NEL posts $237M half-year profit

The Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed (Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed) has re­port­ed a net prof­it of TT$237 mil­lion for the six months end­ed 31 March 2026, sup­port­ed by strong un­re­alised fair val­ue gains across its strate­gic in­vest­ment port­fo­lio, and has reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to a 90 per cent div­i­dend pay­out pol­i­cy.

The re­sults were pre­sent­ed at the com­pa­ny’s quar­ter­ly In­vestors Meet­ing held at The BRIX in Port of Spain, where in­sti­tu­tion­al in­vestors, bro­kers, as­set man­agers and se­nior gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives were briefed on per­for­mance and port­fo­lio strat­e­gy.

The half-year prof­it was bol­stered by ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$186 mil­lion in un­re­alised fair val­ue ap­pre­ci­a­tion, large­ly dri­ven by pre­vail­ing con­di­tions in the en­er­gy sec­tor and con­tin­ued pos­i­tive per­for­mance from the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT).

Speak­ing to stake­hold­ers, NEL Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Charles May­nard said the group had main­tained re­silience through pe­ri­ods of en­er­gy-mar­ket volatil­i­ty, and re­it­er­at­ed the com­pa­ny’s dis­ci­plined ap­proach to bal­anc­ing div­i­dend re­turns with rein­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“We are com­mit­ted to pay­ing out 90 per­cent of our net div­i­dends re­ceived, as per stat­ed com­pa­ny pol­i­cy,” May­nard said, adding that any wind­fall gains are man­aged to “bal­ance how we re­alise val­ue through div­i­dend pay­ments to our share­hold­ers, while look­ing at op­por­tu­ni­ties for new in­vest­ment.”

NEL al­so con­firmed an ex­pand­ed stake in the uni­fied At­lantic LNG struc­ture, along­side the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NGC). The com­pa­ny now holds a 5.7 per cent in­ter­est in At­lantic LNG, with that share­hold­ing ex­pect­ed to rise to about 10 per cent as ad­di­tion­al trains are in­te­grat­ed in­to the uni­fied struc­ture.

Man­ag­er of In­vest­ment and Ac­count­ing Veni­ta Ram­lal said the port­fo­lio was de­signed to de­liv­er long-term val­ue while main­tain­ing suf­fi­cient liq­uid­i­ty to sup­port div­i­dends and strate­gic ac­qui­si­tions.

“While we talk the game of di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, we en­sure that what­ev­er we di­ver­si­fy in­to is an in­vest­ment that can quick­ly turn a re­turn to our stake­hold­ers,” she said.

Cor­po­rate Sec­re­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive Sab­ri­na Ram­gat­tie high­light­ed gov­er­nance as a key pil­lar of NEL’s in­vest­ment ap­proach, not­ing the ben­e­fit of cross-rep­re­sen­ta­tion on boards of in­vestee com­pa­nies.

“Be­cause of NEL’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion on these in­vestee com­pa­nies, man­age­ment and the board are able to make ef­fec­tive and time­ly de­ci­sions,” she said.

NEL’s port­fo­lio in­cludes full own­er­ship of NEL Pow­er Hold­ings Lim­it­ed, which holds a 10 per cent stake in Pow­er­gen, as well as a 51 per cent stake in TSTT, 51 per cent in Na­tion­al Flour Mills, 51 per cent in Trin­gen, and an in­di­rect in­ter­est in Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Lim­it­ed via its stake in NGC NGL Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed. It al­so holds a 33.3 per cent in­ter­est in Pan West En­gi­neers and Con­struc­tors LLC.

The com­pa­ny said its 5.7 per cent stake in At­lantic LNG is held through its 37.84 per cent in­ter­est in NGC T&T LNG Lim­it­ed.

NEL’s share price has risen from TT$3.70 in 2023 to a peak of TT$5.48 in May 2026, rep­re­sent­ing close to a 100 per cent in­crease over the pe­ri­od. Mar­ket cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion now stands above TT$3 bil­lion, with a share­hold­er base of more than 5,600 in­vestors.

May­nard said the com­pa­ny’s strat­e­gy re­mains fo­cused on long-term val­ue cre­ation rather than short-term move­ments.

“We’re not do­ing this for next week. We’re do­ing this so that we can have a sus­tained plat­form of val­ue over time, gen­er­at­ing re­turns to our in­vestors, both in­sti­tu­tion­al and in­di­vid­ual,” he said.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions on bal­anc­ing cap­i­tal ap­pre­ci­a­tion with div­i­dend dis­tri­b­u­tion, May­nard out­lined a three-stage port­fo­lio ap­proach cen­tred on build­ing, bal­anc­ing and pre­serv­ing val­ue.

“We are now look­ing for that stage to build and to bal­ance,” he said. “Build con­sis­tent with what the mar­ket is of­fer­ing, build con­sis­tent with what we can add val­ue to, build con­sis­tent with the preser­va­tion of cap­i­tal for our share­hold­ers… pre­serve, hold, and grow.”

He added that sus­tained per­for­mance across un­der­ly­ing as­sets would re­main cen­tral to long-term share­hold­er val­ue cre­ation, not­ing that dis­ci­plined ex­e­cu­tion would de­ter­mine the tra­jec­to­ry of fu­ture re­turns.