Drax Group plc (DRX) Q1 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our first half 2024 results call. I'm starting on page three. I'll start with our purpose, which is to enable a zero carbon, lower cost energy future. And I always like to do that because it guides fundamentally everything that we do. And we have a business model that aligns shareholder returns with positive outcomes for nature, the climate and people. And critically, our people are at the heart of Drax. We want everyone to feel a valued member on a winning team with a worthwhile mission. Turning to page four. We had a strong first half of the year. And again, as I always like to do, I'll start with safety, which is again at the heart of everything that we do. We pay a lot of attention to safety all the time. It's not really about the statistics, it's about the culture that we are trying to build. But the statistics do tell a story. And compared to last year, we've had significantly fewer incidents. And our TRIR has reduced from 0.47 last year to 0.24 this year. But as we all know, keeping people safe is something we need to do every day, and it's a never-ending battle. Financially, we've seen a 24% increase in our adjusted EBITDA, a 43% increase in earnings per share. So strong financial performance. We continue to deliver returns for our shareholders and we're expecting a 12.6% increase in dividends per share. And we're announcing today a 300 million pound two-year share buyback program, which we expect to start in the third quarter of this year. To enable that during the first half of the year, we significantly strengthened our balance sheet. We've raised greater than 680 million pounds in new facilities that mature in 2027 and beyond, at attractive rates that reflect the market's increasing competence in our long-t...