Greencoat UK Wind (UKW) has seen continued acquisitions and capital raises throughout 2020, despite the pandemic. The trust remains the largest listed renewable energy infrastructure fund, with gross assets of £3.3bn once the latest acqusition completes. It provides a pure investment exposure to UK wind farms, with the twin aims of delivering a high, RPI-linked income return for shareholders whilst maintaining capital value in real terms. UKW is achieving its managers’ ambitions in becoming ‘utility scale’, which benefits shareholders in a number of ways (see Portfolio section). The overall costs of running the trust have continued to reduce, and scale also allows the managers to negotiate operational cost savings and implement other asset management initiatives. Lastly, the trust has the scale to purchase institutionally sized assets. This is increasingly important in what is now a popular market and asset class, and bodes well for the future. At the current price, the dividend yield is 5.3%. As we discuss in the Dividend section, one of the distinguishing features of UKW relative to peers is that it aims to link the dividend with inflation, as measured by RPI. UKW is on track to pay the 2020 target dividend of 7.1p, representing compounded growth of 18.3% in total since listing and ahead of inflation. UKW has historically traded at a significant premium to the peer group average. This was the case until relatively recently, with the share price not having recovered its poise yet, following the £400m equity issuance completed at the end of September. UKW now trades on a premium to NAV of 10.3%, relative to the weighted average for the peer group of 13.1%.

24 Nov 2020
Greencoat UK Wind - Overview

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Greencoat UK Wind - Overview
Greencoat UK Wind Plc (UKW:LON) | 109 0.1 0.1% | Mkt Cap: 2,394m
- Published:
24 Nov 2020 -
Author:
William Heathcoat Amory -
Pages:
8 -
Greencoat UK Wind (UKW) has seen continued acquisitions and capital raises throughout 2020, despite the pandemic. The trust remains the largest listed renewable energy infrastructure fund, with gross assets of £3.3bn once the latest acqusition completes. It provides a pure investment exposure to UK wind farms, with the twin aims of delivering a high, RPI-linked income return for shareholders whilst maintaining capital value in real terms. UKW is achieving its managers’ ambitions in becoming ‘utility scale’, which benefits shareholders in a number of ways (see Portfolio section). The overall costs of running the trust have continued to reduce, and scale also allows the managers to negotiate operational cost savings and implement other asset management initiatives. Lastly, the trust has the scale to purchase institutionally sized assets. This is increasingly important in what is now a popular market and asset class, and bodes well for the future. At the current price, the dividend yield is 5.3%. As we discuss in the Dividend section, one of the distinguishing features of UKW relative to peers is that it aims to link the dividend with inflation, as measured by RPI. UKW is on track to pay the 2020 target dividend of 7.1p, representing compounded growth of 18.3% in total since listing and ahead of inflation. UKW has historically traded at a significant premium to the peer group average. This was the case until relatively recently, with the share price not having recovered its poise yet, following the £400m equity issuance completed at the end of September. UKW now trades on a premium to NAV of 10.3%, relative to the weighted average for the peer group of 13.1%.