SSE Sse Plc

By Neanda Salvaterra

LONDON--Utility company SSE PLC (SSE.LN) on Wednesday reported a 2.1% increase in adjusted pretax profit for fiscal year 2017. The firm plans to invest about 6 billion pounds ($7.74 billion) by 2020 into renewable energy projects and maintaining and upgrading its electricity network.

In March 2017, the U.K.-based company finalized the sale of its equity holdings in the PFI street lighting and replacement program. The sale, previously announced in March 2014, fetched over GBP1.1 billion said SSE, which is engaged in the generation, transmission, distribution and supply of electricity.

For the year ended March 31, the company made a pretax profit of GBP1.7 billion compared with GBP593.3 million for the previous year, on revenue of GBP29.03 billion and GBP28.7 billion respectively. The jump in pretax profit was due to a reduction in non-recurring exceptional items as the firm completed technology development projects last year which freed capital.

"SSE will continue to focus on securing maximum value from our portfolio of wholesale assets, achieving further efficiencies and customer service improvements in our networks businesses," said Chief Executive Alistair Phillips-Davies.

SSE booked non-recurring exceptional items of GBP8.2 million for the period ended March 31, compared with GBP889.8 million a year earlier.

Stripping out exceptional items such as interest costs on net pension liabilities and the removal of taxation on profit from joint ventures and associates, underlying pretax profit rose by 2.1% to GBP1.54 billion.

The board recommended a final dividend of 63.9 pence a share, making a total payout for the year of 91.3 pence a share, up from 89.4 pence a share.

Write to Neanda Salvaterra at neanda.salvaterra@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 17, 2017 03:27 ET (07:27 GMT)

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