Taqa to raise investment portfolio

The Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa), a semi-sovereign wealth fund controlled by the government, is pushing ahead with ambitious plans to lift its investment portfolio by nearly $39 billion (Dh143.24bn) within four years, its chief executive has said.

Peter Barker-Homek said the company is in control of a massive portfolio worth nearly $21bn and the next investment strategy would focus on the Middle East, India, Pakistan, North Africa, Europe and North America.

In an interview with Oxford Business Group (OBG), a key British research firm with offices in many countries, Homek said the five-year-old Taqa gives priority to transparency, adding this supported its push into western markets.

"We are currently valued at approximately $21bn and by 2012 we would like to be worth $60bn," he said adding the first half of 2008 concentrated on demonstrating the performance of acquisitions which Taqa made, mainly in 2007.

"We have created enough of an asset base in order to create a platform from which we can grow organically in the future," he said.

"We are continuing to work on other organic options, such as growing our power portfolio in India… we are also looking at growing our business in Saudi Arabia as well as an upstream and power expansion plan in Morocco... we are announcing one or two large transactions in the second half of this year that will take us into the next year."

Taqa, which is 75 per cent owned by the Abu Dhabi Government, is scheduled to announce its financial results for the third quarter next week and company officials expect a surge in the earnings following a wave of major acquisitions. In earlier remarks, Homek said the company would make record profits through 2008.

Taqa has already announced first half results, which showed its net profits jumped by 249 per cent to Dh869 million from around Dh249m for the same period in 2007.

According to a statement, the rise was due to higher oil and gas prices and acquisitions made since the first quarter of 2007.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) shot up by 152 per cent to Dh5.2bn from Dh2.1bn while total revenue nearly quadrupled to Dh8.6bn from Dh2.8bn in the same period.

Revenue from oil and gas activities hit an all time high of Dh4.2bn, compared with only Dh153m for the same period in 2007.

The report showed Taqa's total production for the second quarter averaged 119,200 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The downstream business generated revenue of Dh2.1bn in the second quarter.

Taqa's main operations this year included the acquisition of six North Sea oilfields owned by Shell UK Ltd and Esso Exploration and Production UK.

The deal added 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent to its existing energy reserves.

It followed a company announcement that it had acquired 50 per cent of Compagnie Eolienne du Détroit (CED), which is controlled by the Paris-based Theolia, a leading European renewable energy company.