John Laing Group's NAV and dividend increase

Infrastructure developer John Laing Group’s 2016 net asset value and final dividend increased, while its overseas projects benefitted from weak sterling.

The Net Asset Value (NAV) for 2016 grew 14.3% to £1.01bn, compared to the previous year, or 277p per share from 242p.

Pre-tax profit surged 80% to £192.1m and the company realised £146.6m from the sale of investments

Earnings per share rose to 51.9p from 27.6p

Last year, there was a 30% increase in external assets under management to £1.47bn and the cash yield from the investment portfolio slipped to £34.8m from £38.9m.

The FTSE 250 company made investment commitments of £182m, in line with its guidance, while realisations of investments for dividend purposes were £127m, ahead of expectations for 2016 by about £100m.

John Laing proposed a final dividend of 6.3p per share made up of a base dividend of 3.7p and a special dividend of 2.6p, giving a total dividend of 8.15p, up from 6.9p in 2015.

Chairman Phil Nolan said that during 2016 the company was affected by macro-economic factors, in particular, the Brexit vote last June which triggerred a prolonged weakening of sterling versus the major currencies it invests in.

He said that while this was positive for the value of its overseas investment portfolio in sterling terms, it preferred to have a more stable foreign exchange environment.

Nolan added: “At a governmental level, there are signs that a number of countries are moving towards fiscal rather than monetary policy in order to stimulate economic growth. We would agree that increased infrastructure expenditure is a good way to provide such fiscal stimulus and in some of the jurisdictions we operate in, notably Australia and Canada, we see it already happening. Other countries - including the UK and the US - look as if they could follow suit.”