Income Investments

DTE Energy Company (DTE:  NYSE) recently priced a ‘green bond’ issuance of $525 million to support renewable energy and energy efficiency.  The thirty-year bonds provide a coupon payment at 4.05%.  DTE is planning to buy solar arrays and wind turbines with its newly flush cash kitty.  The capital raise is of significance less for its size and purpose and more for the fact that a U.S. electric utility company is tapping this unusual financing vehicle. True enough, green bonds are nothing new.  Created to fund projects with environmental or climatic benefits, the first green bonds were issued in May 2007 by the European Investment Bank (EIB).  The...

by Tom Konrad Ph.D., CFA Why Green Buildings are Profitable Buildings Buildings are responsible for approximately a third of greenhouse gas emissions, so making buildings more efficient and switching them to renewable sources of energy is an essential part in addressing climate change. Fortunately, new technologies such as cold climate heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, induction stoves, as well as the ever falling cost of renewable electricity and improvements to insulation and building envelopes often provide opportunities to improve buildings while achieving extremely attractive investment returns from the energy and maintenance savings alone. Because of the great financial returns, building owners who...

By Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA This is a roundup of first quarter earnings notes shared with my Patreon supporters over the last week. If there is any theme, it’s that low interest rates and increased interest in green investments is lowering Yieldcos’ cost of capital to the benefit of stock investors. Avangrid Earnings Avangrid's (AGR) Q1 earnings report showed solid progress.  Key items of note were: Increased outlook for full year 2021 Adjusted EPS a little over 5%  Key environmental approval for 800 MW offshore wind farm Vineyard Wind. Expected to begin construction later this year, with expected completion in 2024.  Avangrid...

Tom Konrad, Ph.D., CFA A reader asked: Read your recent article on Pattern Energy (PEGI). Great summary and thoughts. Would like to ask your view on TERP potential takeover by BEP (via shares swap) and whether you reckon the recent run-up on TERP is too excessive? It's a good question, and one that Robbert Manders on Seeking Alpha did a thorough analysis of here.  For the details of the merger, I refer you to his work. While his analysis is careful and complete, I disagree with his conclusion.  TERP shares are not trading at a significant premium to the merger value.  The reason is...

Highlights from the latest Q4 2017 Green Bond Report from the Climate Bonds Initiative: Two years of data observations examining green bond behavior in primary markets Climate Bonds Initiative has released the fourth “Green Bond Pricing in the Primary Market” report analysing the performance of green bonds issued in the period October-December 2017. This is the last quarterly report; future publications will be produced semi-annually allowing a more longtitudinal analysis as the market expands. The Q4 2017 report covers USD15.1bn or almost 40% of the face value of labelled green bonds issued in Q4. 15 EUR and 8 USD labelled green bonds are...

By Tom Konrad, Ph.D. CFA Here are a couple earnings notes I shared last week with my Patreon followers. Eneti, Inc. (NETI) - formerly Scorpio Bulkers (SALT) Eneti completed its name and ticker change on February 8th. New ticker is NETI (formerly Scorpio Bulkers (SALT), which I recently wrote about here. Highlights from February 2nd earnings report: 37 of the 47 vessels owned at the 3rd quarter have been sold or have completed sale agreements. Net asset value is $23.94/share. Since most assets are cash or vessels held for sale, this number is basically accurate. The stock is still a good buy...