The leading listed UK wind farm investor reported robust cash generation but saw its share price and NAV fall over a difficult year for the sector
Greencoat UK Wind PLC (LSE:UKW, FRA:3GC), the largest listed renewable infrastructure fund in the UK, said it expected to generate around £1 billion of excess cashflow over the next five years, giving it significant flexibility to rebuild shareholder value through disposals, buybacks and selective reinvestment.
Lucinda Riches, chairman of the FTSE 250 company, said the board had clear capital allocation priorities for 2026, including further asset sales, reducing debt, continuing share buybacks and a disciplined return to reinvestment.
The forward-looking commitments came alongside annual results that reflected another difficult year for listed renewable infrastructure funds.
Net asset value per share fell from 151.2 pence to 133.5 pence over 2025, while the share price dropped from 127.7 pence to 98.1 pence, producing a total shareholder return of negative 15.7%.
Market capitalisation declined from £2.9 billion to £2.1 billion over the twelve months.
The company nonetheless highlighted robust operational performance, with net cash generation of £291 million and its wind farms producing 5,403 gigawatt-hours of renewable electricity, enough to power around 2 million homes.
Greencoat delivered a twelfth consecutive year of dividend increases at or above inflation, raising the payout to 10.35 pence per share from 10 pence, and said it would target annual increases in line with CPI (the consumer prices index) going forward.
The company sold £181 million of assets during the year, all at prevailing NAV, taking total disposal proceeds to £222 million over the previous 14 months.
It spent £109 million on share buybacks at an average discount to NAV of 23%, bringing total repurchases to £199 million since October 2023.
Debt principal was reduced by £168 million during the year, while asset optimisation initiatives added £5 million to NAV, taking the cumulative benefit of such work to £148 million since 2016.
Riches said the board and investment manager remained fully aligned with shareholders and committed to making the right decisions to deliver long-term value.