John Laing to pay dividend; New CEO appointed

Infrastructure investor John Laing said it would pay a dividend based on a strong balance sheet and liquidity position, despite the coronavirus lockdown.

The company on Thursday said it had £340m at the start of April to deploy into investment opportunities, meaning it would go ahead with its 7.66p a share final dividend.

“For the first half of 2020, we expect only modest value creation from project delivery, value enhancements and value uplift on financial closes primarily due to the effect of Covid-19, although overall first-half net asset value growth will benefit from a ...pension gain due to higher corporate bond yields,” John Laing said

“In terms of factors outside of our control, to date we have experienced a modest foreign exchange gain, while the long-term off-take agreements in place for our wind and solar assets have insulated us from short-term power price volatility.”

The company said only two of its 16 project sites had been shut down completely, and those were already preparing to reopen.

In a separate announcement, Ben Loomes was confirmed as new chief executive, joining from InfraRed Capital Partners where he was head of infrastructure.