Power supplier to Portugal and Spain, Energias de Portugal (Euronext Lisbon: EDP) reported first-quarter results that beat analysts' expectations across all divisions and has turned €450m (£266m) of receivables into cash via Portugal's largest public securitisation since the global financial crisis began.
Cost control in Iberian and Brazilian generation and distribution helped pre-tax profit rise by 14.5 per cent on the prior period to €557m. More interestingly, the securitisation deal shows how debt markets are opening for the Portuguese power utility as the size of the transaction, the first of its kind, was increased and the yield still came in at the lower end of expectations, at 1.3 percentage points higher than the yield on two-year Portuguese government bonds, which is 2.5 per cent, down from 10 per cent a year ago.
