Profits climbed by 9 per cent to €16.8 million at NTR last year as the infrastructure operator began to draw fruit from a period of diversification and intensive capital investment.
The growth came as revenues climbed by 47 per cent to €211 million, boosted by strategic expansion across NTR's five business units. NTR chief executive Mr Jim Barry said the company was happy with its current structure but pointed out that it remains "in transition".
The group's waste management division logged the most substantial improvement last year, with revenues up 39 per cent to €82 million on the back of a 25 per cent increase in business volume at Greenstar, its 88.5 per cent owned waste subsidiary.
Pre-tax profits within the waste management arm as a whole rose from €11.3 million to €13.2 million last year. The result, which takes in NTR's water interests, was tempered by a €1.5 million loss within NTR's 51 per cent owned UK waste company, Materials Recovery Limited (MRL).
Greenstar has been awarded licences by the Environmental Protection Agency to build landfill sites in Meath and Wicklow.
Airtricity, NTR's renewable energy venture, moved into the black for the first time, with a pre-tax profit of €1.5 million. This compared with a pre-tax loss of €3.1 million in 2002 and came as revenues jumped by 80 per cent to €92 million.
Pre-tax profits in the roads division dropped slightly from €11.3 million in 2002 to €11 million last year, with the decline blamed in part on investment linked with the upgraded West-Link toll bridge in Dublin, which opened in September.
The company took in €48.4 million in toll revenue from the West-Link and East-Link bridges in Dublin last year, up 8.5 per cent on 2002. NTR in turn paid close to €24 million to the Government in concession fees and VAT.
A consortium including NTR is the preferred bidder to build, operate and maintain the forthcoming €160 million Dundalk bypass for 30 years. The group is also down to the final two on the Waterford bypass and is on the shortlist for another road project.
NTR saw losses of about €3.5 million on its start-up ventures - MRL and wireless broadband service Irish Broadband - last year, with about €2.5 million of this attributable to Irish Broadband. Group operating profit grew by 34 per cent to €24.9 million when start-up costs were excluded.
Debt within the NTR group increased from €124 million to €170 million to reflect a total investment of €100 million over the course of the year.
NTR's shares, which are traded on an unofficial "grey market", have risen from about €7.20 to €12.00 within the past two years. The company will pay a dividend of 32 cents per share, up 10 per cent on 2002.
Mr Barry said the firm, which has long been touted as a possible candidate for an initial public offering, has an "open mind" on listing but is unlikely to consider the matter seriously for another two or three years.
