Economic flow to shareholders and investors
[GRI - 201-1],
[GRI - 102-6],
For shareholders, at the Shareholders’ Meeting, the Board of Di- rectors proposed the distribution of a dividend of € 0.85 per share, in line with 2021, equivalent to € 180.6 million, which correspond to a payout of 65% on net income, after allocations to third parties.
In 2022, Acea suffered a decrease of 31.1% on the stock exchange, a trend substantially in line with the performance of Italian local util- ities. The closing price at 30 December 2022 (final trading day of the year) was € 12.92, corresponding to a market capitalisation of € 2,752 million.
The maximum value of € 18.84 was reached on 3 January, while the minimum value of € 10.70 was reached on 12 October. During 2022, the daily average volumes traded were above 131,000 shares (compared to 120,000 in 2021).
Table no. 48 – Performance of stock exchange indexes and Acea shares (2022)
| change % 31.12.2022 (compared to 31.12/2021) |
|
|---|---|
| Acea | -31.1% |
| FTSE Italia All Share | -14.1% |
| FTSE Mib | -13.3% |
| FTSE Italia Mid Cap | -21.0% |
| MIB ESG | -14.4% |
ACEA IN THE MIB ESG AND IN THE SE MID ITALIAN INDEX
In 2022, Acea was included in two sustainability indices of reference for companies listed on the Italian stock exchange: MIB ESG and SE Mid Italian Index.
MIB ESG includes 40 companies, selected from the basket of the 60 companies with higher liquidity, on the basis of the best social sustainability, environmental and governance performances assessed by Moody’s ESG Solution as well as exclusion from controversial sectors (e.g. tobacco and arms) or disputes concerning lack of compliance with the principles of the United Nations Global Compact.
SE Mid Italian Index includes 20 medium-sized companies, selected on the basis of capitalisation and free float values, on a benchmark of 30 stocks, and their weighting in the index derives from the score assigned to them by Standard Ethics Rating (SER), requested or not.
€ 111.7 million are allocated to financing stakeholders (€ 97.4 million in 2021). The average overall all-in cost of the Acea Group’s debt on 31/12/2022 was 1.44%.
Regarding the composition of medium/long-term debt consolidated as at 31 December 2022, approximately 82% of the total amount derived from transactions on the capital market (corporate bonds). Regarding the banking sector, the Group mainly deals with entities whose mission is to finance strategic infrastructure, such as the European Investment Bank (EIB, around 10% of the consolidated debt) and the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP, around 3% of the consolidated debt). These Institutions ensure loans, to entities with creditworthiness such as Acea, with a maturity of more than 10 years, in line with the duration of the concessions (water and electricity) owned by Companies of the Group called to make the relevant investments.
THE FIRST SUSTAINABILITY RATING-LINKED LOAN BY ACEA
In August 2022 Acea signed an initial revolving “Sustainability Rating Linked” credit line of € 200 million with a duration of 3 years with Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, connected to two sustainability rating targets. The pricing of the new credit line is linked to the level assigned to Acea by the ratings of Standard Ethics and the Integrated Governance Index of ETicaNews and their related performance. As for the current situation, in case of improvement in the two ratings in a given period in 18 months and until the end of the three years, the applicable spread would shrink; in case of improvement of just one rating and confirmation of the other, the reduction of the spread would be lower; if, however, the opinion worsens, the spread would increase.
During the year, Standard Ethics confirmed the Group’s corporate rating at “EE” (investment grade) and increased Acea’s outlook from “stable” to “positive”, while ETicaNews assigned Acea the Integrated Governance Index (IGI) rating of 60.45 (scale 0-100), following which the company was ranked 16th out of the 86 total candidates, entering the category “ESG Identity Leader”.