By Pietro Lombardi
MADRID (Reuters) -The chief of Europe's largest utility Iberdrola (OTC:IBDRY) gave a bullish outlook for the coming years on Wednesday, pledging to build on a strategy to focus investment on expanding and upgrading grids in Britain, the United States and elsewhere.
While pouring billions into power grids and taking a more selective approach to renewables, with a preference for offshore wind projects, the Spanish group has made billions of euros in profit and its market capitalisation has reached record levels.
And more is in store in 2025 and beyond, Executive Chairman Ignacio Sanchez Galan told analysts after the company posted a 50% increase in profit so far this year.
"We are a year ahead of our estimates," he said, with the 5.5 billion euros ($5.93 billion) in profit, excluding the sale of some assets in Mexico, expected for this year already above the target for 2025 it had set in March.
The 2024 guidance "is slightly above our forecasts", Barclays said in a research note, adding that capital gains make a comparison with consensus difficult.
"We believe Iberdrola's current share price factors in 11 years' worth of renewable pipeline value, above the average for the renewable developers under our coverage (seven years)," it said.
Shares in Iberdrola were up 1% at 1216 GMT versus a roughly flat blue-chip IBEX 35 index.
Next year, numbers will be "substantially higher than those we are announcing for 2024", Galan said.
Iberdrola will update its strategy in autumn 2025.
"We expect to follow our trend of the last two decades, with more investment, higher results, and higher dividends, always preserving our strong financial position," he said.
Record investments in the past 12 months allowed the Spanish company to add lucrative regulated assets to its network operations, as well as new renewable capacity.
The group, which raised its outlook for the year in the previous two quarters, cited operations in Britain and the U.S. as the main drivers of its performance this year.
Iberdrola sees further opportunity for expansion in its core renewables and grid operations and beyond, eyeing businesses such as data centres to drive further growth.
Talk with partners interested in a data centre joint venture, in which Iberdrola will have a minority stake, are at an advanced stage, Galan said.
As for shareholders, an interim dividend of 0.23 euros per share allows remuneration to grow in line with profit.
Galan ruled for the moment out further acquisitions like its $5.4 billion deal for British power network Electricity North West (ENWL) and played down political risks in its Spanish home market and in the U.S., a country where most of its operations are regulated at state level.
Net profit for the first nine months rose to 5.47 billion euros from 3.64 billion, slightly above analysts' expectations.
($1 = 0.9271 euros)