ISA Full-Year 2021 Profits Dip 19% Year-on-Year
Medellin-based multinational electric-power transmission builder/operator, highways concessionaire and telecom services provider ISA announced February 23 that its full-year 2021 net income fell 19% year-on-year, to COP$2.06 trillion (US$524 million).
Despite that dip, operating income rose 13% year-on-year, to COP$7.97 trillion (US$20.3 billion), while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) likewise rose 8.4%, to COP$6.57 trillion (US$1.67 billion), according to the company.
Fourth quarter (4Q) profits meanwhile fell 9.9% year-on-year, to COP$450 billion (US$114.5 million), but 4Q 2021 EBITDA rose 18.6%, to COP$1.8 trillion (US$458 million), according to the company.
ISA mainly blamed the profits dip on “higher financial expenses and lower results of jointly-controlled companies,” according to the company.
While short-term 2021 profits dipped, ISA nevertheless achieved several major milestones during the past year, starting with the August 2021 completion of an historic deal whereby Colombia’s mostly state-owned Ecopetrol oil company bought 51% of ISA’s shares.
“As a result, 2022 shall be a year of enormous and interesting challenges for the consolidation of the largest energy group in Latin America,” according to ISA, already the largest energy transmission company in Latin America.
ISA’s high-voltage power-transmission network covers Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and Chile, as well as the international lines between Colombia-Ecuador and Ecuador-Peru.
Another notable 2021 event: During 4Q, “ISA successfully concluded its first bond issuance in the international capital markets for US$330 million. The issuance has a total term of 12 years, an interest rate of 3.825%, and was oversubscribed by 4.3 times the amount offered,” the company noted.
On yet another front, ISA’s Chile subsidiary last year joined with Transelec and China Southern Power Grid International (CSG) in a winning bid for the construction and operation of the Kimal-Lo Aguirre transmission project in Chile, “one of the most important high-voltage energy transmission projects on the continent, for an annual remuneration value of US$116.3 million in 2021 values,” according to the company.
Also during 2021, in Colombia ISA commissioned the “Ruta Costera”Cartagena-Barranquilla and Circunvalar de la Prosperidad” highway project, covering 146 kilometers between the departments of Bolívar and Atlántico.
Meanwhile in Brazil, ISA is investing US$26 million in “the first large-scale battery energy storage project in Brazil’s transmission system to be installed at the Registro substation (São Paulo state) to supply the southern coast of São Paulo,” now due for completion by November 2022, the company added.