NTR, the developer and operator of public infrastructure, said yesterday it would consider a public flotation within the next 18 to 24 months but it had not ruled out other methods of developing the company into the future.
"The most probable scenario is a listing, but it is not the only scenario," said Mr Jim Barry, NTR's chief executive, after the company's annual general meeting.
"There are other things we could do. We could sell the company as a whole to a third party. There are much bigger companies out there with the same kind of profile of business and assets that might see this as a fit. We could realise value at the subsidiary level. For example, we could list Airtricity separately or sell the waste business."
Of the three scenarios, selling the company as a whole was the least likely option, said Mr Barry.
In terms of a flotation, Mr Barry said the firm had not been deterred by the lack of appetite for small and mid-cap companies and that the company had a number of options. "I wouldn't pre-judge which market at this stage," he said.
NTR had not been affected by the slow pace of the National Development Plan (NDP), he said.
"We're much more excited by opportunities where we can take proprietary risk, for example, looking for the development of a landfill without having to wait for a Government contract," said Mr Barry.
"The NDP is more about Government money being spent. When Government money isn't being spent, private sector money is required. In that sense, there is probably a bigger opportunity for the private sector with a slowdown in the NDP portfolio than its existing east-link and west-link toll schemes in Dublin, he said. "New roads are not the most important thing to us. There will be no more roads like the east-link and the west-link. They were done in a far less sophisticated time. The new toll roads will be much smaller," he said.
"A new landfill is much more important to us than a new toll road. We will invest three times as much in a new landfill as we'll invest in one of these new toll roads and the returns will be much greater than in new toll roads."
NTR has been short-listed on three of four National Roads Authority projects - Kilcock Kinegad, the Waterfod by-pass and the Dundalk western by-pass.
Company chairman Mr Richard Hooper said NTR's trading performance so far in 2002 had been very satisfactory.
However, Mr Barry said the recent election had held up progress on some decision-making aroudn NTR's Airtricity subsidiary's planned windfarm on the Arklow Bank, particularly in relation to connection to the national grid. "An election creates a hiatus in decision-making," he said.
