Last close As at 05/08/2026
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Market capitalisation
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Research: Investment Companies
Foresight Solar Fund (FSFL) achieved record cash generation of £87.8m from its underlying assets to 30 September 2023, driven by favourable fixed prices, despite production being below budget. As a result, FSFL paid down £10m of its revolving credit facility (RCF) during the period. After the Q3 period, FSFL sold 50% of its 99MW Lorca portfolio in Spain for €26.9m, at a 21% premium to its Q3 holding value. The proceeds from this transaction will be used to further reduce the RCF. Global revenues are 85% contracted for 2024, ensuring forecast net dividend cover of 1.5x until at least 2025. FSFL remains on target to pay its full year dividend.
Foresight Solar Fund |
Q3 NAV and first sale of divestment programme |
Investment companies Renewable energy infrastructure |
17 November 2023 |
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Foresight Solar Fund (FSFL) achieved record cash generation of £87.8m from its underlying assets to 30 September 2023, driven by favourable fixed prices, despite production being below budget. As a result, FSFL paid down £10m of its revolving credit facility (RCF) during the period. After the Q3 period, FSFL sold 50% of its 99MW Lorca portfolio in Spain for €26.9m, at a 21% premium to its Q3 holding value. The proceeds from this transaction will be used to further reduce the RCF. Global revenues are 85% contracted for 2024, ensuring forecast net dividend cover of 1.5x until at least 2025. FSFL remains on target to pay its full year dividend.
£m |
Q322 |
Q422 |
Q123 |
Q223 |
Q323 |
NAV |
771.2 |
771.5 |
757.5 |
726.6 |
706.9 |
NAV per share (p) |
126.4 |
126.5 |
124.2 |
119.9 |
118.1 |
GAV |
1,299.7 |
1,296.3 |
1,268.2 |
1,237.2 |
1,196.0 |
Source: FSFL data, Edison Investment Research. Note: Year end is 31 December 2023.
With yields on UK government bonds continuing to edge higher in the period, FSFL raised its discount rates for its UK levered solar assets by 50bp to 8%, as well as increasing the discount rates for its Australian and Spanish assets both 25bp to 8.3% and 7.6%, respectively. Despite FSFL raising its discount rates resulting in a negative 3.5p move in the NAV, the company’s NAV per share, compared to Q223, remained relatively flat. The majority of the offset (+1.9p) came from prices for Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin, which have consistently traded above FSFL’s estimates and have remained conservative. With materially higher prices for its portfolio’s green certificates in the coming years, FSFL has revised its pricing forecast to £5/MWh until 2028 and £2/MWh for the remaining life of the assets.
FSFL continued to repurchase shares through its £20m buyback programme, acquiring 7.5m more shares to 30 September 2023, delivering an additional 0.3p uplift to the company NAV per share in the period, and a cumulative 0.4p uplift since the beginning of the programme. FSFL continues to recognise the disconnect between the company’s underlying portfolio and its current share price and has elected to allocate an additional £20m to the ongoing share buyback programme, bringing the total to a potential £40m, with the aim of adding further NAV accretion.
FSFL delivered on the first stages of its divestment programme, selling a 50% stake of its Lorca portfolio. The stake was sold to a specialist fund advised by EB-SIM, the sustainable investment arm of Evangelische Bank, for the sum of €26.9m for a 50% share of the three Spanish solar farms. The value of the sale was at a 21% premium to the assets’ third quarter holding value and represented an exit internal rate of return of 12.1% on funds invested to date on the stake sold. This sale further demonstrates that, despite the fact FSFL is trading at a significant discount to NAV (20.2%), renewable energy assets like these remain in high demand in the market. This, therefore, provides validation, based on market prices, for the company’s valuation at year-end. The sale will also give the investment manager confidence to continue advancing discussions for the next phases of the c 200MW divestment programme that will continue into 2024.
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Research: Investment Companies
Underpinned by attractively low valuations, the investment managers for Henderson Opportunities Trust (HOT) believe that smaller companies will rally strongly on a turn in market sentiment. Although the timing and catalyst for this is no easier to pinpoint than when we wrote our detailed note in July, in their view, the most likely trigger will be a return to confidence in the UK economy. In this respect, growing indications that the interest rate cycle has peaked, and a more robust domestic economy than implied by smaller company valuations, are positive indicators.