Investing.com -- Here is a summary of regulatory news releases from the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday, 19th November. Please refresh for updates
Drax (LON:DRX), the company transforming England's biggest coal-fired power plant into a biomass operation, upheld its profit guidance for the full year ahead of a capital markets day.
The company confirmed EBITDA expectations for the full year. The latest analyst consensus is around 409 million pounds. Around one quarter of that will come from assets it bought last year from Spain's Iberdrola (MC:IBE). It noted a particularly strong performance from the acquired pumped storage business.
However, it noted that coal operating conditions remain "challenging". U.K. coal plants are spending ever-longer periods in mothballs due to the growing share of renewables in the U.K. power mix.
Much of Drax's expected profit is due to payments from the U.K.'s backup capacity market which had been frozen due to a EU antitrust investigation. Drax expects 75 million of payments for that to hit its books in January.
The company said it's also made progress in lightening its debt burden after refinancing the credit facility it used for the Iberdrola (MC:IBE) deal, lengthening the group maturity profile to 2029. The new facility also becomes cheaper if Drax outperforms a benchmark tracking its carbon emissions.
Melrose (LON:MRON), the corporate buyout specialist that acquired engineering group GKN (LON:GKN) last year, said trading had been as expected in the four month through October, with better-than-expected sales growth of 5% at its aerospace division offsetting a temporary slowdown in the automotive unit caused by the lengthy strike at General Motors (NYSE:GM).
The powder metallurgy unit saw sales fall 13% on the year, due to the same strike, but were otherwise in line with expectations.
Automotive profits and margins were still higher than a year ago, the company added.
“The improvements in the businesses are being delivered at pace and the Melrose Board is confident this will unlock significant further shareholder value,” the company said in its statement.
CORRECTION: The initial version of this story incorrectly reported Drax's expectations for full-year group EBITDA.