Italgas posts higher FY profits, dividend as investments at record high

MILAN (Reuters) – Italy’s biggest gas distributor Italgas reported a 4.1% increase in core profits in 2021 when it ramped up investments to record levels.

Investments, mainly in digitalisation of the company’s network to enable it to carry renewable gases like biomethane and hydrogen, reached a record 865 million euros ($957 million), growing by 11.5%.

Italgas, which runs around 74,000 kilometres of regulated gas pipelines, said it had no commercial and financial relations with Russia and Ukraine and no production activities and employees located in the area.

The company posted adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of over 1 billion euros ($1.11 billion) last year while group adjusted net profit rose 6% to 367.7 million euros.

The company said it would propose the distribution of a 0.295 euros dividend per share, 6.5% higher compared to that of the previous year.

($1 = 0.9042 euros)

(Reporting by Maria Pia Quaglia; editing by Agnieszka Flak)