GREENCOAT UK WIND plc - SHARES hit record highs

9th July 2019

GREENCOAT UK WIND plc SHARES hit record 'highs': as a long-serving director retires at 73 and makes his memoirs available 'on line' for free.

Shares in the little-known company ... outside of Dunnet & Canisbay ... that runs the 13-turbine Stroupster Wind Farm, near Auckengill, have recently risen to a new high on the London Stock Exchange.

The Stroupstr wind Farm contributes £149,500 per annum (index linked) for the operational lifetime of the wind farm to the community. For grants see www.foundationscotland.org.uk/programmes/stroupster/

The Stroupster Panel is seeking up to four new Panel members. If you live in the Dunnet & Canisbay Community Council are over 16 please consider joining the Panel here: shorturl.at/noyO7

Early this week, shares were just below that all-time high, whilst retiring director Daniel Badger ... who officially gives up his post at the end of this month (07.19) ... has made his memoirs in e-book form available on the internet at no cost to would-be readers.

The London-based public company Greencoat Wind UK plc, is now one of the UK's 'top 250' listed firms on the main London Stock Exchange. It has become Britain's third-largest in its field, generating enough electricity from its 34 operating onshore wind-farms to power a city the size of Birmingham ... with a smaller one such as Inverness thrown in.

The company that was first listed on the London SE in 2013, is now ranked third amongst British renewables generators, behind only Glasgow-based Scottish Power and Scottish & Southern Energy, with its h.q. in Perth.

Greencoat UK Wind's chairman Mr Tim Ingram says that he 'loves' the North of Scotland not only for its natural beauty but also for its high-average wind-speeds that are good for his company's performance.

He expects to be making more visits to the Highlands as Greencoat UK Wind has and is investing heavily in wind-farms around the Highland Capital of Inverness; Stonelairg, close to the Fort Augustus end of Loch Ness and at nearby Dumnaglass.

Greencoat UK Wind has just announced that it will pay £126 million for a 75% stake in the Torn na Clach windfarm ... also within easy reach of Inverness ... when construction is completed there in the summer of 2020.

The firm benefited from the now-closed Government scheme ROCs ... Renewabe Obligation Certificates ... that subsidises renewables generation by means of consumers all over Britain having to pay 'a bit extra' on their electric bills.

This was replaced by the present 'Contracts for Difference' scheme that iGreencoat is also benefiting from at Stonelairg. .. but now it intends to press ahead with subsidy-free onshore wind., something that it considers can still be competitive. The current round of CfD applications exclude onshore wind-farms unless these are on the Scottish islands. Awards are expected to be announced later this month( 07.2019)

Whilst institutions, such as pension funds, have been major Greencoat UK Wind investors, Mr Ingram reckons that its steady growth makes it also attractive to retail investors ... the man or woman in the street ... as the dividends that it can pay out have increased annually since 2013 'with a 'prospective dividend yield of 5%' for 2019.

A spokesman for Greencoat UK Wind stated recently that it has received 'a financial facility' to issue up to £500 million (£500,000,000) of new shares that it will use to fund new acquisitions.

Its 34 British wind-farms have a combined generating capacity of of 950 MW; it values those at a whopping £2.3 BILLION.

The firm has a 'community benefit fund' from its Stroupster earnings that primarily helps Dunnet & Canisbay bodies run by volunteers.

There is a smaller share for the rest of Caithness, but the Greencoat Stroupster fund is operated on its behalf by independent Scottish charity Foundation Scotland, whose local representative is Ms Eilidh Coll, from Brough, near Dunnet.

Bill Mowat

A community profile of the Dunnet and Canisbay area was commissioned in 2015. See https://www.foundationscotland.org.uk/media/472133/Dunnet-Canisbay-Development-Plan-Final.pdf

PHOTO

Stroupster wind Farm - Gow Groundworks - www.gowgroundworks.co.uk/