NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya Electricity Generating Co Ltd (KenGen) said on Friday its pretax profit for the year to the end of June rose 38%, lifting the company’s share price.
KenGen said its pretax profit rose to 8.53 billion shillings ($57 million) from 6.19 billion shillings a year earlier, helped by a 14% increase in revenues to 53.96 billion shillings.
At 1039 GMT, KenGen’s shares were up 7.5% on the Nairobi Securities Exchange to trade at 2.30 shillings.
The company, which is 70% owned by the Kenyan government, has an installed generation capacity of 1,904 megawatts (MW) and supplies 66% of the East African country’s power.
KenGen said in a statement it aims to increase its installed capacity by 58 MW over the next two years by boosting generation in three of its existing geothermal power plants.
KenGen said its earnings per share rose to 0.76 shillings from 0.51 shillings and recommended a dividend payment of 0.30 shillings a share, from 0.20 shillings in the previous financial year.
($1 = 150.3500 Kenyan shillings)
(Reporting by George Obulutsa; Editing by Alexander Winning and Alexander Smith)