expiry. The Company will provide a further update to the market in due course.

https://www.investegate.co.uk/announcem ... e-/8138837

Ian (I hold NESF).

£70m Revolving Credit Facility Extension

NextEnergy Solar Fund, a leading specialist investor in solar energy and energy storage, is pleased to announce it has extended its existing £70m short-term Revolving Credit Facility ("RCF") with Santander previously due to expire in June 2024.

The £70m RCF extension is now available until June 2025 and benefits from improved terms with a margin of 150bps over SONIA ("Sterling Overnight Index Average") compared with 160bps over SONIA under the earlier terms. As at 7 May 2024, the Company's total interest cost for any amount drawn under this RCF was 6.7% due to SONIA being at 5.2%.

This follows the recent announcement of the extension of the Company's other RCF facility of £135m to June 2026 with two additional 12-month extension options available at the Company's sole discretion.

https://www.investegate.co.uk/announcem ... on/8187206

Ian (I hold, and intend topping up my NESF holdings soon).

11th Dividend Target Increase

NextEnergy Solar Fund, a leading specialist investor in solar energy and energy storage, is pleased to announce the Board has approved a dividend target of 8.43p per ordinary share for the financial year ending 31 March 2025.

In line with the Company's progressive dividend policy, the Board considers that a 1% increase in the dividend target appropriately balances the interests of the Company, investors and other stakeholders whilst taking into account the strength of the prior year's dividend and the Company's attractive c.11% dividend yield, which is currently one of the largest amongst renewable investment companies as at closing share price on 14 May 2024.

The target dividend cover is forecasted to be between 1.1x-1.3x, supported by a high degree of visibility of the Company's revenues. The Company's RPI-linked subsidised revenues represent approximately 50% of total revenues. The remaining revenues are derived from budgeted electricity generation, of which prices for 82% of revenues have already been fixed to 31 March 2025 through the Company's active power hedging strategy.

The Company has declared total ordinary dividends since inception of £345m or 67.8p per ordinary share. This announcement represents NextEnergy Solar Fund's eleventh consecutive dividend target increase, in line with the Company's progressive annual dividend policy. The Company has an impressive track record having achieved all its dividend targets whilst maintaining a covered dividend throughout the last ten years and continues to target a covered dividend beyond the current financial year.

https://www.investegate.co.uk/announcem ... se/8197243

Ian.

Interim Dividend Declaration

NextEnergy Solar Fund, a leading specialist investor in solar energy and energy storage, is pleased to announce its fourth interim dividend of 2.09 pence per Ordinary Share for the quarter ended 31 March 2024, in line with its previously stated target of paying dividends of 8.35p for the year ended 31 March 2024.

The interim dividend of 2.09 pence will be paid on 28 June 2024 to shareholders on the register as at the close of business on 24 May 2024. The ex-dividend date is 23 May 2024.

https://www.investegate.co.uk/announcem ... on/8197052

Ian.

Notice of Full Year Results

NextEnergy Solar Fund, a leading specialist investor in solar energy and energy storage, will announce its Full Year Results for the period ended 31 March 2024 on Wednesday 19 June 2024.

https://www.investegate.co.uk/announcem ... ts/8233242

Ian (I hold).

https://ncim.co.uk/wp/wp-content/upload ... -04.24.pdf

30 April 2024, CQS New City High Yield Fund, Investor Report:

The funds from this were reinvested into Next Energy Solar fund which was trading on a 30%
discount to its NAV and giving a yield of 10.9%. We believe this offers good value as the company has
recently rolled its Revolving Credit Facility (RCF) debt at a competitive level.

https://quoteddata.com/2024/05/qd-view- ... e-returns/

01/06/2024, QuotedData, Dividend royalty: Our top 4 income payers to beat inflation and optimise returns:

As the name implies, NextEnergy Solar Fund (NESF) holds a portfolio of primarily UK-based solar energy infrastructure and complementary energy storage assets. Since launch nearly a decade ago, NESF has built a £1.2bn, 933MW portfolio of 100 operating solar assets, powering the equivalent of over 330,000 homes, declared dividends totalling £333m, and avoided the emission of about 2.2 Mt CO2e.
NESF’s portfolio generates strong cash flows, with the 2024 financial year target dividend of 8.35p expected to be covered 1.3 times. Although NESF lacks revenue reserves, its cash flows can be estimated with a good degree of accuracy – solar irradiation can be predicted with a decent degree of confidence (it tends to fall within a band of +/-7% 95% of the time) and using PPAs to sell some power generated forward at known prices also helps. This allows the board to announce a target for a fully covered dividend for each forthcoming financial year, which it has gone on to achieve in every year so far.
NESF has the highest yield of any trust in this group, a result of both its strong cash flow and wide discount, but the yield would still be attractive if it was trading at asset value (8.9% yield, which is well above inflation). There is potential for the discount to narrow as NESF has decided to put five of its assets up for sale to reduce borrowings and fund a potential share buyback, which could act as a powerful catalyst for a positive rating of its shares.

I recently added a position and started to follow this thread.Hope the recent additions to my news vault is helpful.

NESF share price total return 1/3/5 years = -21.1% / -4.9% / -7.9%. Longterm shareholders can't be happy?

clissold345 wrote:NESF share price total return 1/3/5 years = -21.1% / -4.9% / -7.9%. Longterm shareholders can't be happy?

As with nearly all REITs/ITs/Infrastructure plays they have been derated due to the more attractive risk free rate available elsewhere.

Happy holding and continuing to reinvest the income until the story changes. Fundamentally they are delivering on their mandate, which is to generate reliable and steady income which is then redistributed to the shareholders via a progressive dividend policy.

Although they only increased their target dividend payout by 1% for 2024/25 this has to be seen in contenxt that they are already the highest yielding renewable infrstructure IT, so I think management were rightly wary of going even more extreme. I do expect that once they finalize some of their capital recycling programme they'll commence with share buybacks or special dividends.